Building New Forms of Solidarity

June 22nd, 2001

“Let's globalize hope,” “let's identify our power, which we already have”: this is the voice coming from America. A commitment of revolutionary action oriented to making the social dimension prevail over the economic one - looking for alternatives to neoliberal globalization - and the determination to build an intercultural continent beginning with the promotion of cultural identities and the values that constitute American unity. Thus, the Alliance opens up to the American peoples as a space for protest and construction of new social and economic relations.

Globalization is also in the Asian deliberations. There, they speak of “one world,” with the challenge of finding a vision of relations (among humans and between humans and nature) to build a world in harmony, they speak of organic farming, of globalization and solidarity, and of ecology and Islam.

In the Cultural Council of South Lebanon (Arab World) they are celebrating the first year of the territory's liberation from Israeli occupation after 22 years of resistance and they have stated their solidarity with the Palestinian people, who continues to fight for its dignity and its land. They have stressed the importance of a culture of peace.

In Africa too, a call to peace inaugurated the meeting in Dar es Salaam with Drums for Peace. Four challenges -- peace, democracy, development, and identity -- and three workshops have already begun: governance (underscoring the need for a more participatory democracy), economy, and culture and values. Finally, an African Charter for Peace and Solidarity will be elaborated as well as an action plan for the next five years.

“We want to hear other voices...” Drums for Peace were also heard in the heart of the Carpate mountains (Rumania). The European Meeting ends today with proposals such as a European Peoples Initiative for the new European Parliament of 2004 and an invitation to design a new strategic horizon common to the whole of the Alliance after 2001.