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Over
150 feminists from Africa, Asia, Latin-America,
Caribbean, Europe, North America, the Pacific
and from different parts of India came togethcr
on 14-15 January 2004 in a pre-World Social Forum
event in Mumbai called "Building Solidarities:
Feminist Dlalogues:' We collectively debated and
reflected on political issues affecting our struggle
for an alternative world where women can enjoy
all freedoms and rights as autonomous and self-determining
individuals.
We
recognise the anti-patriarchal transformative
projects of feminists and other groups that reject
neoliberal globalisation, corporate dominance,
and increasing social, economic and political
control by fascist and fundamentalist forces.
We are in a continuing process of construction,
redefinition, reflection and action in the understanding
that no struggle is ever completely won.
Our
discussions were about how we transform ourselves
- our movements, our agendas, our contestations
and our alliances. We recognize the importance
of moving forward in an interlinked way with a
myriad of other groups and movements that are
resisting domination in all its form. The imperative
to seek collective and creative responses to address
tensions and differences among movements is therefore
greater than ever.
Another
world is not possible without interactive transnational
feminist movements that continuously envison and
struggle for Women's alternatives!
Such
was our overarching logic for this gathering.
As
we welcome activists and individuals to the Worl9
Social Forum in Mumbai, we laud the women who
worked intensively to ensure that feminist presence,
events and processes are an integral part of this
event. We celebrate the fact that for the first
time, big plenary sessions of 4000 people each
will be held on the theme of Sexuality and on
A Dialogue Across Movements--among feminists,
trade unionists, Dalit activists and gays &
lesbians. These are critical fields of debate
within the current geopolitical context-a context
defined by the rise in fascism and fundamentalisms
that converge with corporate marketization, neo-imperialist
wars and sectarian violence. This matrix of forces
often targets women's bodies and people's sexualitites
as a tactic of war and terror and as an arena
of societal control and subjugation.
Feminist
Dialogues is not just an event. We hope that it
will eventually evolve and diversify into new
sites and forms of feminist methodologies for
political debates among feminists from different
fields of struggle, discourse and action toward
strengthening our transnational alliances. Indeed,
the World Social Forum is a significant global
site around which feminists can come together.
We hope that the Feminist Dialogues can also generate
other resistance sites, critical forms and varied
means.
Let
us stand up and be counted as feminists in the
WSF and in other spaces. Let us act together to
ensure that feminists shape global, regional and
local resistances and transformative projects
with our
diverse yet interwoven political passions, critiques
and celebrations!
La
Lucha Continua! Our Struggle Continues!
Feminist
Dialogues Coordinating Committee
National Network of Autonomous Women's Groups
(NNWAG),
Articulacion Feminista Marcosur (AFM)
Development Alternatives of Women in the New Era
(DAWN-Southeast
Asia)
African Women's Development and Communication
Network (FEMNET)
Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice
(WICEJ)
Women's Environment and Development Organisation
(WEDO)
Isis Internationa! Manila
15 January 2004, Mumbai, India
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