From January 24 to 29 2006 the VI World Social Forum -WSF- will take place in Caracas and in other parts of the world. The Venezuelan capital will also host the II Social Forum of the Americas.

We are a group of social activists, artists, professionals, workers, leftist intellectuals and people convinced of the need for change and the promotion of freedom and social justice, we believe it is appropriate to open and maintain spaces for debate and the construction of the dynamics of transformation; however, considering the experiences of National Social Forums, the diverse Festivals in Solidarity with Venezuela, the World Festival of Students and Youth and the very conformation of the committee promoting the WSF–Caracas, the conditions do not exist to make the January gathering a pluralistic, independent, open, self-managed, and non-deliberative encounter as declared by the same World Social Forum.

We therefore issue a call for an Alternative Social Forum during the same days, with the participation of all those in agreement with the importance of opening a space for gathering, debate and the rebuilding of social networks, a space for the debate of the movements’ agendas and not the ones imposed by those at the top, whatever their sign, and critical of the fixed-point and the contradictions in the Bolivarian government, a space for meaningful debate on the revolution and the traditional political categories in times of globalization, where the diversity, identity and autonomy of the participants are honored, that would transcend from being a week long forum to become an open permanent network for dialogue among the many actors, a counter current to the blackmails, manipulations and false polarizations that have characterized the current situation in this country.

The Alternative Social Forum aspires to be a net with as many hubs as possible, performing many activities in different places throughout the nation, with an agenda collectively defined and coordinated in a decentralized way. We want a space without homogenizing intentions and without electoral rationality that will in practice and in its discussions be a reply to the authority, imperialism, capitalism, economic globalization, bureaucratic cronyism, militarism, machismo, ecological destruction, exclusion and discrimination that oppress us in our daily lives.