Dear Monica Valente
Executive Secretary of the Sao Paulo Forum
Three decades ago, on the initiative of Fidel and Lula, convened by the Workers’ Party of Brazil, a little less than eight months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the midst of the definitive crisis of “real socialism,” in a crowded hall of the modest Hotel Danubio in São Paulo, a meeting took place between July 2 and 4, 1990. It was entitled the Meeting of Political Parties and Movements of Latin America and the Caribbean, a year later it was renamed the São Paulo Forum, noting the closing of one stage of struggles and the opening of another.
On that occasion, and after the fall of the USSR, which would give rise to a unipolar world, but at the same time with the heroic resistance of Cuba, to which we should add today those of Nicaragua and Venezuela in the midst of a neoliberal universe, the anguish and questions of the left were overcome by their dreams and convictions. Thus, the Forum became a plural space of the left that contributed, together with other social and intellectual articulations such as the Network in Defense of Humanity (REDH), to the emergence and development of a popular wave that was expressed in the arrival of progressive and leftwing governments at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
On this 30th anniversary of the Forum of São Paulo, in the heat of the struggle against the reactionary forces that seek to turn back the clock of history, these ideas, embodied in the Final Declaration of that historic meeting, take on renewed importance:
“We know, from the historical experience of submission to capitalist regimes and imperialism, that the imperious deficiencies and the most serious problems of our peoples have their roots in that system and that they will not find a solution in it, nor in the systems of restricted, tutored and even militarized democracies that they impose in many of our countries. The way out that our people’s desire cannot be unconnected with deep transformations driven by the masses”.
From the Network in Defense of Humanity we send to all parties and movements of the Sao Paulo Forum our most sincere recognition for maintaining at the top the spirit of struggle and confidence in victory. In these three decades of very important work, the Forum has become an essential space for unity, debate and political action.
Until victory always, we will win!
Network in Defense of Humanity
July 4, 2020