In the Colombian capital, Bogota, the conference "Challenging Capitalism - Towards Building a Democratic Society" is taking place this weekend. The conference is organised by the Academy of Democratic Modernity, the Kurdistan Solidarity Committee in Bogotá, the Jineolojî Centre, the Women Weaving the Future Network, the Congreso de los Pueblos in Colombia, MODEP, the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC) and the Proceso de Comunidades Negras. The participating organisations are mainly from North and South America, Europe and the Middle East.

More than 30 organisations from Cuba, Costa Rica, Argentina, Palestine, Brazil, Spain, Chile, the USA, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Mexico, Salvador, Panama, Peru and Canada meet at the three-day conference. The content of the conference is an exchange on alternative ideas of a just social order. Among other things, the paradigm "Democratic Nation and Democratic Confederalism" presented by Abdullah Öcalan will be discussed.

The opening of the conference on Friday was organised by people from the Putamayo region on behalf of the National Congress of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia, following an Inca ritual. During the ritual, the words "We are the sun, the mountains, the rivers, we are the children of the earth" were repeated by the participants in Quechua and Spanish.

This was followed by the first panel discussion on capitalism as a crisis of civilisation. Margara Milan from Mexico, Edgar Mojica from Colombia, Sarah Marcha from the Jineolojî Research Centre and Ana Biker from El Salvador spoke. The second panel discussed alternatives to capitalist and state systems.

Workshops are on the programme for today. Discussion topics include self-government, ecology, economy, women and gender liberation and youth movements. On Sunday, "Revolutions, Solidarity and Internationalism in the 21st Century" will be discussed. According to the organisers, the conference aims to open a dialogue between regions that belong to the "periphery" of the world, the global South. "We agree that capitalism has led us to a crisis of civilisation, and that is why we are building alternative systems to capitalist and state systems every day. We can call them democratic confederalism, good governance, good life or people power," said the organisers. The conference aims to "promote our emancipatory horizons on a global level".

The program of the conference can be read here

The conference can be followed here