Global Policy Forum

By Gustavo González

''Cultural resistance'' marked the huge fiesta that opened the first Social Forum of the Americas Sunday in the Ecuadorian capital, which has drawn at least 8,000 activists, united once again under the slogan ''another world is possible''. The Sunday through Friday gathering, the first regional edition of the World Social Forum held every year since 2001, is an assembly ''of all the poor,'' Ecuadorian indigenous leader Blanca Chancoso, speaking in the name of the organising committee, told the immense crowd that packed the San Francisco plaza in colonial Quito.

''From here, I want to invite you all to this enormous 'minga' (communal work), to build this 'other America', which IS possible,'' said Chancoso, at the inauguration of the regional meeting of ''all of our brothers and sisters, from Alaska to Patagonia.'' When the clock struck noon, the people in the square were invited to look towards the east, ''where the sun, the fire of life, comes up,'' raise up their hands, and shout seven times 'Ullallay' -- a Quichua word that refers to ''unconditional love among human beings.''

The ritual, led from the stage by representatives of indigenous peoples from Ecuador's Andes mountain region, like the Otavaleño and Salasaca ethnic groups, was then repeated facing the south, the west and the north. On the stage, alongside the indigenous representatives, were Argentine writer and Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Brazilian activist Chico Whitaker.

The sound of a giant conch shell, ''which gives order to our lives,'' and the burning of the leaves of sacred plants also formed part of the ceremony, in which the indigenous leaders said their prayers, surrounded by fruit and flowers that were later distributed among the public. ''We have held this ritual asking for the protection of the Pachamama (Mother Earth) so that everything will go well in this Social Forum of the Americas,'' a young Otavaleño woman wearing her ethnic group's traditional black skirt and white embroidered blouse, as well as numerous necklaces and bracelets, told IPS.

Participants from throughout the Americas as well as European countries like Spain, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy are taking part in this week's 300 events, which will include conferences, panels, workshops, debates, artistic performances and cultural activities. Opposition to ''neo-liberal'' globalisation and the future Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and calls for the elimination of an ''unjust and immoral'' foreign debt burden will be central themes at the forum, the organisers said Sunday.

Andrea Borges, one of the leaders of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement (MST), said another of today's big challenges is the fight against the militarisation of the continent by the United States, through the installation of bases, as part of the George W. Bush administration's scheme of ''pre-emptive war.'' Rejection of the presence of a U.S. military base in the southern Ecuadorian port of Manta was not only expressed in speeches, but by signs held by the demonstrators and in their chants. ''We are here for life, not for death,'' said Pérez Esquivel. ''We are here to fight and to resist, for the dignity of our peoples.'' ''Pre-emptive war is a blueprint for death,'' said the Argentine activist and writer, adding that the Bush administration is trying to impose ''one way of thinking'' in the world, which must be met with ''the resistance of our own ways of thinking, looking to our peoples, our cultures, our identity.''

This ''multi-ethnic and multicultural'' forum, in the words of Ecuadorian indigenous leader Leonidas Iza, began to take shape Sunday in the multi-hued varied human landscape in San Francisco plaza. Women's rights activist Myriam Levere also underlined the role of women's groups in changing an unjust world order based on ''the international and sexual division of labour.'' ''Another world is possible, without the patriarchal, market-based society,'' she said. Environmentalists, members of sexual minorities, trade unionists, grassroots community activists and students formed part of the mosaic of expressions of civil society drawn to Quito from the entire hemisphere.

African-American activists played an important part in the inauguration of the week's events. Jaribu Hill with Mississippi Workers for Human Rights greeted the crowd in English and sang a moving a capella version of a spiritual protesting the exploitation of blacks and calling for unity. And she had the demonstrators sing in Spanish ''el pueblo unido jamás será vencido'' (the people united will never be defeated''). The music of the Afro-American group 'Tierra Caliente' from the port city of Esmeraldas in the extreme northern part of Ecuador also gave an artistic, as well as festive, touch to Sunday's opening ceremony.