Tens of thousands of anti-globalization activists began the movement's first convention in Asia on Friday with calls to plot action against the US in retaliation for the war in Iraq.
At least 10,000 people ranging from Indian village women to Western university students packed an open-air theatre where the six-day meeting of discussions, debates and dancing was inaugurated by the Pakistani band Junoon.
PHOTO: AP
The World Social Forum, billed as the top annual meet of civil society, is designed as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum of business and political leaders which opens in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, the day the Bombay convention closes.
Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights activist and 2003 Nobel Peace laureate, set the tone by saying that "terrorism has to be countered legitimately."
"Some states including the United States under the guise of legitimacy are unleashing a massive violation of human rights which can be seen in the fog of the thousands of hostages held without trial in Afghanistan and Iraq," Ebadi said.
She called for the UN to work to ensure rights around the world, particularly in the Palestinian territories and Chechnya.
A more militant tone was struck by Indian novelist Arundhati Roy who urged the activists to choose two US companies to shut down.
"If we are against imperialism then we must not just support the resistance in Iraq; we must become the resistance in Iraq," Roy said to loud applause.
"So I suggest ... we pick by some means two companies -- two American companies -- that have profited from the destruction of Iraq, we put out a list of their offices all over the world, put up a list of every project they are handling and we shut them down," she said.
"In the great cities of Europe and America where a few years ago these things would have only been whispered now people are openly talking about new imperialism, about the `good type' of imperialism and the need to police a new world, an unruly world."
Abdul Amir al-Rekaby, a left-wing Iraqi writer and activist whose name was added to the opening ceremony at the last minute, elicited more cheers when he spoke of mass protests for self-rule in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
"Day after day the situation is becoming worse," said Rekaby, a dissident under Saddam Hussein's regime who heads the small Iraqi National Democratic Current.
"The resistance in Basra, Najaf and in Baghdad needs to know and feel that you are there for them," he said.
The first three World Social Forums were held since 2001 in the Brazilian leftist stronghold Porto Alegre, where last year the meet began a staging ground for protests against the imminent war in Iraq.
Jeremy Corbyn, an MP in Britain's ruling Labour Party who opposed the war in Iraq, tempered the anti-US tone by saying, "We are not against the American people. We stand with those who are fighting for peace."
Organizers say 1,000 Americans are among the 78,000 people who registered by the eve of the World Social Forum. Another 22,000 signed up on the last day but it was impossible to know exactly how many people were attending, forum spokesman Gautam Mody said.
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