To see a terrific video from Turkey of Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow, Food and Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter, and Focus on the Global South research associate Mary Ann Manahan, please go to http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/23/water_rights_activists_blast_istanbul_world.
Maude has a great, hopeful quote in the video. She says, “The World Water Forum is bankrupt of new ways to address the growing water crisis in the world, because they have maintained an adherence to an ideology that is not working, that has dramatically failed. I’ll tell you what happened here. It’s no longer about the World Water Forum. That’s what happened here. We just transferred, and now it’s about us and our vision. The World Water Forum is bankrupt. They’re bankrupt of ideas. They’re bankrupt of money, frankly. And they have no other thing to offer but what’s failed. And what’s clear here is that the energy and the commitment and the brilliance and the ideas and the cultural change has come together. And this is where the future of water is coming from, this movement here in this room. It’s not coming from over there. So we will be less concerned—I mean, if they want to go to Marseilles, let them go to Marseilles next time. It won’t matter. It really won’t matter. The change has been here. It’s been a transfer of power. That’s what happened here.”
The World Water Council was choosing between Marseilles and South Africa for the next World Water Forum meeting. In the end, Sumru Noyan, Chair of the Ministerial Process of the 5th World Water Forum, announced that the 6th World Water Forum will be held in South Africa, in March 2012. We will be there ready to take them on.
