Humanist Movement

The Humanist Movement is an international volunteer organisation that promotes non-violence and non-discrimination. It is not an institution and has no offices anywhere in the world. It takes its inspiration from the current of thought referred to as New or Universal Humanism that has been developed since 1969 by its founder Mario Luis Rodriguez Cobos (pen name: Silo).

New Humanism focuses on the overcoming of pain and suffering at a personal, interpersonal and social level. It defines violence as anything that causes pain and suffering to human beings. In this way violence is seen to have many different aspects, not just the well-known physical form but also; economic, religious, psychological, sexual, ethnic, etc.

Introduction and basic philosophy

The personal philosophy of New Humanism is based on 2 basic points:

Solidarity – defined as treating other people the way one would like to be treated and,
Coherence – defined as thinking, feeling and acting in the same way.

The project of the Humanist Movement is to eradicate; war, hunger, poverty and economic exploitation across the planet and develop a new system based on the value of human life as the central value, higher than money, power, prestige, etc. The methodology used is to work in groups and undertake personal development activities as well as social projects. Once sufficiently experienced new groups develop according to their interests.

New Humanists share the following Humanist Attitude:

Placing the human being as the central value and concern, in such a way that nothing is above the human being and no human being is above another.
Affirming the equality of all human beings.
Recognizing personal and cultural diversity, affirming the characteristics proper to each human group and condemning discrimination, whether motivated by economic, racial, ethnic, or cultural differences.
Developing knowledge beyond the limitations imposed by prejudices accepted as absolute and immutable truths.
Affirming the freedom of ideas and beliefs.
Repudiating violence in all its forms.

History

Near the end of the 60s, Silo organized a group to study the personal and social crisis occurring in the world. This group, and others like it, organized around his writings, grew and developed into what later became known as the Humanist Movement.

The Humanist Movement is often said to have been started started on May 4, 1969 with the talk "The Healing of Suffering" by Silo at Punta de Vacas, Argentina. Because of the military dictatorship in place at that time this talk was permitted on the condition that it would be held high in the Andes Mountains, far from the nearest town.

These initial groups faced repression and disinformation campaigns as they grew and spread throughout Latin America. This growth was reinforced when some of the members, freely or as political exiles, took up residence in various countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

In 1975 one hundred members from different countries met in Corfu, Greece to agree on proposals, objectives and a rudimentary organisation that would be tested over the next four years.

Organisation

There are two ways to be part of the Humanist Movement, as a member of the Structure, and as an adherent (supporter, collaborator, etc.).

The basic unit of organizing is the team. Any member of the Structure may become an orientor and start a team. Members of that team may likewise start their own teams. A team transforms into a council as the members are building their own teams. A council is a structure of teams.

Each team has a weekly meeting at the same time and place each week. There are two parts to this weekly meeting, personal work and social organizing.

Organisms

The Humanist Movement develops official organisations, referred to as Organisms, in the political, social and cultural fields, according to the legal requirements in the country where the Humanist Movement is being developed. The strategy of the Humanist Movement is to launch the following 3 organisms in every country in the world where it is possible to do so.

The Community for Human Development
The Humanist Party
The Centre of Cultures

The Community for Human Development

The Community logo

The Community for Human Development, launched in 1981 is a social and cultural organisation that works for Non-violence through simultaneous social and personal transformation i.e. through the transformation of the structures of society and the way that individuals act in the world.

The Community has the following objectives:

To create the conditions for human beings to be free, non-violent and to live in solidarity with others, to give direction and meaning to their lives; for individuals to work for their own destiny and for the social struggle for conditions in education, health and quality of life that allow every person to evolve without obstacles.
To build a new moral force that serves as a social and personal reference.

The Community works in society in the areas of education, health, culture, and quality of life. In each of these areas it denounces all that which hinders the development of the human being and develops actions that favour it.

The key characteristics of the work of The Community are:

Voluntarism - disinterested giving allows the truly human dimension to appear.
Direct communication - allows isolation to be overcome and a daily personal engagement in the name of ones values and aspirations.
Active non-violence, as a methodology of action and as an internal and external attitude that favours life

The official documents of the Community can be found in the Book of the Community.

The Humanist Party

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Humanist Party logo

The idea of the Humanist Party as a political party was launced on 8th March 1984 as a recommendation from the Department of Social Affairs of The Community for Human Development. Around the world many Humanist Parties started to emerge and on 4th January 1989 in Florence, Italy, the first congress of the Humanist International was held.

In this event, the foundational documents were adopted, including the Declaration of Principles, The Thesis, Foundations for political action and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In December 1990, in Chile, Laura Rodriguez became the first elected representative of any Humanist Party in the world after winning a seat as part of the Concertacion after Augusto Pinochet handed over power.

In October 1993, the second congress of the Humanist International was held in Moscow, Russia, whereupon the Document of the Humanist Movement was also incorporated as a foundational document. This document had previously been circulating as chapter 6 of the Book Letters to my friends.

In 1999, regional coordination bodies of Humanist Parties were formed in South America and Europe. The regional bodies of Africa and Asia are expected to be formed in 2006.

