Guests from Mauritius, Palestine, Western Sahara, the Philippines, South Africa, Mozambique and Colombia gave speeches and facilitated workshops, and together they and the local activists shared experiences and discussed alternatives and methods to change the system and fight back.

The many international guests and the diverse local and global struggles that this conference seeked to align and connect reflect the new strategy in Global Aktion that came along with the decision to change the name of the organization. This decision is closely connected with our understanding of the globalized world we live in where struggles and activism in the Global South are related and often similar to problems and the fight for alternatives in the Global North.

At first sight some of these struggles might seem too different to be comparable but part of the objective of the conference was to make it clearer that the distance between the occupation of Palestine, fisheries partnership agreements between EU and Morocco and ocean grabbing in Mauritius is much shorter than what it may seem to be. Whether it is the fight for indigenous women’s rights in the Philippines or workers’ rights in South Africa, the struggle is fundamentally about a tiny global elite that has gained way too much power to control the whole world. It is not hard to understand that this is not fair. But it is useful and maybe even necessary to constantly be reminded of the interconnectedness of our struggles, and of the fact that you are not alone. The Resistance & Alternatives Conference provided a platform for those important issues in our work as activists.
 

Results from the workshops
The program of the conference was very ambitious and contained 17 workshops in total. Some of the issues that a lot of activists from all over the world found to have in common were not surprisingly the fact that the capitalist system favours the “rights” of transnational companies over human rights, and that the pursuit of profit is valued higher than the protection of our globe. But some of the activist methods and strategies that were repeated in several different workshops prove to be useful in actually bringing about change. As was argued in several of the workshops: Another world is possible!

Among other things, “naming and shaming”, was mentioned as something that actually works and is already being used, for instance, in the fight against the illegitimate occupation of Western Sahara (Danish pension companies’ investments) and by the new Global Aktion working group Labour Action. Boycotting was also among one of the frequently mentioned methods, as well as raising awareness generally, and specifically about the EU and its trade, fishery, and association agreements, which is especially relevant just now in the time before the European Parliament election. To sum up; a general need to unite across borders and create a broad movement was emphasized, because it is becoming more and more clear that we are all up against the same unjust system.
 

What now?
The inspiring atmosphere that the conference provided has resulted in a Facebook group that you can join: Collaborative Forum for Activism. The group will work as a platform for activists in Denmark where we can share ideas, struggles, initiatives and events. We hope to see you again, in this Facebook group, and hopefully to a lot of activism in the future!

Read all the results from the workshops in the report above.