ALTERNATIVES – ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE!

Declaration of the European Social Forum in Erfurt, July 24, 2005

[This declaration published in Junge Welt, 7/25/2005 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web,  http://www.jungewelt.de/public_php/drucken_popup.php.]


The referendum on the EU (European Union) constitution in France and Holland as well as the government crisis in Germany prove: Citizens trust the recommendations and statements of the ruling politicians less and less. The neoliberal policy of the last years is entangled in a deep legitimation crisis. Unemployment is now lowered through social cuts. The opposite occurs and intensifies by holding to the Lisbon strategy: the increasing division of society in poor and rich, young and old, persons with and without an acceptable passport, “performance actors” and “benefit recipients.” The unions and dependent employees see themselves up against a general attack on collective bargaining, rights of co-determination and termination protection. Dismantling democracy and increased repressions go along with militarization. The measures to protect the natural environment are completely inadequate. The gulf between globalization winners and losers becomes wider. All this fills many people with growing anxiety about a future worth living – globally, in Europe and in Germany.

As part of the international global justice (anti-globalization) movement, we met in Erfurt to develop our alternatives for a solidarian, democratic, ecological, non-patriarchal and socially just society. We did not only criticize political and social conditions.

Social life and work must be redefined. We demand a complete reorientation of social- and labor policy. We need a living wage minimum income/basic income for everyone as an alternative to Hartz IV, a legal minimum wage, a dignified pension without discrimination and a massive reduction of working hours.

We champion a solidarian society without exclusion and mass unemployment, without poverty and social division in which everyone can develop and be active in different forms where the chronically sick and disabled persons are on an equal footing and every person has the right to access public goods and services. The privatizations in these areas must be stopped. We want a society in which everyone shares in the social wealth. Enough money exists! A simple solidarian tax now!

An inwardly and outwardly peaceful society that rejects military force and cooperates economically with other countries and regions of the world on the basis of equal rights and solidarity. We reject the “war against terror”. This is used as a pretext to restrict democratic rights and stignatize Moslems. We demand the retraction of anti-terror laws and immigration laws as well as the immediate end to all deportations of refugees. We need crisis prevention and civilian conflict resolution, not an intervention army operational worldwide. Stop the rearmament program in the billions! The German army troops stationed outside Germany must be withdrawn. The actual support of the occupation rule and the US warfare in Iraq must be ended. For a just peace in Palestine! We reaffirm our consistent No to the EU constitution!

An ecological future-oriented society that lowers the emission of climatic gases, environmentally damaging materials and the consumption of non-renewable resources to an internationally compatible level. For us, this means an ecologically consistent agriculture-, settlement-, energy- and transportation policy on the basis of regenerative energies and the immediate exodus from nuclear energy.

A gender-just society in which all people live with equal rights and men do not decide over the heads of women. The discriminating reality still exists in politics, legislation and the world of work.

A democratic society – with active democratic parfticipation going far beyond election campaigns and election days as well as decisional power for all inhabitants on all planes from the immediate representation of interests in economic decisions and operational co-determination to general political and social questions – on the communal, European and global planes. Expansion of citizen demands and citizen decisions on all planes and shared budgets are paths to the democratic society.

Another world is possible when we end the total marketing or commercialization of people and their environment and reorganize cooperative global life. To this end, we need exchange and ecnounter as at this Social Forum in Erfurt.

Stronger interweaving of local social movements in forums to empower people to become actors of direct democracy. Supra-regional exchange and common action are also vital.

Globalization from below: communciation and cooperation independent of culture, religion, gender and skin color. The common struggle worldwide for global social rights for all is our task. We demand debt cancellation and the end of neoliberal structrual adjustment programs.

Preventing further neoliberal reorganization depends on the protests of social movements before and after the German Bundestag elections. Whoever governs and urges further social cuts must expect our massive resistance.