In addition to the Humanist Party, the Community for Human Development later recommended also the formation of a party based on a New Humanist approach to Ecology. The subsequent formation of a party called The Greens, caused much confusion in Europe where both The Greens and The Green Party were sometimes fighting elections against one another. This lead to a great deal of bad feeling from the Green Party (see the section below on conflict with the environment). Eventually, it was decided to incorporate the Environmental policies of the Greens, within the Humanist Party which resulted in their merger.

The Centre of Cultures

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Centre of Cultures logo

The Centre of Cultures was started in 1995 from Milan, Barcelona and Marseille as a response to the increasingly difficult situation faced by newly arrived immigrants to Europe.

The objectives of the Centre of Cultures are:

To rescue the humanist ideas, beliefs and attitudes in every culture.
To promote dialogue so that cultures may recognize their own value and through this can recognize the value of the others.
To promote the deepening in comprehension of people’s own cultures for a better understanding of their roots and an intentional strengthening of their best aspects.
To promote the questioning of abuses of power as well as the values upon which the present system sustains itself. Helping to appropriately address cultural conflicts.
To disseminate the ideas of universal humanism as the basis for the construction of a new universal human culture.
To deepen the concept of active non-violence as a methodology of action

By the year 2000 this organisation was recognised as the third official organism of the Humanist Movement and had opened new centres in New York, Madrid, Bombay, Zurich, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile.

The work of the Centre of Cultures brought the Humanist Movement into contact with people from countries in Africa and Asia where it had previously had little presence and this led to a massive explosion in its membership in those areas starting in the late 90s.

Action fronts

World Without Wars
Green Future
International Federation of Human Support (FIAH)

Books

Humanise the earth (Humanizar la tierra) by Silo

A three part work comprising The inner look, The internal landscape and The external landscape. Each part deals with a different aspect of human existence.

The first part details the authors search and subsequent discovery of meaning in life. It describes meditation exercises called the experience of peace and the experience of force and describes a strategy in life for avoiding pain and suffering called the principles of valid action.

The second part deals more with psychological issues and the interpersonal issues that an individual faces during their life. Themes such as; faith, provisional meanings, giving and receiving, contradiction and unity are dealt with. In addition the theme of the Internal Guide, an inspirational image that an individual can configure and use, is introduced.

The final part deals more with the external conditions in society, covering such aspects as; law, the state, religion, education etc.

Self-liberation (Auto-liberacion) by Luis Ammann

Self-liberation is a book that can best be categorised as "Personal development". It contains a number of different techniques that can be done in groups and in pairs. The different sections deal with; Relaxation and working with mental images, the scheme of the different centres of response (the intellectual, emotional, motor, vegetative and sexual centres) and exercises for the first three centres called "psycho-physical gymnastics" and two further sections called "Catharsis" and "Transference" which are together known as "operative".

The work of Catharsis and Transference takes the participants deep into an area of what can be refered to as Siloist Psychology and a concept known as the "Space of Representation", what has been refered to by others as the "mind's eye", or what one is able to intentionally imagine when one closes one's eyes, when one daydreams or when one dreams during sleep.

The exercises are designed to help the participants; reconcile with their past experiences, find strength in their current situation and develop a positive and joyful image of the future. According to the explanations one carries one's bad experiences around in the consciousness and from there they act in the present and affect the future. By seeking out the bad experiences and painful memories and working on them using the techniques of catharsis and transference mental energy can be released and one can live one's life more intentionally and less restricted by one's past experiences. The whole body of the work is meant to be done in such a way that there are no roles of "therapist" or "patient", all parties take all the roles to establish an equitable relationship that can engender trust and a deep entering into the themes.

Guided experiences (Experiencias guiadas) by Silo

Letters to my friends (Cartas a mis amigos) by Silo

Others

Contributions to thought (Contribuciones al pensamiento) by Silo
Universal root myths (Mitos raices universales) by Silo
Morphology (Morfologia) by Jose Caballero
The day of the winged lion (El dia del leon alado)by Silo

Founder

Mario Luis Rodriguez Cobos, also known as Silo, was born in 1938 and lives in Mendoza, Argentina. As the author of many books, he received an honorary doctorate from the National Academy of Sciences of Russia in October 1993.

In 2001, in the Annual Ordinary Meeting of the Assembly of General Coordinators, the highest level of interchange for those involved in the organisational structure, in Madrid, Spain, Silo announced his retirement from the affairs of the Humanist Movement, leaving all further development in the hands of this collegiate body that he himself had created.

Since that time, Silo has started a new project, known as Silo's Message. This project is a spiritual development based on some of the earliest forms of meditation exercises developed by Silo in the 60s called the work with the force.

Conflict with the environment

Some people in the Green movement interpret the Humanist Movement as being opposed to environmentalism, considering that humanity, not nature, should be the focus of attention. A response from the Humanist Movement perspective would point out that environmental explotation happens because society is following values (such as money, economic growth, etc) that are contrary to the human being. The argument continues by pointing out that if we were to truly act on human values, there would be no need for a conflict with any living things.

It is quite different from other forms of humanism (such as secular humanism), which has sometimes led to confusions. It is sometimes described as a cult, though some ex-members object [1] to this label, considering merely an attempt to discredit the organization.