Babels Coordinators’ Statement from the 3rd ESF

Babels is the international network of volunteers providing the
interpretation and translation for all plenaries and seminars of the
European Social Forum. We are a network of more than 7000 volunteer
interpreters from more than 30 countries communicating in more than 50
languages.

For this third European Social Forum in London, Babels has assembled more
than 500 volunteers to interpret in all plenaries and seminars. Speakers
have been able to express themselves in more than 15 different languages
and delegates from more than 60 countries have been able to follow and
participate in those debates.

We exist to facilitate multi-lingual comunication in forums and processes
that abide by the principles of the World Social Forum Porto Alegre
Charter. The most important of these principles are: (1) that the Social
Forum does not constitute "a locus of power to be disputed by the
participants in its meetings"; and (2) "the Social Forum is a plural,
diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context
that, in a decentralised fashion, interrelated organisations and movements
engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international
to build another world".

Our aim is to bring those principles to life by enabling the largest
number of people to participate as fully as possible in social forums by
breaking down language barriers and offering the means to understand one
another in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment. Perhaps our
most important principle is that of self-organisation: we aim to develop
the political and technical means for the forums to organise autonomously
from the capitalist sphere and demonstrate that another world is not only
possible, it is already being constructed.

Unfortunately, many opportunities of experimentation and innovation have
been missed during the organisation of this forum resulting in the
exclusion of many people, organisations, networks, groups, and even
countries. Instead, classical neo-liberal practices of organisation,
management and service delivery have been employed, with the result that
the Forum has been entirely dependent on the state. This is in total
contradiction to the Porto Alegre Charter.

The organisation of the ESF in this way has had disastrous consequences
for the self-development of our movements. The inclusion of networks of
activists and volunteers not only enables the largest possible collective
of people in the construction of alternatives, but also the inclusion of
the largest number of social and political actors ­ creating a dynamic of
ever-increasing mobilisation of the social movements. This Forum has been
an distressing experience of de-mobilisation, not only in terms of the
number of delegates (less than half than previous years), but also the
chronic shortage of volunteers to help make a successful Forum possible.

Finally, one of the major themes of the ESF has rightly been the fight
against racism and fascism in Europe. Sadly, we want to inform you that
some of our fellow volunteer interpreters cannot be here today because
they were not allowed to enter the United Kingdom. This is a direct result
of the racist immigration and asylum policies of the British Labour
government and another example that Fortress Europe is a reality not a
slogan. In particular, several interpreters coming from Turkey, Russia,
Romania, the Maghreb countries (Tunisia, Algeria, Morrocco, Lybia), and
the Middle East were refused their visa. It is sad to report that the way
in which the ESF was organised this year did not help this situation.

Coordinators of Babels International Network of Volunteer Interpreters and
Translators (and not Social Forum translation service as you may have read
in the official programme).