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Malmö ESF Forum : a feminist evaluation. |
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Some History : The feminist organisations are present in the European social forums since the beginning of their history (Florence 2002) In Paris the women assembly showed brilliantly the strength of the feminist movement by gathering more than 3500 women – In Athens then in London, the evaluation was more “mixed”, but globally very positive , since the assembly is one of our ways of presence and expression in the social forums, : we have also our own seminars and we participate to others seminars and assemblies.. Facing the present stakes of the Forums, we are rejecting – as we always did - political alliances made to the prejudice of women which set the fight for women’s rights at a second rank after the fight against racism and against war. We consider that it leads to divide the anti-conservative forces and to weaken the altermondialist movement.
We were present in Malmö to build democratic and thus secular alternatives for another Europe in the context of a growing political intervention of churches and facing severe regressions for women rights as a result of the strong connexion between patriarchy, ultra liberalism , religious fundamentalisms and the subtle or open militarization of the societies.
Then we come to the evaluation of the Malmö Social Forum .We had great expectations with the venue of the forum in Sweden .
We had some subjects of real disappointment.
- Since the forum in Paris we have been asking to have an assembly as a part of the forum. After having totally disappeared in the program, the women’s assembly reappeared on the 17th , before the official opening.
- The theme 4 about “ feminist issues and women’s discriminations” has been widened to “all kind of discriminations” - integrating discriminations related to health problems, to religion, children etc . Once more women have been considered as a category, in the persistent negation of the fact that they are representing half of Humanity.
- Even if the Malmö ESF declared the promotion of the “Women inclusion “ in the whole process, the quota rule, the presence of women in the panels (at least 50%) of all the meetings including facilitating assemblies, the priority given to proposal where the people commit themselves to balance women and men… this rule has not been respected so the Nordic countries did not show the way by promoting , in conformity with their traditions , and for once in the history of the ESF, the feminist issues as a political major issue.
- Finally, some women’s organizations (some of whom had already found partners of cooperation in the beginning of the ESF process) experienced that as a result of the final merging process in July, their names disappeared from the printed programme, so that it was impossible to see that the seminars announced were also organized by women’s organizations and networks. This can very easily lead to a growing lack of confidence among women’s organizations and networks in the merging processes in the future. We and the organizers of future ESF should give a lot of attention that this does not happen again.
We had also some reasons to be really satisfied :
- The women’s assembly didn’t gather enough people according to our wishes – due to a lack of involvement of the feminist associations in the preparation of this forum … mainly time and money usual issues ?? But it contributed to insure the visibility of the feminist movement in the Forum, to strengthen cooperation between the feminist organisations , to develop new connections , to reaffirm our determination to be present in the whole process with our analyses and values of women's /human rights , equality and democracy. We conceived this Assembly as a living opening of the MALMÖ forum.
- Feminist organisations brought in Malmö good and relevant speeches and gender analyses, and there were very good seminars, on the issues of power, economy, Lisboa treaty, secularism, peace and security, violence, precariousness, migrant …... We have been more visible and better heard through our 14 seminars, 8 workshops and 2 assemblies inside the theme 4 .. and the the presence of a feminist perspective other themes and some main thematic assemblies.
- We obtained the participation and the speech in the opening session of a feminist citizen from one “eastern European country” and secular activist. It is for us an important qualitative step .
- Last but not least , our declaration in Athens and our call for the respect of the Charta of Porto Alegre (especially the article 10 condemning all the forms of domination of one human being by another ) has been heard and respected .The staff of the Nordic Organisation Committee publicly answered us during the Brussels EPA in September that the Malmö forum would respect the charter of the WSF and they did it . Via our Swedish feminist participation in the NOC and the lobby of some feminist networks the participation and the presence of fundamentalist groups could not express themselves on stage as they did in the previous forums .
Women’s assembly of the ESF in Malmö declaration
We are present in the ESF to propose feminist alternatives for the building of a different Europe.
We want to be heard since there is no democracy when half of the population is subordinated to the other, since there will never be democracy as long as equality between men and women will not be recognised as one of the founding values in Europe. Any discrimination grounded on sex, origin, ideology, belief, handicap, sexual orientation must be fought.
We want to be heard since a different Europe can’t be built without a feminist analysis and critic of the social ,economical and political structures characterized by the strong connection between neo liberalism, patriarchy, militarism and religious fundamentalisms.
In the context of an increasing political intervention of churches in our lives that threatens severely our basic rights gained by women with so many difficulties , we call for the creation of a feminist front of resistance for a secular Europe.
We see violence against women as a major political issue, we refuse war as a solution to international conflicts. We ask for the broadening of the concept of European security to structural violence directed towards women in everyday life.
We reject patriarchal structures of domination/subordination as organisation of our societies and we demand equal power and equal rights in all the fields including the social forums. |
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