Tourism develops in several ways. It is tempting to see it merely as providing an enjoyable break in the sun, affording one the opportunity to have enriching encounters and to get to know other cultures. Tourist infrastructure, at the same time, offers numerous earning opportunities. There is, however, a dark underside to all this. The rich countries have, in point of fact, created a form of leisure activity that, in turn, creates problems. Far from solving the world's problems, this sort of tourism often only worsens them. Further, it leaves behind only marginal earnings for the local people, as the bulk of the profits are repatriated to the wealthy countries, and concentrated in a handful of huge conglomerates.

For the CETIM, it is essential to establish a dialogue between the peoples of the North and the South with a view to creating alliances and fashioning common alternative proposals.

Indispensable to this dialogue are equality, listening and solidarity in acting.

In a little book, Dialogue inégal Y a-t-il un titre en anglias?], published at the end of the nineteen-seventies, when the attempt to set up a new international world order was slowed up almost to a full stop, Samir Amin and Julius Nyerere pointed out the necessity for the countries of the South to rethink their development in self-centered terms, if they were to be able to respond to the needs of their people. This implies a certain "disconnection" from the imperatives of world trade. In Nyerere's view, in order to preserve their independence and their freedom of action, and to be able to face up to the policies imposed on them from outside, the countries of the South have no choice but to unite and support each other, regardless of their differing political systems.

Twenty years later, the dominant ideology is trumpeting that globalization is "inevitable" and that there is no choice for the countries of the South but "integration" into the system of world trade, opening up to competition, unrestrained adherence to the principles of "free" movement of capital and goods (but not of human beings!), all while trying to fit into the system by specializing in those areas where they supposedly have a "comparative advantage" etc.

In a context that has radically changed, do the orientations advocated in this book still have any pertinence, and, if so, how would one adapt them? This is what the CETIM wanted to know in 1999 by asking the following questions of various intellectuals, political leaders, trade unionists, peasant farmers etc. In your experience, in the experience of the movements that you have been a part of and of the countries where you have been active, is globalization really the only way to go? Is a certain disconnection from the dominant system not what is called for at present? Has the Third World become "too" varied (or has it simply "ceased to exist"), and is it thus really incapable of united action? Does the united front that was created in Seattle, for example, by the African and Caribbean countries not portend hope? And, most of all, does one not, at the grass roots level, see the flourishing of alternative experiences, international networks, a new spirit of solidarity and "a globalization of resistance"? Face to face with the current trends of globalization, are there really no alternatives? Don't these alternatives exist already in the struggles of the world's peoples? And, if so, what are they, in the light of your experience and the experience of your continent, your country and the people fighting along side you?

This file contains some of the answers that were received.

In the bitter battle that the transnational corporations are waging to establish their hegemony and to insure their profits, the workers of the North often finds themselves in competition with the workers of the South. The social consequences of this are huge for the workers of the South, who are exploited, underpaid, exposed to conditions dangerous for their health by archaic labor laws and without trade union rights. As for the workers of the North, if they are not simply put out of work, they are subject to the threat of seeing their companies move away, which would amount to their being put out of work.