“Another world is possible: but not through spontaneity!”

The following statement was issued on June 15 to the Southeast Social Forum in Durham, N.C. by Black Workers For Justice based in Raleigh.

The slogan “Another World is Possible” is a testament that the world has been contaminated and divided by an unjust international economic and social system of capitalism that places profits over human needs; and a recognition that this system needs to be radically transformed so that technology, wealth and power are used to advance and benefit humanity.

The U.S. is the leading government promoting and defending the expansion of this global system of oppression. U.S. wars, CIA and military orchestrated regime changes, government lies about weapons of mass destruction, U.S. refusal to act in compliance with international laws and standards, trade “agreements” that allow U.S. corporations to dominate regional and global consumer markets, exploit cheap labor and obtain huge interest rates off loans to other countries, and the elimination of democratic rights inside the U.S., are all part of a corporate-driven global strategy of world domination lead by the U.S. government.

The U.S. South and its history of slavery and racism has been central in shaping the direction and culture of white supremacy and national chauvinism that justifies the super-exploitation and genocide that has helped to propel the U.S. forward as an imperialist country. The genocide of the Indian nations and the taking of their lands by the colonial settlers, the slave trade, rape and brutal treatment of Africans by the colonial settlers and traders, the U.S. government annexation of a major part of Mexico related to the issue of slavery and U.S. expansionism throughout the Americas as an imperialist empire under its slogan of “manifest destiny”, and its racism against all peoples of color, point to the historical difficulties in building a united movement for radical change in the U.S. without waging a struggle against racism.

The internalized oppression among the oppressed peoples throughout the U.S. resulting from this historical experience, and the divisions among them created by state and corporate policies, and by the political opportunism of playing the oppressed against each other as voting blocks favored by one or both of the major political parties, has created confusion among the oppressed peoples about who and what is really responsible for the problems they face in the economy and society today.

Challenges have been made by struggles throughout the world and throughout history to stop the growth and expansion of this unjust system which has taken on various social and political forms of exploitation and oppression such as colonialism and that created divisions between the colonized peoples on the one hand and between the workers of the colonies and those of the colonizing countries on the other, including around race and gender oppression that weakened the struggles against the oppressive system.

These struggles have been very important to shaping people’s understanding that “Another World is Possible.” The various social movements and revolutions that have taken place throughout the world have given people a glimpse of how resources and power can be used to create a different and more humanly productive way of life that can benefit the majority of the world’s people.

The new governments that emerged out of the social movements and revolutions, while reducing the ability of capitalism to freely exploit throughout the globe, needed to do more to directly link the struggles and social movements of the oppressed and working peoples in order to deepen internationalism among the world’s peoples. History has shown that despite advances in the people’s struggles that unfavorable shifts and changes in governments can occur as long as global capital has some ability and power to influence those running the governments.

Instead of giving in to the power of capital and military might and the culture of racism and gender oppression, thereby agreeing that only the strong should survive, oppressed peoples and social movements the world over, are making connections, sharing lessons and finding ways to coordinate struggles for global justice.

The Social Forums must be more than a space for democratic debate or for the various groups to showcase their organization’s activities. They must be a place where serious efforts are made to find and establish concrete forms and programmatic actions that build unity to connect the various social movements and struggles around a strategic global focus and demands.

The Southeast Social Forum must help to bring about the convergence of similar struggles especially throughout the U.S. South to help end the fragmentation that plagues our movements and that unites the Southeast and Southwest as regions with the largest concentrations of the two largest U.S. oppressed nationalities and most exploited sectors of the U.S. working class.

Centering the unity at the Southeast Social Forum around the main demands of these two most oppressed sectors should be viewed as its main strategic task. Struggles driven by the resistance to national, class and gender oppression by these oppressed sectors have the greatest potential of breaking with U.S. national chauvinism that has been a major factor in holding back the internal struggles against U.S. imperialism, especially the linking of those struggles with the global struggles.

The federal government’s role in the conditions causing the Gulf Coast disaster related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita sent a clear message to the African American people, that Black people are expendable when it comes to the interest of capital and white supremacy. The anti-immigrant legislature, attacks on undocumented workers and the construction of the wall of death along the U.S./Mexican border sent a message that Latin@s are being made the scapegoat of the U.S. economic crisis facing U.S. workers. The U.S. war in Iraq, Afghanistan and its support of Israel’s occupation of Palestine has established an international climate of endless war that places all struggles and social movements challenging U.S. policies at home and abroad in the category of being a threat to U.S. national security, rapidly eliminating democratic rights for oppressed and working class people and organizations. It is moving the U.S. in the direction of fascism.

The shift of major industry to the U.S. South over the past 30 years and the increased immigration from throughout Latin America into the U.S. has created a growing new face of the U.S. working class—the face of African American and Latin@ workers. It is their children who are fighting and dying in disproportionate numbers in the military wars; they are the majority of the prison population for crimes of the poor, the women suffer triple oppression and their communities, social institutions and infrastructure are the most neglected by the U.S. government. An African American and Latin@ Alliance must be seen as an essential development of the Southeast Social Forum in bringing about the intersection of working class based social movements in the U.S. South and throughout the country in fighting for global justice.