European Social Forum
The slogan was "Against war, racism and neo-liberalism," with specific reference to US president George W. Bush's plan for regime change in Iraq.
The Assembly of Social Movements held directly after the ESF launched a call for a Europe-wide day of action against the incipient Iraq War.
The President of the Region, Claudio Martini, although criticised on some points by no-global activists, had been a supporter of the movement since the time of the Genoa Group of Eight Summit protest on one side and the right-wing Italian government on the other.
In fact, the European Social Forum, which occupied the historical Fortezza da Basso and other conference buildings with its 60.000 delegates, did not provoke any incidents.
Gino Strada, president of Emergency, the Italian association that helps civil victims of armed conflicts, and a leader of the pacifist movement, was one of the most popular orators.
At the end of the meeting, even pro-globalists such as the then president of the European Commission Romano Prodi showed sympathy for the moderation of the movement and for its pacifist stance.
The organisers claimed that approximately 25,000 people took part in 500 plenaries, seminars, workshops, and cultural events, which were addressed by over 2,500 speakers.
This forum showed a marked increased in participation from minority groups such as black, Asian, Muslim, and refugee networks.
The British Socialist Workers Party, Globalise Resistance, the Tobin Tax Network and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament were central to bringing the event to London.
Other groups, for instance the London Social Forum, felt that the main organizing approach was too top-down and instead set up "horizontally" organised fringe events.
They intended to invade the stage during the speech of the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone (who opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but is a member of the Labour Party which supported it).
The SWP's Weyman Bennett, a steering member of Unite Against Fascism and chair of the meeting, claimed that he was assaulted by an anarchist.
[citation needed] A banner was hung up stating "Ken's Party - War Party" and the stage was turned into an open-microphone event with speeches against the 'vertical' organisation of the ESF, the war in Iraq, and recent attacks on freedom of speech by the FBI (such as taking Indymedia servers down with international articles).
[7] As a major political event that brings together highly diverse social movements from across Europe,[8] the ESF has been praised and criticized by various actors, both inside and outside the Forum.
[10][11][12] The liberal Swedish daily Sydsvenskan considered it "disgusting" that the ESF 2008 hosted a panel discussion on how ”imperialism and zionism” use list of terrorist organizations to weaken "freedom movements, leftist organizations and solidarity groups" in "Palestina, Basque, Colombia, Greekland, Turkey, Belgium and Denmark".
According to the seminar summary, a secret elite alliance has been pursuing Global Order with a single money, government and army, for hundreds if not thousands of years.
[13] According to Sydsvenskan, the countries that have permitted "free trade and liberal politics", "have seen poverty and need decline, in some cases dramatically".
