BRAZIL: Israeli pacifists marched alongside Palestinian militants while Iraqi delegates embraced North American visitors as world peace reigned for an instant at the opening rally of the World Social Forum (WSF) yesterday in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil.
The summit's participants backed an initiative to send a delegation to Iraq, "not to protect Saddam Hussein but to oppose war and embargo", as the imminent war occupied the attention of activists around the globe.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a keynote address before taking off for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
"Davos must listen to Porto Alegre," he said. "We plan a new social contract in Brazil but so also do we need a global pact to lessen the gap between rich and poor."
The legendary local market drummers sounded the official launch of the six-day event, which has already gathered 100,000 people from 156 nations under the banner "another world is possible".
Since the Seattle protests in November 1999, activists have grown accustomed to traditional greetings of pepper spray and strip searches, arrests and imprisonment. Porto Alegre comes as a shock to the system, as the city's police and mayor applauded the guests, dreadlocks and all, conferring the freedom of the city for the duration of the summit.
This sprawling encounter is as much about chaos as cohesion, as participants choose between hundreds of workshops while organisers do their best to dampen down simmering ideological tiffs between implacable political foes.
"Lula's election means the end of cynicism," said Mr Mario Soares, a former president of Portugal.
"We can now believe in great causes again."