1. With more than 130,000 registered participants and roughly 2.500 events, nobody can really overlook WSF activities. The official declarations may sound more radical than previous ones – but this doesn't necessarily reflect growing radicalism of the movements as a whole. But – for us - official declarations never were and still aren’t the main reason for evaluating the WSF. Furthermore it was our third time at a Brazilian WSF; we participated twice in Porto Alegre in 2003 and 2005, and now again in 2009. Each time we have participated it has been quite different - even with the starting point of accommodation. In 2003 we arrived late – and accepted an offer of empty rooms at the „I don't know how much stars“hotel in which DGB (German trade union federation) had it's headquarter; far away from people. In 2005, living in Brazil, we went by bus to Porto Alegre and slept on the floor of a public school – in the midst of hundreds of people from all over Brazil, from nearby Uruguay and Argentina. And then this time we were in a church unit with a lot of rank and file unionists from Brazil and some of the few African participants (Senegal, Kenya). Each time it was quite a different WSF. It was still quite a good space for networking depending on if you have some political content to network.
Helmut Weiss, Labornet Germany
2009/07/15