Letter to Hugo Chavez

Milan, 17 October 2005

To Hugo Chavez Frias
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Dear Mr President,
As President of the European Humanist Regional and member of the Humanist International I would like to express to you my profound gratitude for your firm will and your tenacious struggle in the attempt to build a new path in the History of our times.

There are many things that bring us together in the present and many more things that we could build together in the near future.

We are the same Humanists that in Venezuela are working inserted in diverse Bolivarian projects to offer our modest and tenacious help and our best training workshops (Venezolana de Televisiòn, INCE, Sunacoop, etc.).

We are the same Humanists that are working in Chile for the construction of not only a new left-wing party, but also a new power, with new forms of political and social representation.  As you know very well, Juntos Podemos and the Chilean Presidential Candidate, the Humanist Tomas Hirsch, gather the experience and energy of these People (communists, socialist, Christians, Humanists) that have always struggled for Liberty and Justice, for Human Rights, and have defended this part of Latin America against the old dictatorship of Pinochet and are struggling against the present imperial dictatorship of the USA and its President George W. Bush and want to build economic relations based on solidarity among the peoples of Latin America, like  MERCOSUR, against the impositions and the exploitations of FTAA.

We are the same people who in Europe are fighting against the absurd war in Iraq, that with a loud voice are asking for the withdrawal of the “occupying” troops and denouncing the Governments that support them.  We are the same people who are struggling for the defence of the Rights of those who because they are “foreign” are considered to be new slaves in this new form of “globalising” economic exploitation.

Humanists are women and men of this century, of this time. They recognize the achievements of humanism throughout history, and find inspiration in the contributions of many cultures, not only those that today occupy centre stage. They are also men and women who recognize that this century and this millennium are drawing to a close, and their project is a new world.

Humanists feel that their history is very long and that their future will be even longer. As optimists who believe in freedom and social progress, they fix their gaze on the future, while striving to overcome the general crisis of today.

Humanists are internationalists, aspiring to a universal human nation. While understanding the world they live in as a single whole, humanists act in their immediate environments. Humanists seek not a uniform world, but a world of multiplicity: diverse in ethnicity, languages and customs; diverse in local and regional autonomy; diverse in ideas and aspirations; diverse in beliefs, whether atheist or religious; diverse in occupations and in creativity.
(From the Foundational Manifesto of the Regionals belonging to the Humanist International) 

With these simple words I would like to express to you my wishes and hopes that the constructors of this Universal Human Nation, starting in Bolivarian Venezuela, in Chile with “Juntos Podemos” and across Latin America, can come together and follow in the footsteps of Simon Bolivar and the great liberators of past, present and future centuries, and that as soon as possible they can embrace the Brothers and Sisters that in Europe are working on the construction of the bridge to a New World.

As a symbol of our fraternal friendship and as a brick in this construction, please receive, with this brief letter a small gift: “Letters to my Friends” by Mario Luis Rodriguez Cobos (Silo), inspiration and encouragement behind this vast movement that is being built in more than 120 countries and with millions of hands, this first part of the Universal Human Nation.

A strong embrace of Peace, Force and Joy,

Giorgio Carlo Schultze

President of the 
European Humanist Regional
Of the Humanist International