The European Social Forum, held in Florence from 6-10 November was a fantastic event, and marked a new phase in the growth of the European anti-capitalist movement.
As someone who had never attended a European anti-capitalist demonstration - Florence. made me feel for the first time that I belong to a truly international anti-capitalist movement.
There was excitement from the fact that thousands of anticapitalist activists - a high percentage of them under 25were gathered in one place. Political groups from all over Europe had stalls and gave out information about their organisations and campaigns.
Britain had a high profile with sessions hosted and supported by the Stop the War Coalition, No Sweat and Globalise
In terms of debates, the social forum provided the opportunity to hear an incredible range of speakers over the 4 davs and the experience ol sitting in meetings with 5,000 others was inspiring. It was interesting, for example; to hear prominent ATTAC members, like Bemard Cassen speaking. It was also excellent to see a strong presence from British unions like the RMT.
For me, however, the most inspiring speaker in many ways was Colleen Kelly, neither a socialist nor a traditional anticapitalist but a member of the American committee for the victims of 9/11.
Colleen's brother died in the World Trade Centre September 11th and she spoke passionately about the anti-war movement in the US, which is thriving despite a barrage of pro-war publicity.
The European Social Forum wasn't without its problems -inevitably given the groundbreaking nature of the event. The need to balance speakers and include key constituencies on platforms often meant that there was insufficient opportunity for contributions from the floor. At times this gave a sense of a "them and us" - protessionals against activists. The speakers inevitably varied in quality and in many cases they simply spoke for too long. However, even if every session and speaker had been boring, which was far from the case, it wouldn't really have taken away from the power of the event itself. One million against war It's impossible to convey the sense of being on a march of 1 million people. If the London anti-war demo seemed enormous, the Florence demonstration was incredible.
When I arrived at the assembly point trains had already begun arriving from all over Italy.
3 hours before the scheduled start of the march, people were moving along the route to make room for the thousandss arriving at the train station. Even at that time it took an hour to walk to the front of the demonNICHOR
Trade union and social forum banners mixed with homemade banners carrying slogans like "Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes'
One Florence resident had hung a sheet from a window with the slogan "You are 2 mil lion".
The key difference between British and Italian anti-war demonstrations for me was the huge trade union presence.
Unfortunately, in Britain we can only dream of the kind of mass trade union mobilisation seen on the Florence march.
Work should be continued in Britain to increase the number of national unions affiliated to the Stop the War Coalition and to build all possible links with rank and file trade unionists.
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European Social Forum A central issue in the the Florence social
While many in Britain might find as "obvious" that political parties should be allowed to participate in • Winter 2002 11
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