For a Diverse and Plural Millenium
http://alainet.org/publica/cmrx/en/

Introduction

Irene León

The Forum of the Americas for Diversity and Pluralism (Quito, Ecuador, March 2001), held in the framework of the preparatory process for the “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Other Related Forms of Intolerance” (UN/South Africa, August-September 2001), created a space for the development of civil society proposals and analyses, aimed at putting forth diverse concrete initiatives for the eradication of such ills.

This publication gathers various analytical essays that reflect the diversity of points of view on the issues discussed in the Forum, with the purpose of contributing to sustain the multiple proposals that movements and organizations of the Americas will set forth in the World Conference.

With the certainty that the process of collective construction of diverse and plural principles is under way, and that it will contribute to the creation of societies based on those principles, we look forward to a continued contribution in the debates that will be produced in the World Conference and beyond. Without our coordinated efforts, the new millenium will only be a new scenario for the continuity of old forms of discrimination, renewed by the vices of the currently dominant neoliberal model.

The proposal of plurality and diversity, as an antithesis of the discriminatory world we know, is an ethical initiative that has its eyes on the future, and its heart with the historical memory of peoples and sectors threatened with extinction due to the omnipresence of a single, homogenizing model - a model that considers only the values of the market and sets aside the construction of humanity. Therefore, let’s raise our voices for a plural and diverse world, with the aim of building different societies!