Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún has been participating in the opening of the World Social Forum
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press release 
Thursday January 27, 2005 17:48
by Shinner - Sinn Fein
Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún has been participating in the opening of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil (26 January/27th January). Ms de Brún along with fellow MEPs, joined hundreds of thousands who marched through the streets of Porto Alegre carrying the message of the World Social Forum - that another world is possible.
Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún has been participating in the opening of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil (26 January/27th January). Ms de Brún along with fellow MEPs, joined hundreds of thousands who marched through the streets of Porto Alegre carrying the message of the World Social Forum - that another world is possible.
The opening demonstration had a carnival atmosphere with artistic contributions from as far afield as India, Brazil, Uganda, Argentina, Australia, Haiti, Peru, France and Italy. Tickertape flew from the windows of buildings along the route as the march passed by. Those participating in the opening ceremony come from political groups, religious and environmental organisations and many community and campaigning groups from around the world. At one point participants laid stones, books and banners as symbols of the diversity of the World Social Forum process. There was also a minute‚s silence in memory of all those who suffered from the tsunami in Asia and Africa.
Speaking from the opening of the WSF, Ms de Brún said:
"This truly diverse gathering has an upbeat carnival atmosphere and is a real celebration of the diversity of the World Social Forum. Behind the carnival atmosphere, however, lies a serious message that we must all act to create a fairer and more sustainable world. That is the real work that will take place in the meetings and seminars in the coming days." ENDS
Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8a call went out for audio of her speech
http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2005/01/304688.shtml
no luck yet - perhaps Sinn Féin can help?
contact indymedia for help to upload
http://www.indymedia.ie/contact.php
Bairbre de Brún to address meeting of World Social Forum
Published: 28 January, 2005
Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún will today (28 Jan) address a meeting of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on the topic of privatisation and globalisation.
Others addressing the meeting will include Meena Menon of the Social Forum of India and Francois Houtart of Cetri (Centre Tricontinental based in Belgium).
http://www.sinnfein.ie/news/detail/8299
Presumably she will be telling them all about Sinn Fein's use of Private Finance Initiatives while she was in government in the North.
Speaking at the opening session of the two-day the World Parliamentary Forum, Ms de Brún said:
"In the context of corporate globalisation it is partularly important that we come together as parliamentarians, to promote social and economic equality, to share experiences and analysis of the ways in which we confront the challenges facing us but also quite concretely to take initiatives for peace, justice, and social and economic equality in our regions and beyond.
"We must also remember that the World Parliamentary Forum has grown out of the World Social Forum and that we cannot allow ourselves to become separate from those social movements if we are to have the required strength and purpose to move forward. We must lend our strength to the growing grass roots campaigns and demands for social and economic justice, human rights and equality.
"So our task here today is two fold:
"Firstly our task is to plan to strategise but also to act and to take intitiatives. Secondly our task is to do so as parliamentarians but in dialogue with and in concert with the social movements. It is essential that our work here today should be grounded in these two main tasks."
Yeah, but other than that gobbledigook did she explain to the WSF the benefits of the PFI schemes her party implemented when she was a government minister?
When a British Government (which you have fought to remove) controls the purse strings and leaves you with the option of:
a.) Having no hospital in an area, thus ruining countless lives or
b.) Having a hospital funded in part by greedy capitalists,
well, it's kinda what that proverb about rocks and hard places was invented for.
The other alternative of course is to refuse to play the Blairites game and organise grassroots campaigns to demand public funding for education and health.
It's only "a rock and a hard place" if you accept, as Sinn Fein do, the inevitabillity of administering capitalist austerity.
So tell us Seamas, what exactly did Bairbre say to the WSF about her own experiences as a privatising minister? Let me guess - nothing. She stuck to meaningless radical sounding platitudes as SF always do when they have their "left" face on.
Theres another old saying about telling people to do their own dirty work.
Unfortunately there have long been elements within the current $inn £ein leadership well prepared to do the dirty work of the British establishment.
De Brun would not have been in this situation in the first place if they had stuck to their word(and to basic republican principle and strategy) and refused to enter the Stormont parliament as Ministers of the British Crown.
This was just another shameful act of collaboration, which is sadly par for the course from this bunch of opportunists and traitors.
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