The 13th World Social Forum – FSM 2018 – took place
from 13th to 17th March in Salvador/Bahia city, Brazil.
The theme was
“TO STAND AGAINST IS TO CREATE.
TO STAND AGAINST IS TO TRANSFORM”.
This was with a view to furthering the transformation
of human beings trying to envisage another world.
The forum provided a place of meeting and dialogue, attended by 60,000 people from 120 countries. Among that number were three RSCJ: Virginia Borges and Joselene Barbosa from Brazil, and Socorro Martinez from Mexico. The aim of the forum was to discuss and define new alternatives and strategies to confront neoliberalism, and the anti-democratic coups and genocides that various countries have been faced with in recent years.
Among the key themes we reflected on was the current reality of our planet, recognising that the crisis we are undergoing is systemic (economic, socio-political, etc.) and that it is a world crisis. This calls us to be on the lookout for a new paradigm, to change our relationship with nature, with our common home. We have all come from a biological process and thus we are all part of nature.
In order for a new world to be possible, we much each change, individually. The first transformation must happen within us. For this new paradigm, NO is not enough. We must not only denounce, rage, rebel: we must change our interior attitudes.
“Espero que la resistencia prosiga. Que el Foro no acabe aquí,
sino que cada uno vuelva y promueva acciones que transformen.”
(Katalina Lopes, indígena de Guatemala)
“I hope the resistence continues. Let the forum not end here,
let each one go home and campaign for transforming changes.”
(Katalina Lopes, an indigenous Gautemalan)
Virginia Gonçalves Borges rscj
JPIC |A Focus for Transforming Relationships: Care for the Earth, Our Common Home
