YOUTH CAMP
Language of Rebellion Takes Shape under the Trees

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

For a taste of the passion of tomorrow's activists, head towards the shores of Lake Guaíba, where youth from across the world are raging about injustice and learning about rebellion under the trees.

There you will come across young men like Wendel Vieira and Juninho Silva, Brazilians who have the enemy clearly in their sights: the mandarins of capitalism blamed for the chaos in Argentina and the U.S. government for its aim on Iraq.

Or women like María José, a university student from Uruguay, who was drawn to Porto Alegre to throw her voice behind the cause that moves her: ecology, environment, the earth -- victim, she says, of globalisation’s onslaught.

The future of education is a point of anger, too, with many from Latin America denouncing the designs of the World Bank to privatise universities.

And not for these youth the comfort of the WSF venues to take in the wisdom emitted by fellow travellers. Instead, they gather under trees, sit on the ground at the Parque Harmonia to refine their arguments.

"This setting is ideal for us to exchange ideas, talk, discuss, debate what we need to do," says Agustín Vanella, 24, president of the Federation of University Students of Buenos Aires.

"What we have here is space open to young people from many countries to develop ways of organising for change," pipes in Silva, 20, vice-president of the union of Brazilian high school students.

Youth from more than 20 countries have been drawn to the park's open spaces of leafy trees, grassy patches and footpaths to share in that vision. Some have come from countries as far off as Japan and the Philippines, Algeria and South Africa, Sweden and Germany.

This spirit of engagement has spread its wings in other forms, too, like the banners with messages of protest strung up between the hundreds of tents, the music they play, and the T-shirts they wear -- with that icon of a historic rebellion, Che Guevara, one of the favourite images emblazoned across chests.

It is a world that has even attracted older folk with the passion of youth in their hearts. Garça Carpes, a 47-year-old Brazilian, is typical of this set. When in her tent, Carpes lends a hand, painting signs for the next protest the youth plan to mount. "'No to all wars," reads one sign, lettered in red paint.

"There is a lively energy here among the people who must have a role in reshaping the world," she says. "I came down from Rio de Janeiro to be part of it."

Yet 24-year-old Vieira speaks for many of his peers in singling out what the youth aim of this political jamboree: a course of action for the WSF. And to that end they will lobby those adult activists steeped in the debates of the day at PUC and Gigantinho.

"Change through concrete plans is what we seek," says Vieira. "It is not enough, what they are doing at the WSF, to only talk politics. A new world order has to be built."