The 2021 World Social Forum (WSF) events will discuss the Palestinian issue at length. The event will be online, with activities from 23 January to 31 January of the same month. To participate it is necessary to register an account as a participant on the website.
The WSF is an international open space organised by civil society, social movements and NGOs in order to articulate alternatives to neoliberal globalisation. It was founded in 2001 in Porto Alegre, to counter the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This year, it aims to enable responses to the serious and urgent challenges of the global conjuncture and to begin the celebrations of its 20th anniversary. Thousands of people are expected to participate in hundreds of self-organised activities.
The Global March, which opens every year, will be held on a virtual basis, with several videos and the participation of activists from around the world in the panel “What kind of world do we want today and tomorrow?”
The activities are divided into the thematic axes: Peace and War; Economic Justice; Education, Communication and Culture; Feminism, Society and Diversity; Indigenous and Ancestral Peoples; Social Justice; Democracy; Climate, Ecology and Environment and the future of the WSF. On the last day of the event the social struggles for the next period will be defined.
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Every year, the space receives several activities aimed at discussing and giving visibility to the Palestinian cause. In this edition, the Middle East Monitor is organising the panel, “Occupation, Apartheid and Palestinian Struggles for Justice,” which will take place on 24 January at 12 pm (GMT). The webinar is registered within the thematic spaces “War and Peace” and “Social Justice and Democracy.”
MEMO director Dr. Daud Abdullah will be attending from London. From São Paulo, the Brazilian editor-in-chief, Khawla Elaian, and the journalist Ahmad Hweidi will be present. Yafa El Masri, a Doctoral Researcher in Geographic Studies, will speak from Beirut, and Hanady Halawani, an Jerusalem Affairs Analyst, will broadcast from Jerusalem.
They will discuss the goals and challenges of Middle East Monitor; the normalisation processes with Israel among Arab countries; the situation of the people of Jerusalem under the racist occupation policy; the expansion of settlements in occupied Palestine; the lives of Palestinian refugees and their struggle for the right to return.
On the same day, at 5 pm (GMT), the Palestinian Social Forum and the Forum social Maghreb/Machrek will present the panel “New challenges for justice in Palestine.” This activity, inscribed in the “War and Peace” axis, will be presented in English, French and Arabic. Palestinian voices will also be present on the “Indigenous and Ancestral Peoples” and “education, communication and culture” themes.
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