Call for Social Movements to mobilize for the upcoming World Social Forum (Tunisia, 2015)

Dear friends,

During its last meeting held in Casablanca in December 2014, the International Council decided to organize the upcoming World Social Forum 2015 once again in Tunisia.

This decision was made based on an evaluation of the proceedings of the WSF 2013, and a common assessment of the situation of struggles marshalled by different social movements in the region, and the world, as well as the new geopolitical context and the evolving nature of the neoliberal crisis.

Indeed, it is now imperative to realize that since 2011, and after Arab revolutions have represented a source of hope to uplift the region from its status-quo, and a source of inspiration for the entire world to change, the Arab region is currently undergoing deeply worrisome dynamics.

Governments in power over the past three years have yet to put in place the necessary policies and programs which respond to the claims of young people seeking freedom and employment, women seeking equality, social movements seeking social justice. On the contrary, throughout the region the flows of weapons and violence abound, and religious extremism is deepening its reach, neo-liberal policies dictated by the World Bank and the IMF are presented as the only solution and the social movements and democratic movements are criminalized. External political and military interventions have become the rule, each time instrumentalizing internal instability to facilitate interventions by the United States, Europe, Turkey and the Gulf countries.

Beyond the Maghreb and the Mashreq, the African continent has become the primary source of raw material, present as the “new economic frontier”, it too a frontier ravaged by violent extremism, the plundering of its resources, and the devastating violence inflicted by structural adjustment programs and the militarization of its territories.

Everywhere in the world, including in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North America, social movements find themselves facing aggravating economic, social and environmental crisis, as well as a systemic attack on their rights. New tensions, directly related to hegemonic practices to appropriate resources and conquer markets, threaten to bring the worst in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The World Social Forum remains, more than ever, a vital space for social movements which struggle to preserve people’s dignity, so that they remain masters of their own destiny, able to fight for and acquire new economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, and able to construct alternatives to the neoliberal world order.

The social movements of Tunis, as well as of the Mashreq and Maghreb invite you to join their efforts in the construction of a more just world, where justice, equality and peace prevail, and where alternatives for the current world order, to which countless populations aspire, are discussed and debated.

Together, we would like to work to put together an open, participatory and democratic mechanism for the organization of the World Economic Forum 2015.

Another Maghreb Mashreq is possible

Another Africa is possible

Another world in possible

Tunis, June 20, 2014

The Organizing Committee of the World Social Forum 2015

Opening of the website: June 25, 2014

Finance finances@fsm2015.org, finances.liste@fsm2015.org