Chapter One

Below is a new article on the WSF by Boaventura de Sousa Santos

At the end January 2010, there was an important evaluation of the ten years of the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre (Brazil), including a debate on its future. At the same time, many events took place in seven cities in the metropolitan region, which gathered more than thirty thousand people. The major media did not report on this. They rather inundated their readers with details about the meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) taking place in Davos. This is odd, since the analyses and previsions of the WSF during the last decade turned out to be much more precise than those advanced by the WEF.

Below is a speech that trade union activist and feminst Winnie Ng is giving to the Toronto and York District Labour Council on June 4

During the spring of 1989, thousands of students and workers occupied the Tiananmen Square calling for an end to corruption, freedom of speech and political reform. At the height of the protest, 1 million plus people were demonstrating across the country with such fervent hope for human rights and democracy in China.  At first the Chinese government let the protest be then on June 4, 1989, they launched a bloody military crackdown where as many as 2,000 students and workers were killed.

Today is the 20th Anniversary of the massacre at Tianamen Square.  Imagine how the world might have been different if those students and workers who so bravely faced down soldiers and tanks would have triumphed in their demands for a more democratic society. 

One of the sessions that I participated in during the Congress was a meeting that the Gindin Chair co-sponsored with Faculty4Palestine.   The Gindin Chair has been sponsoring sessions at the Congress ever since its foundation in 2002 trying to bring some activism into Academe.  This is the first time that I've been part of a truly activist event including faculty and student discussing a real struggle that had happened over the past year. It was exhilarating. The importance of the event could be noted by the attack against it in the National Post the day before it happened.

The following is a statement issued by Canadian Academics for Tamil Rights and contains a set of demands on the Canadian Government in face of the current crisis.   Please circulate 

The last few weeks in Toronto have shown us that living in a global city means that a conflict half way around the world in a place like Sri Lanka can appear in our streets in technicolour, forcing us to face issues that seemed remote only days before.  The global city will make another appearance on Monday at 1:30 pm in Queen's Park with a march to free recentyly arrested Aung San Suu Kyi.  Yet another sign of the global city was the extraordinary stewards' meeting held at the Metro Convention Centre on May 7 where more than 1,000 shop stewards and union officials discussed a common response to the economic crisis.  The diversity you can see in the photo is a sign of how our movements are changing with the participation of people from all around the world.

Take a minute right now and email your MP to ask him or her to support the demand that Canada use its influence to pressure the Sri Lankan government to call an immediate ceasefire and stop the slaughter of Tamil civilians. 

Prominent Canadians ask Ignatieff to put human rights before trade with Colombia -

Over 50 prominent individuals and organizations have sent Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff a letter urging him to help stop the ratification of the proposed Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until a full and independent human rights impact assessment can be carried out.