The European Social Forum (ESF) is a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also known as the Global Justice Movement). In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but later it became biannual due to difficulties with finding host countries. It aims to allow social movements, trade unions, NGOs, refugees, peace and anti-imperial groups, anti-racist movements, environmental movements, networks of the excluded and community campaigns from Europe and the world to come together and discuss themes linked to major European and global issues, in order to coordinate campaigns, share ideas and refine organizing strategies. It emerged from the World Social Forum and follows its charter of principles.
Read more about European Social Forum: First ESF, Second ESF, Third ESF, Fourth ESF, Fifth ESF, Sixth ESF
Famous quotes containing the words european, social and/or forum:
“So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“The mere fact of leaving ultimate social control in the hands of the people has not guaranteed that men will be able to conduct their lives as free men. Those societies where men know they are free are often democracies, but sometimes they have strong chiefs and kings. ... they have, however, one common characteristic: they are all alike in making certain freedoms common to all citizens, and inalienable.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)