From September 17th to 21st 2008 the European Social Forum (ESF) is being held in Malmö, in the south of Sweden. More than 20,000 people are expected to participate in the forum, which is a meeting place for social movements in Europe.

For five days seminars and workshops will be mixed with culture, music, activism and demonstrations. The forum is more than a meeting, it is a chance to put forward alternatives and visions for the future.

For more information see: www.esf2008.org/en/

Democratic Alternative would like to invite our affiliates to come and take part in this forum. We see this as a great possibility to be part of developing social movements, to make contacts, to make plans together and to bring our perspectives to the discussion.

Registration of proposals for programme activities will be open until May 31st. During this period and from May to June there will be a process of merging similar programme proposals from different kinds of organizations, sectors and parts of Europe and also along the nine themes which will be used to structure the final programme.

This is what we currently are planning to have sessions about:

* “The confederal idea”
* “Climate, energy and the municipalities” What role can the municipalities play in promoting ecological alternatives?
* “Local Democracy - Dream or possibility?” Which local democratisation initiatives can we learn from? Have they succeeded or failed? What is needed for democracy to vitalize in Europe today?
* “What is communalism and how can we build communalist organisations?” An introduction to communalism and experiences from Democratic Alternative about building a communalist organisation. (This session will have another title)

We are also planning to have a panel discussion about communal confederalism focusing on the following issues:

* Can confederated municipalities be a real alternative to national and ethnical conflicts?
* In which way can confederated municipalities contribute to a redistribution of resources?

We want to encourage you to register activities by yourself on the ESF webpage.

Note also that you can volunteer at ESF! It is a good way of being part of the forum. If you are interested in that get in contact with the organizers.

Summercamp 6-10 august

How can global warming be stopped? How can we adapt our communities and societies to renewable energy and less energy use?

How can people steer society in a direction towards solidarity and ecological sanity?

With this years summer gathering scandinavian organisation Democratic Alternative is focusing on these issues. We will discuss problems, how to understand them and their origins. But we will not be content with that. We will also look closely at opportunities for another kind of development as well as elaborate on desirable and strategical political demands that we can pursue now.

Our perspective is that participatory direct democracy is the key to genuinly activate the public in the creation of desirable society. Only by broad popular mobilisation on municipal as well as global levels there is a prospect for challenging centralisation, inequality within as well as between countries, as well as blind economic growth.

Politics for the future 2008 will be arranged on Bona folk high school in Motala, Östergötland, Sweden. Here lectures, workshops, excursions etc will be offered.

Participation in the summer gathering costs 50 euro and then food and sleepings facilities is included. The primary languages of the program will be a mix of swedish and norwegian, but if there is participants who want to come from abroad we will look at our capacity to provide translation. Preliminary program in swedish can be downloaded here.

Send an e-mail to info(at)demalt.info if you want the program, have any questions or if you want sign up for the summer gathering.

Information on the Summer Camp and more coming soon…