* The Venezuelan anarchist movement invites you to participate in the Alternative Social Forum at Caracas in January 2006, a gathering of anti-establishment social movements, in response to the bureaucratic World Social Forum promoted by the Venezuelan government.
Groups and individuals from the radical, antiauthoritarian left in Venezuela are promoting an Alternative Social Forum (ASF), in parallel with the "official" (and state-managed) World Social Forum (WSF) that will take place from January 24 to 29, 2006, in Caracas. In this initiative are involved the local anarchists, including the CRA (Comision de Relaciones Anarquistas), the CESL (Centro de Estudios Sociales Libertarios), the newspaper El Libertario and similar collectives. When discussing the defining characteristics of this ASF, we insisted that it should give wide room to the anarchist proposals and experiences for social struggle, which has been widely accepted by the rest of the event promoters, since certainly they have great interest in listening and debating what we have to say.
At the moment of writing this, the call is being made -both locally and internationally- to participate in the ASF; there is also a lot of effort being put into creating a more precise schedule, since there is a wide spectrum of movements, groups and activists -both inside and outside of Venezuela- who perceive that the official WSF is not the space for exchange, promotion and empowerment radicals aspire to. In that sense, we already envision the ASF as a space where the anarchists who participate will find not only interested listeners and the opportunity to discuss our ideas, but also a chance like no other for indirect exchange between ourselves.
And so, we want to invite anarchists everywhere, and specially from Latin America, come to Venezuela the fourth week next January. We call upon you to participate in the ASF, which will provide us an ideal environment, not only to exchange ideas and experiences with both our own and others, but also to seize the occasion for the anarchists to have that face-to-face contact that is neccesary for a better communication and initiating joint initiatives. It must be made clear that we are not proposing an Anarchist Forum or anything like that; we only intend to promote the interaction between those who participate in the anarchist scene in this continent.
We are open to all suggestions and comments you want to make about this initial summons, particularly about ways in which we could benefit better from this encounter of anarchists from many countries in Venezuela. We also invite you to visit the ASF webpage, to stay informed about the event, the ways in which you can participate, the proposals, and the discussions it generates.
