Boaventura de Sousa Santos

The heinous nature of the crime against the journalists and cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo makes it extremely difficult to offer a cool-headed analysis of what is entailed in this barbaric act, its context and precedents, as well as its impact and future repercussions.

The treatment given by the major media to two events occurring during the last few weeks – the World Economic Social Forum of Davos and the Thematic Social Forum of Porto Alegre – speaks loudly of the interests presiding over world public opinion in our time.

At the end January 2010, there was an important evaluation of the 10 years of the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, including a debate on its future. At the same time, many events took place in seven cities in the metropolitan region, which gathered more than 30,000 people.