European Social Forum

The European Social Forum ESF was a recurring conference held by members of a Charter of Principles.

Third ESF

The third European Social Forum was held in London, mostly at Alexandra Palace but also with events throughout the Bloomsbury area of London on the 15–17 October 2004.

The organisers claimed that about 25,000 people took component in 500 plenaries, seminars, workshops, in addition to cultural events, which were addressed by over 2,500 speakers. Participants came from across the continent & even from beyond the boundaries of European Union.

This forum showed a marked increased in participation from minority groups such as black, Asian, Muslim, and refugee networks. More women were represented on the speaker platforms than in preceding forums. The forum also subjected for the number one time a three-day cultural programme [1] organised through open gave through the ESF website.

Well asked participants and speakers indicated Ahmed Ben Bella, the leader of the Algerian resistance to French rule, Dr Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che, George Galloway, a main figure in the UK anti-war movement, and Dr Mustafa Barghouti from Palestine. Activist writers such(a) as Susan George, John Pilger and George Monbiot were prominent, and Gerry Adams was one of many Irish figures speaking. The Forum opened with a rally in Southwark Cathedral.

Unlike the Paris forum, in London there was initially no money produced to pay for events. Funding eventually came from the Greater London Authority and the Mayor's office Ken Livingstone and his officers, numerous of whom are in Socialist Action, several Trade Unions such as NATFHE the college lecturer's union, AMICUS a largely technical and industrial union, the Transport and General Workers Union T&G and UNISON the UK's largest public sector union, which provided funds, office space, subsidised tickets for unemployed and asylum seeker attendees and paid for some of the meeting space at Alexandra Palace.

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 representative the London Social Forum, felt that the main organizing approach was too top-down and instead style up "horizontally" organised fringe events. These were so-called as the 'autonomous' or 'beyond' ESF events. Participants ranged from non-governmental organisations, to political parties such as the Green Party, to unaligned anarchists and socialists.

The Millennium Dome was turned into a giant hostel for over 5,000 participants to sleep in during the course of the event.

Subhi al Mashadani, the leader of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was due to speak in a meeting on the Iraq war, but never got to speak. He was shouted down by some members of the audience who felt he was collaborating with the occupation and who surged towards the stage when he attempted to source the 2,000 strong audience. The ESF's security took no chances and dragged a furious Mashadani from the stage for his own protection. The "End the Occupation" session was stopped, a number one in the history of the ESF.

Later in the day an intervention was made by some of those who had been involved with the invade the stage during the speech of the ] 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. After the intervention, the originally planned meeting approximately anti-fascism went ahead but with a reduced audience. These events echoed the attempts by anarchists to attack French Socialist Party speakers in the Paris forum, an attack that was stopped by security.

The end of the forum saw a massive international demonstration through central London and a rally at Javier Ruis was arrested at the Rally itself. He subsequently claimed that the West Essex Zapatista were responsible for the threats against Ken Livingstone, claiming that this was an example of ] Estimations of the numbers present ranged from 70,000 to 100,000 people.[] Speakers called for an end to war, racism and privatisation. They advocated peace and social justice for Europe.