HUMANIST MANIFESTO FOR EUROPE
The Europe of Cultures, Diversity and Solidarity
Europe is not one people.
Neither is it a closed and unmoving socio-economic union.
Europe cannot end up a fortress.
Humanists see Europe as the inheritor of the contributions of many peoples and cultures that have found themselves in this common space. Mixing and interacting, they have advanced and widened the horizon of the human spirit.
Our history is the interplay of influences, invasions, wars, moments of darkness and also moments of great human and social development.
Europe: invading and conquering, invaded and conquered. While it colonized, it learned from the people it sought to subjugate.
If Europe has produced moments of pain and suffering, it has also stored the treasures of knowledge – and at times that knowledge has grown and been projected towards the firmament, giving rise to science, art and human development.
Collapses and relapses, followed by reconstructions, learning how to give each other a hand, and how to give it to others.
And looking into our eyes, we have progressed, seeing the other no longer as an enemy but rather as a brother. The Yes of the centuries adds up and grows in strength, illuminating our steps.
Today, at the dawn of a new world, Europe is converging and the latent Yes of its peoples is preparing to make a leap like never before in history. But the No of petty interests is also visible, darkening the future.
The Yes of the peoples of Europe backs a different future, open, enriching and new. It backs the Europe that is being born.
The No of petty interests wants to subjugate what is new, open and diverse, reducing our common space, Europe, to a closed place where cruel and stupid materialism will smother the flight of the human spirit.
The No backs hegemonic power in the hands of a few.
The Yes backs a mosaic of peoples and cultures and a Universal Human Nation that is emerging.
Today, as in other times, peoples from all corners of the planet are coming to Europe, living together and dreaming of a common future. They have arrived, settling in these cold, inhospitable lands of amazing ice and snow-peaked mountains, in these lands of fertile valleys where the days are bathed by the sun.
At this crossroads, will Europe be able to find the best from within itself? Will it be able to learn again? To unite wills and efforts and make a new jump in its history?
Humanists stand for a diverse Europe, a Europe of open doors, a Europe that grows richer from human knowledge, and that enriches it as well, a Europe that fights to make way for the times to come, opening the doors of the future for all. A Europe from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea.
We ask ourselves today: "Who are we? What is Europe?"
We are not the product of marketing.
We are not a cold and calculating force with hegemonic dreams.
We are not a perfect machine.
We are not the dominant culture.
We are not barbarian warriors who plunder treasure and land.
We are a group of peoples who, tired of fratricidal wars, have decided to walk together.
We are people who have ventured to know and invade other cultures, and history has shown us that the hand is better than the sword, dialogue better than imposition.
We are the legacy of millennial cultures.
We are the past, but also the future.
We are that renewed humanist pulse that sinks its roots in yesterday, and that today fights to express itself in the world.
Today, before this vibrant future that is opening up before us along two paths, we express a commitment and an aspiration that puts us on the path towards the Universal Human Nation that is being born.
We reject all forms of violence: physical, economic, racial, religious, moral and psychological.
We reject all cultural forms that empty the human being of its essence and convert it into a thing.
We rebel against the tyranny of this dehumanizing system that, aside from the illusory triumph of a very few, leaves millions of people in social, moral and spiritual misery.
We reclaim the need to fight for a just and non-violent future, not only for us but for all peoples who live in and come to our common space.
We recognize the failure of a civilization based on violence and we are prepared to build a new human civilization based on the moral principle:
"Treat others as you would like them to treat you."
We aspire that the nations of Europe will make their best efforts in favour of the other nations.
We commit today, you and I, all of us, to take these ideas and express them to others. These ideas, these words, are also a feeling. A feeling that comes from deep within and also a sensibility that shouts strongly and forcefully:
Yes to the open Europe, the multicultural Europe, the Europe of the new times.