[fse-esf] Report from the European local Social Forum network

[mariangela casalucci]

Report from the European local Social Forum network meeting in Frankfurt

Social Forum Ivry, Greek Social forum, Turkish Social Forum, Belgium Social 
Forum, Berlin SF, individuals or groups interested in building or working in 
a local social forum in the place where they live from London, Paris and 
germany , Greek Friends of nature, Aghif – immigrant workers association, 
Revolutionary Proletariat

Friday 3rd November h. 16-18

We had a long time devoted to introduce ourselves but it was also the time 
where everybody made suggestions about what a local social forum is or could 
be in their experience.

In the meeting there were for the first time a lot of migrants and they all 
expressed their concern about the need of local social forum to be spaces 
where migrants are not marginal subjects.

At the end of the meeting and the day after when we met again in the morning 
for half an hour we tried to see if we had some points we agreed on and some 
open questions to bring to the discussion in the EPA meeting.

What we all agree on is

* It is important that  the chart of Porto Alegre is the reference in our 
work as Social Forum

* Local Social Forum  are a crucial point in the process (its not possible 
to discuss, elaborate, decide actions at the European and World level if we 
don’t find the way of building alternatives locally in a global political 
framework) Think globally act locally cannot remain a slogan!

* The organisations, TU and ONGs involved in the Esf process have to take 
responsibilities in order to ensure the spread of local social forum and to 
recognize the  role they have

* It has to be possible and easy for any group, individual who would like to 
become part of this process to access the information about the local social 
forum and the network through the web- site

We still have questions not only for the people involved in the network and 
in LSF but also for the ones not involved in the process

1. What does “local” mean? Some of the forum are at a national level, some 
at a regional or city level, some work in small part of town.

2. How to define in the LSF the subjects of the actions decided? Is the LSF 
only a debate space or not? How is possible to act if the LSF is not a 
“super group” ? Experiences are different: in some cases the SF is the actor 
of the initiative, in others is the network of groups meeting in the space 
of who is taking the actions, in other case it’s only the groups

3. How to deal with the Institutions as its not possible to build 
alternatives without challenging them but there is the risk of being 
absorbed by them ( an interesting experience of the Belgium SF will be 
monitored).

4. How can we overtake the risk to become too local losing the connection 
with the global struggles or too far losing the connection with everyday 
life. There is the necessity of a balance between how local problems and 
successful actions can effect the general work in the ESF and how the 
decisions of the global and European assembly of movements can be 
implemented at a local level

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