A conference titled 'Challenging capitalism towards the construction of a democratic society' will kick off today in Bogota.

The conference will last three days.

Presenting the conference, the organizers wrote: "How to live together in this world? That is the question that guides this initiative. For today, it seems easier to imagine social collapse than the liberation of peoples. We need to put into dialogue the actions, paradigms, thoughts and ideologies of each region and each territory in order to nurture our emancipatory horizons at a global level. We agree that any deep and radical transformation of this society must have a clearly anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-fascist, anti-racist and anti-patriarchal content."

The statement by the organizers continued: "We agree that capitalism has led us to a crisis of civilization, and that is why we build daily alternative systems to capitalist and state systems. We can call them democratic confederalism, good governance, good living or popular power. Whether or not we agree on the terms and words used to name the enemy, or our strategic objective, those of us who will gather in this meeting are conscious of rowing for the same side: revolution, communism, socialism, democratic modernity or, simply, liberation.

That said, our purpose is to expose our positions and concrete practices in order to identify dilemmas, challenges, conflicts, limitations and potentialities. In this way, we seek to nurture critical thinking based on resistance and jointly strengthen our political action.

Capitalist modernity is the center and source of the multidimensional crisis we are witnessing. The trend towards a new global war and the social and ecological problems have been increasing exponentially over time. It is precisely this capitalist modernity that creates, organizes, sustains and promotes new and old forms of domination and oppression: colonialism, racism, xenophobia, sexism, imperialism, fascism and authoritarianism of various kinds. The role of speculative financial capital and mega-monopolies in contemporary society displaces and destroys the life projects of peoples."

This conference is "intended to be an opportunity to open dialogue between regions that are part of the “periphery” of the world, the global south. Aware that this is not the first time that these initiatives have arisen, we hope that this space will allow us to clarify our revolutionary horizon and strengthen the political articulation between our organizations from the perspective of popular internationalism."

The program of the conference can be read here

The conference can be followed here