19.01.2004
World Social Forum the Place for the Churches' Struggles, Says Indian Lutheran Church Leader
LWF Delegation to Focus on Water, Globalization, Illegitimate Debt and Caste-based DiscriminationMUMBAI, India/GENEVA, 19 January 2004 (LWI) - "We came here because we call ourselves a communion in the midst of struggles. And the struggles are here," Rev. Chandran Paul Martin, executive secretary of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India (UELCI) said of the Indian Lutheran churches' participation in the World Social Forum (WSF) 2004 that officially opened in Mumbai on January 16.
Martin is leading a nine-member UELCI delegation to the current WSF. It is the fourth in a series of open international forums that began in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001 with the aim to provide a democratic people-centered alternative to the Davos (Switzerland) World Economic Forum. The January 16-21 event under the theme "Another World is Possible" marks the first time that the global forum of civil society movements and activists, mainly advocating for economic justice worldwide, has taken place outside Brazil. More than 75,000 people drawn from different parts of the world are attending.
The UELCI team is also part of a 50-person-strong Lutheran World Federation (LWF) delegation participating in the WSF. The entire group is focusing on concerns about illegitimate debt; water; peace and conflict; Dalits and caste-based discrimination; Indigenous issues; and human rights in the context of globalization. The team also includes LWF Council members: Ms Abigail Zang (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), Ms Sonia Skupch (Evangelical Church of the River Plate, Argentina), and UELCI's Martin. The UELCI, a body of ten churches including nine LWF member churches has a specific focus on water as it plans to start a one-year post-WSF process focusing on a growing problem of water privatization in India.
Other LWF member church representatives include Rev. Jairo Suarez, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia, and Mr Luis Stephanou, Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil.
Rev. Dr Péri Rasolondraibe, director of the LWF Department for Mission and Development (DMD) is leading a six-person Geneva secretariat staff team drawn from DMD, the Department for World Service (DWS), the Offices for International Affairs and Human Rights (OIAHR) and for Communication Services (OCS). In addition there are staff persons from the DWS country programs in Bangladesh, Cambodia, El Salvador, India and Nepal.
"This is the first time in the WSF history that the Lutheran communion has had such a strong presence," Mr Peter Prove, LWF Assistant to the General Secretary for International Affairs and Human Rights told participants in an ecumenical workshop organized by the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) to inaugurate the churches' and their related partners' participation in the WSF. NCCI General Secretary Rev. Dr Ipe Joseph presided over the workshop at the St Thomas Mar Thoma Church in Mumbai.
Dr Rogate Mshana, leading the World Council of Churches (WCC) team also acknowledged the churches' and their related partners' involvement in the current WSF. He noted that he was the only WCC participant at the 2001 Porto Alegre forum, and was encouraged to see the LWF and other faith-based organizations joining the process the following year.
The WSF 2004 is focusing on the impact of neo-liberal globalization and its processes which, according to Prove, affect people throughout the world particularly in the developing countries, resulting in an increasing gap between rich and poor. Apart from a major public meeting every day at the WSF venue in the Mumbai suburb of Goregaon, there are 12 conferences, panels, roundtables and testimonials as well as 300 seminars and workshops.
The LWF and WCC-organized events included a testimony on Discrimination in Bhutan, and a seminar on the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance Trade campaign, on Saturday, January 17. There are three seminars on Monday, January 19: Illegitimate Debt and Ecological Debt; Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa; Building an Alternative World - Affirming the Dignity of Children; and one workshop, Let's Join Hands to Let Human Rights Work. Another seminar will take place on Tuesday, January 20: Spirituality of Life and Human Dignity - Religious Resources to Overcome Violence.
Prove encouraged representatives of the LWF delegation to also participate in a broad range of the WSF's other events that are focusing on the various issues with which the churches are dealing. These include agriculture and genetic technologies, corporate social responsibility, education, HIV/AIDS, sustainable development, and water. (726 words)
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