Thandi Winston interviews CANDIDO GRZYBOWSKI, from the Brazilian Institute for Social Economic Analyses.

Candido Grzybowski. Credit: Marcus Vinni/iBase

Sometimes described as one of the most influential intellectuals in Brazil, Candido Grzybowski is a philosopher and sociologist and has been the director of iBase, the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses since 1990.

“When we started in 2000, started discussions, it was in the main a reaction to the World Economic Forum, the Davos Forum,” Grzybowski says of the origins of the World Social Forum. “The owners of the world, the big companies with some governments and with a discourse of ‘no alternatives,’ globalisation, neo-liberalisation and so on.

“And for us it was a matter of saying, ‘We cannot continue only to say this is not the solution, we must try to build a thing independent of that, and to give an idea of not just an economic idea of the world we live in, of the planet we live in, of the society we live in, but a social idea of the economy, of power, of everything.

“So it was the social forum.”

Thandi Winston interviews WSF founder Candido Grzybowski Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (123)

Women and men in WSF march. Credit: Verena Glass

By Mario Osava *

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 30 , 2010 (IPS/TerraViva) – The World Social Forum (WSF) “changed our lives,” although it continues to be “machista,” with men significantly outnumbering women in its organisation and almost all discussion panels, commented Nalu Farias, coordinator in Brazil of the World March of Women.
Continue Reading

Credit: TV WSF Archive

By Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 25, 2010 (IPS) – A call issued by social movements to evolve towards a more active role in generating concrete action marked the opening session of a seminar assessing the 10 years of the World Social Forum (WSF) Monday in this southern Brazilian city, the birthplace of the annual global civil society gathering.
Continue Reading

Candido Grzybowski

By Candido Grzybowski (*)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan (IPS) The secret of the vitality of the World Social Forum (WSF) lies in the fact that it is organised as an open space which, without renouncing its original mission of challenging neoliberalism, proposes to recharge the batteries of citizen activism, which is now necessary on a planetary scale if the earth is to move beyond the current mode of extreme capitalism. This process is underway and is following its own course, led by organisations and social movements and networks around the world.

Continue Reading