Peace and Reconstruction of the Human Spirit
Por: Norma Cárdenas Zurita, Marvin García, Alex Pausides
Peace and Reconstruction of the Human Spirit
By Norma Cárdenas Zurita, Marvin García, Alex Pausides
Red Nuestra América de Festivales Internacionales de Poesía
Speech to the World Meeting of Directors of International Poetry Festivals
1. Peace and Reconstruction of the Human Spirit
Today, the world faces the man towards the dilemma of passing into barbarism or rebuilding on new foundations the human spirit. Wisdom must save us from destruction. The universal values that humanity has accumulated in its becoming should be the paramount wealth. The struggle for coexistence between different cultures, religions, ethnicities or ideologies might well give an essential meaning to human life on earth. Set up a livable world in harmony with the rest of nature is the pending page for our civilization and poets can write that verse in the random blank page of our future. The banishment of weapons and war, the moral condemnation of violence and the exploitation of men by others and the participation in the design and conduct of their own destiny are the premises of the survival of the species.
Poets, there is no second chance for the miracle of life in the universe, be alert.
2. Recovery of Nature
In tough times, poets more than necessary are essential. Being a poet in tough times means paying attention to light things to come and name the sacred things; disclosing what we were and are and will be. Witnesses of human history, his words transcend the here and now, and mark our place in the world.
When we ask how’ll be the world of tomorrow,we will have to think that our world hasn’t be inherited from past generations, we have borrowed it from future generations, which implies a big commitment. The struggle against the depredation of nature by the man, the devastation of forests, the emission of gases that destroy the atmosphere,has fervent activists among poets.
Poets are connecting bridges, various sources of the same water to say as, the poet Carlos Pellicer did: «Save the mystery of being always mystery. Save the man from being merely a man.»
3. Human Spirit Unity and People's Cultural Diversity
The new world, linked in since half a millennium with Western civilization, still faces the need to overcome the exclusions, denials, omissions and silences produced by the Metropolitan spoliation of the native peoples who lived here before the European conquest. Lands, languages, cultures, worldviews: inalienable capital of the American people. Concerned, wecan see how prevalent are greed, intolerance, violence and voracity on the plundering of Mother Nature.We crept carrying the legacy of shame, which shows the world the worst rates in terms of inequity, inequality, material and spiritual poverty, malnutrition, and indifference to the generations that just arrive at our common home, the planet Earth. We do not know yet freedom, love, solidarity, respect, harmony, happy life, happiness, because we subordinate to the system, reproduce it, perpetuate it.
It is necessary to assume a responsible attitude of listening, pay attention to oral language, paralinguistic language, gestures language; read the context, read the community aspirations, listening with the heart not only with the ear, open our eyes to knowledge, retake our roots to transform our lives. It is necessary to assume the attitude that leads us to be but not to know, which allows notto hold or hoard, but to share. Get back to our worldview in a relationship of the material and spiritual interpretation of time, the elements that coexist in our mother nature, the macrocosm and microcosm.
It’s a must to critically review the educational models that have been anchored in the school where it survives and reproduces the system. Yet, at the dawn of another century, we’re going through an education based on memorization and repetition that overrides the lobe of the brain which is dealing with imagination, creativity and expression, making uniform and castrating the inherent capabilities of students;there, the cry reigns still, with arrogance and discrimination. It is for this harsh reality that we are committed to cooperation, love for life, respect and unity in diversity, the empowerment of expressive abilities, critical thinking, debate, dialogue and to the building of new relationships between people and with nature.
4 . Material Poverty and Spiritual Wealth
Poetry is the natural state of spirit in this part of the world. Our nations entered history by the hand of the poets. Poetry and imagination outlined our destiny as a people. Many of our greatest men of action they were also the greatness of his spirit. Our poetry expresses a unique way of being in the cosmos. Therefore, its existence has become a fact of life among us. Led by the International Poetry Festival of Medellin has gained momentum, often in the most precarious material conditions, a movement that is based on the transforming power of poetry and dedication to service of poets. The ivory tower was placed in the museum of man, liberty leading the people devastated our laziness and highlighted that the world exists beyond us, perhaps prey of disbelief, apathy or the most hopeful urgency. In our America poets live the challenge that run the majority so long excluded, silenced or ignored. Five hundred years of neglect is a bundle difficult to remove but if people try to do, we, the poets must stand by them. Living in that dream. The work is in that utopia. Or both. As José Martí or LeonelRugama or Javier Heraud. As part of that destiny we try to work together. We need to work together. Keep unity in the most absolute diversity;in the most absolute respect for difference;the difference that strengthens our purpose in shaping a better future for men and women of our America. Tough, certainly annoying task that of finding the economic resources, to explore the ways of cooperation with regional or international entities; to envision priorities, to plan as realistically as possible within the necessary, those are tasks of the first order. To encourage or promote personal projects, shared or concerted, regional or global. Favoring the development of audiences among children and youth, support publishing projects in all media, ensuring a presence in the virtual world, view and recognize indigenous cultures, the alternative culture of resistance from a democratizing vision of culture and knowledge. It is true that the poet to do his work have enough with words, but to improve the world we live in is necessary that the word is sustained in a citizen position marked by the ethics, the most elementary understanding of human beings and a common sense that avert the danger of a return to the stone age. In Our America, despite being convinced of the severe limits of poetic action, we believe that even with words —beautiful or terrible, we have yet many alternatives to realize the simplest of our ambitions: that poetry serve the others and ourselves in the creation and enjoyment of the beauty that nature and civilization have been able to collect and preserve.
5. Actions in the Global World
We must assume the domain of communication technologies as a tool of first magnitude. An incident occurred in the antipodes in the public domain immediately.This simple fact opens up a huge possibility never before imagined in the history of mankind. The individual bilateral or global actions are viable attempts to change the world. Poetry is a tool, a resilient body in his vocation to record the joy and pain of man, exalt nature and the human spirit in its aspiration for self-knowledge, gain knowledge and master the science. A poet's word cannot stop a bombshell but can warn mankind about the danger and help shape a better future for man on earth. Convinced of the potential of the word and working together in the global world we the poets could —over isolation and indifference, to be part of the solution.
Julio 1º de 2011
