Exactly thirty-one years have passed since the first World Humanist Forum. The event, which took place in Moscow on October 7 and 8, 1993 at the Moscow Academy of Administration, was attended by renowned academics of the Russian Academy of Sciences such as Ivan Frolov, Sergei Semenov, Boris Koval, together with the founder of the New Humanism current Mario Rodriguez Cobos (Silo) and numerous humanists from various latitudes.
The day before the event, a ceremony was held in which Silo was distinguished by the Russian Academy of Sciences with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa. On that occasion, he defended his thesis on the “Conditions of Dialogue”, concluding his presentation with these words: “… there will be no complete dialogue on the fundamental questions of this civilization until we begin, socially, to disbelieve so much illusion fed with the illusions of the current system. In the meantime, the dialogue will continue to be insubstantial and unconnected with the deep motivations of society. However, it is clear that in some latitudes something new has begun to move, something that, beginning in the dialogue of specialists, will later occupy the public square”.
The following day, at the inauguration of the First World Humanist Forum, Silo pointed out that the objective of this forum would be to study and fix a position on the global problems of the world, structurally relating the phenomena of science, politics, art and religion.
He further specified that the Forum “has the ambition of becoming an instrument of information, exchange and discussion between people and institutions belonging to the most diverse cultures of the world, and that it ”intends, moreover, to take on a character of permanent activity so that all relevant information can circulate immediately among its members.”
The humanist thinker then urged the foundations of a global discussion, understanding that “in this planetary civilization that is beginning to take shape, the diversity of positions, values and lifestyles will prevail in the future despite the onslaught of uniforming currents.”
After that iconic first Humanist Forum, two world forums followed, in Mexico City in January 1994 and the following year in Santiago de Chile, at the Open Encounter of Humanism, with the active participation of more than one hundred organizations and delegations from 30 countries.
At the opening of the latter, the permanent nature of the Forum was once again emphasized, affirming the need to find “a way to bring together people and groups that wish to exchange, inform and inform themselves, present and produce with the objective of contributing permanently to the process of humanization”.
In view of the strong regionalization process underway, the following Forums were held on a regional basis. Thus, after successive sub-regional preparatory events, the First African Humanist Forum took place in Dakar in 2006, the First Latin American Humanist Forum in Quito and the First European Humanist Forum in Lisbon.
Shortly after, the First Humanist Forum of the Asia Pacific region was held in Mumbai and the First North American Humanist Forum in New York.
Since then, giving continuity to the humanizing impulse on a regional scale, the II Latin American Humanist Forum in La Paz – with the participation of the first indigenous president of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma -, the II European Humanist Forum in Milan, the II Central American Forum of New Humanist Generations for Nonviolence, in San Pedro Sula, the II African Humanist Forum in Nairobi, the II Asia-Pacific Humanist Forum in Kathmandu and in November 2008, the III Latin American Humanist Forum in the city of Buenos Aires.
During this period, Humanist Forums were also developed at national, local, neighborhood and even specific thematic levels, thus expanding the possibility of exchange and participation to the territorial roots and social base.
The bursting of the real estate bubble in the United States would give reason to the voices that, within the framework of the humanist forums, denounced the monstrosity of the speculative economy and presented alternatives for economic reorganization favorable to human development.
The First World March for Peace and Nonviolence, which crisscrossed the planet between October 2009 and January 2010, reconnected all these humanist efforts, bringing together the most diverse cultures in the common feeling and need for a better world.
The world echoed this clamor for change in 2011, when young people once again led a concomitant cry of rebellion in the most distant places such as Cairo, Madrid, Santiago de Chile, New York or Hong Kong. Hopeful uprisings that were repressed and finally absorbed by a system in evident decadence, but still with the capacity to manipulate and divert the people from their best aspirations.
Humanism, present and active in the whole impulse of transformation, continued for its part to develop Forums, which maintained a strong presence in West Africa, having as venues successively Ivory Coast, Mali, Togo, Guinea Conakry, again in Abidjan, Ghana and Benin, where seven Humanist Forums took place between 2010 and 2018.
As of this year, regional events were also resumed in Europe, with the V European Humanist Forum in Madrid and in Santiago de Chile, where the IV Latin American Humanist Forum was held under the title “Building convergences”. In 2020, when the world was affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the V Latin American Humanist Forum was organized under the virtual modality, constituting 27 thematic networks with the participation of organizations and people from 22 countries.
Present and future of the World Humanist Forum
At present, there is a clear need to join efforts to leave behind a regressive and destructive system of values and social organization. The urgency to put an end to armed conflicts and avoid more deaths and genocides, the demand to achieve dignified living conditions for vast human groups, overcoming hunger and misery, the urgency to transform a predatory economy to stop environmental deterioration, among other priorities, are in sight and constitute a view shared by the majority of humanity.
However, concentrated power, as in other historical periods, blinded and anesthetized by the pain of others, refuses to dismantle its machinery of irrational accumulation.
In the face of this, the great human groups need to articulate their forces in a planetary effort of dialogue, concerted action and convergence between cultures and peoples that will open the floodgates to a new moment in history. This is the spirit that animates the present of the World Humanist Forum, which, faithful to its initial purpose, continues to strive to become the propitious space to permanently strengthen the ties between all those who struggle daily in different spheres for a radically different future.
A future that in order to become a reality, as Universalist Humanism has maintained from its very beginnings, must be approached from a simultaneous transformation of the social environment and of human interiority, denaturalizing and banishing all violent impulses and all traits of discrimination.
From these basic inclusive premises of diversity, and a little more than three decades after giving its first signs, the World Humanist Forum encourages to undertake the challenge of overcoming individualism and social destructuring of the present. The fraternal rapprochement, the vocation to undertake collective tasks, the convergence of intentions, the possibility of integrating and reconciling old differences for the common good, the reconstruction of the social fabric, represent today essential revolutionary acts.
A revolution that will place us in the best condition to understand that there will be no progress if it is not of all and for all, that will invite us to build with the best of each people a Universal Human Nation, without borders or exclusions. A revolution that will emerge from the depths of the species to give way to a new type of humanity.