ETHICAL HUMANIST CONFERENCE IN COSTA RICA

by Warren Allen Smith

The first major humanist conference in Latin America took place in Costa Pica in July 1995. Warren Allen smith, an editorial associate of Free Inquiry in the USA, reports:

THE Ibero-American Ethical Humanist Association (Associacion Iberoamericana Ptico Humanista -- ASIBEHU) met in San Jose, Costa Rica, 20-22 July 1995. Several hundred attended the group's formation meeting at which individuals made plans to establish chapters in all Central and South American countries.

Alex Cox Alvaratio, a faculty member of the University of Costa Rica, is President of the new organisation. He was assisted by Marco Castillo, a San Jos~ lawyer whose Associacon l~tico Humanista Costarricense (ASIBEHU) was founded in 1989; and by Mexico's Patricia Lopez Zaragoza of the Associacion Mexicana l~tica Racionalista. Other philosophers who spoke were Jesus Puertas Fuertes, from Zaragozo, Spain; Enrique Bernain of Chile; and film critic Gabriel Gonzalez Vega, of Costa Rica.

In attendance were Rob Tielman, co-President of the IHEU, who was instrumental in arranging funding from the Dutch government for the new association; Dr Vladislav A. Tomavic, a Bosniari-Montenegrin sociologist teaching at Brock University in Canada; Dr Clifford Holland of England, speaking on 'M. La Soeur', a Canadian humanist; Dr James Birx, chairman of anthropology at Cansius College in Amherst, New York, who spoke on 'Evolution and Humanism'; Harold Holler, German gay rights activist and proprietor in Costa Rica of Casa Blanca; Warren Allen Smith of the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH), who spoke on 'Humanism and the Arts'; and Tim Madigan of CODESH, who spoke on 'Death Culture versus Life Culture: A Reply to John Paul II'.

Television interviews of Senora Lopez and Senor Puertas netted many curious visitors, and instantaneous translation from English to Spanish was provided throughout the conference.

Costa Pica, a progressive and influential Central American nation known for having no army, is one in which Catholicism is the state religion. 'World Philosophers to Meet in San Jose' was the headline of The Rico Times prior to the conference. Journalists later reported that the Catholic hierarchy was highly critical of the meeting, but no demonstrations occurred, partly because of a teachers' strike against the government during the week of the conference.

Visitors took the opportunity to view the Irazu and other volcanoes, the rainforests with sloths, swimming in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific oceans, and the unusually appetising ‘Tico’ food, so-called because Costa Ricans are known for adding ‘tico’ to the ends of many adjectives.