A highly diverse and growing movement of activists, practitioners, scholars, donors, and others who are forging strong bonds of democratic solidarity with counterparts all over the world met in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the Sixth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy. The Steering Committee was especially pleased to welcome the largest number of young activists of any assembly the World Movement has held to date, and we believe they contributed not only innovative thinking for advancing democracy, particularly through the use of new information and communication technologies, but dynamic new energy as well.

 

The World Movement reached an important milestone in 2009: its Tenth Anniversary.  The occasion was marked by a symposium held at the initiative of our colleague George Mathew in New Delhi, the site of the Inaugural Assembly.  Since that Assembly, the number of participants has grown through the development of both regional and functional networks, which have strengthened the ties among us. We are now embarking on an exciting new initiative to incorporate “social networking” into a new online database of World Movement participants, part of a newly re-designed Web site.  The new database, called DemocracyLink, will facilitate individual networking, access to information resources, and ways to exchange knowledge and experiences more efficiently. 

 

During a decade that has witnessed a worldwide democratic “recession,” Indonesia has made significant progress toward establishing itself as an enduring democracy with great promise, not only for its own citizens, but for the wider region and the world.  We are very pleased and grateful, therefore, that a large number of civil society groups that are involved in the process of building Indonesian democracy helped us prepare for, and participated in, this Assembly.  Several governmental and nongovernmental institutions, local schools, and activist groups also graciously opened their doors to participants for site visits on the final day, the first time at a World Movement gathering.  We particularly want to thank our Steering Committee colleague from Indonesia, Bambang Harymurti, editor of Tempo International Media, who served as a local partner on the Assembly, as well as the members of our second partner, the Host Country CSO Consortium, especially its conveners, Abdi (Yenni) Suryaningati (Yappika: Indonesia Civil Society Alliance for Democracy) and Rafendi Djamin (Human Rights Working Group).

 

We also wish to thank the many institutions listed at the end of this report that provided generous funding to make the Sixth Assembly possible.

 

The theme of this Assembly, “Solidarity Across Cultures: Working Together for Democracy,” provided a framework for many of the discussions that took place.  As we know so well, democracy takes many forms, but at its core is a set of universal principles that can unite people of different religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. We hope this report captures many of the Assembly participants’ insights and recommendations on ways to build the bridges across cultures, which are greatly needed for addressing the challenges to democracy we confront.  

 

Finally, this message would be incomplete if we did not acknowledge the contributions of the many individuals around the world who work tirelessly for the cause of democracy and human rights, day in and day out, but who were not able to join us in Jakarta.  We hope this report serves to share with them the outcomes of the various sessions, lessons that can help inspire their work, and the solidarity of their friends and colleagues around the world.

 

World Movement for Democracy