01 July 2009 / International Bulletin / Issue: 83

The Organisation Committee of Turkey displayed a great participation in the meeting. Different unions, platforms and organisations, among them DISK , DTP , Mesopotamia Social Forum, Kurdish Network, BEKSAV , ODP , TAREM and People's Front were among those sending delegates to the meeting in the name of the organisation committee.
Concerning the organisation of the ESF, at this meeting the Preparatory Committee discussed problems such as the place where the ESF could take place as well as the budget of the forum. Besides, information was given on the protests that will be realised in Italy on July 8-10 against the G8 summit and calls made for participation. The next Preparatory Meeting was decided to be organised in Diyarbakir, Northern Kurdistan on September 25-27, right before the 1st Mesopotamia Social Forum.
The European Social Forum that is going to take place in Istanbul in June 2010 will be an important milestone regarding the future of the ESF.
At the Social Forum in Athens in 2006, different mass organisations from Greece, Palestine, the Bask Country, Italy, Catalonia, Turkey and Northern Kurdistan and Norway had founded an Anti-imperialist Space. The following parties and organisations are only some of the various ones following the international call of the Anti-imperialist Space and joining by signing: KOE from Greece, Batasuna from the Bask Country, our party MLCP, TIKB , HOC and TDP from Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, CARC from Italy, Resistance Movement 23rd September as well as the Communist Party of Bulgarian Workers from Bulgaria, the Labour Party from Serbia, APK from Norway, NDFP from the Philippines, and PDLP and DFLP from Palestine.
Imperialist aggression was condemned in the declaration and principles of the Anti-imperialist Space, the EU and European imperialist forces were exposed, the peoples saluted leading an armed militant resistance against imperialism, and it was stressed that "another world" is socialism. The forces of the Anti-imperialist Space formed a common block in the numerous seminars and actions as well as in the big march organised in connection with the Anti-imperialist Space.
The experience of the Anti-imperialist Space was a unique example from the point of view of a revolutionary intervention to the Social Forums where thousands of people from different countries gather and look for "another world" and at which political forces have a strong input. However, for these forces searching for "a new world" is limited and means to polish the destructive results of capitalism.
Another element that was important for this example to be realised was undoubtedly the direct influence of the determined and militant tradition of the mass struggles in Greece.
The ESF 2010 in Turkey is based on the traditions of struggle in the country and the continuing militant struggles of the Kurdish people and the Turkish workers and labourers, and will add new experiences to the example of the Anti-imperialist Space of 2006. The ESF meeting in Istanbul will help to develop this experience. Geographically, Istanbul will provide appropriate conditions to let the experiences of the workers' and labourers' struggle meet with the resistances of the migrants, social struggles in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan, Kurdish national struggles, political and social organisations of the peoples of the Balkans, the Caucasus and Middle East.
Independent of the quality of the political forces that guide the Social Forum and the role these forces have ascribed to the Social Forum as well as from the ideological meaning of the understanding of organising, this meeting is important from the point of view that the revolutionary forces can appear and show their force at the Social Forums that are a form of a mass meeting where the masses being politically active come together directly.
The ESF 2010 will strengthen the international spirit and the conscious of solidarity of those being part of the social struggle in Turkey.
While the ESF 2010 is coming up, an important other event taking place before will be the Mesopotamia Social Forum that is going to be organised on September 28 - October 1, 2009 in Diyarbakir, Northern Kurdistan. Although the MSF has no concrete relation to the ESF and this will be a meeting where the people of Mesopotamia, Kurdish, Arab, Sorani, Turkish and Persian people come together, a high number of participants are expected from Europe and different countries. For this reason, the next Preparatory meeting of the ESF was decided to be organised right before the MSF. The International Camp of Amed, however, that will be realised parallel to the MSF will bring together experiences of resistances in many countries. It is also planned for the MSF that women organisations from the Middle East will come together in a meeting as well as realise a mass women's march. This event will be a first step to organise the Middle Eastern part of the World Women's Meeting that is going to take place in Venezuela in 2011.
The revolutionary, progressive and communist forces in Europe, the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus must contribute to realise these opportunities by joining the MSF as well as the ESF 2010.