The Peoples’ Platform Europe has published a booklet entitled ‘Looking back at the Peoples’ Platform Europe’, giving an overview of the speeches and discussions held during the workshops and panel discussions at the Platform, which was held from 14 to 16 February 2025 in Vienna, Austria, under the slogan ‘Reclaim the Initiative!’ and brought together over 800 delegates from 160 organisations across more than 30 European countries.
The booklet starts with the quote “We don’t have to invent internationalism, we must organise it!”, defining the goal of the platform. It continues with text of the speeches made by William Robinson, Mireille Fanon Mendes-France, Silvia Federici and John Holloway during the Panel Discussions, which opened the three-days conference.
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A perspective that emerged from the conference follows, which highlights that today “The world is on the brink of a historic change” and that “organised struggles for democracy and freedom” are needed to find solutions to the current problems, such as a ecological destruction, social and economic crises.
“Developing ‘unity in diversity’ is ultimately our greatest strength”, the perspective continues, pointing out the need for continued dialogue and exchange, and to see differences as a source of richness rather than as obstacles. The perspective also emphasised that democratic forces have a responsibility to “dismantle the oppression, injustice and destruction caused by the European powers around the world.”
Furthermore, the booklet dives into the different workshops that were held to explore grassroots solutions to global crises, with participants discussing and sharing perspectives on topics such as War and Peace; Anti-fascism; Ecological Resistance; Women’s Democratic Confederalism; Youth Identity and Resistance; Building Autonomy; Activism and Organization; Fighting Genocidal Policies and Democratic Media.
The speech of Mahmut Şakar, former lawyer of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, is also included in the booklet. The speech was given on 15 February 2025, marking the 26th anniversary of what Şakar called the “international conspiracy”—the multinational operation that led to the capture of Öcalan in 1999.
The booklet concludes with a ‘Roadmap of the Peoples’ Platform Europe’, which is a summarised version of the final speech of the conference held by the Academy of Democratic Modernity and the Women Weaving the Future network, in which they announced that similar conferences will be held on other continents, saying that the platform was a “first step in a bigger internationalist process”.
The full pdf of the booklet is available here.
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