1996 IHEU Congress in Mexico City

Two women call for tolerance and humanity

THE MOST recent Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union was held in Mexico City 14 to 19 November 1996. Within distance of 1000-year-old pyramids the up-to-the minute theme of the Congress was 'Global Humanism for the cyber-age'. Among other topics for consideration were the threat of intolerance, empowerment and sustainable development, and shared global values. There were also sessions on science and superstition, human rights and development, humanism and the arts, humanist philosophy, humanism in Latin America and the future of sex and gender.

Mexico City, situated high in a bowl surrounded by mountains, straddles the modern and the ancient, encompasses Western development and the poverty of the undeveloped. It is a city which has grown from a population of three million to one of twenty-one million in two decades. That most integral of machines in developed countries - the motor car -- creates havoc and jams around the city and causes polluted smog to hover above the city. Situated upon the site of the ancient Aztec city it is aptly placed for discussion of ancient human values and the frontiers of modern humanism.

Patricia Lopez Zaragoza, the Congress Director, opened the Congress. She asked whether humanism is political or personal and pointed to the global village or family of the planet and warned that there is a loud clamour for morals based on magical positions. It is indispensable to find values which will create more well-being for all - including the underprivileged.

'Humanism needs to come to the edge of the new technoculture. The need to have ethics in the mass media is obvious. The temptation is to use sensationalism to sell, so that the mass media are not tools in the service of the community, not the beacon of ideas and discussion in the community which we would wish. Humanism should strive for a truthful media and for the fulfilment of the whole of society in the future.

At the Congress humanist awards were given to Shulamit Aloni and Taslima Naslin for their work for humanism in the world today. Shulamit Aloni is the former education Minister in the Rabin Government in Israel. In receiving her award she said:

'Earlier I naively believed that desire for peace would be the dominant force in Israel and elsewhere. But given the tribal ethnocentric forces it is hard to address people with shared aspirations. In Africa enormous quantities of arms are available for warfare. The "enlightened world" is providing these arms.

'At the beginning of the nineties with the collapse of communism and the removal of apartheid in South Africa there was euphoria. I have re-read my speeches at that time: I naively believed in the rational human being. But we must understand the forces of superstition and tribalism. We must ask what has made the forces of clericalism so powerful. We know reasonable people, scientists and so on; but we cannot understand the uneducated struggling for bread, struggling for survival.

'We must examine ourselves and see what we have done well and where we have made a dreadful mess. At the end of the twentieth century democracy should provide thinking people with a decent society. But the emphasis on wealth has reduced solidarity; the poor are poorer, the rich more egotistic and grasping, so it is not surprising that fundamentalism grows.

'Followers of fundamentalism find a sense of solidarity. We must provide an alternative life of dignity for all.

'Humanists must change the zeitgeist. We must say yes to the four freedoms of Roosevelt, yes to human solidarity and dignity, yes to civil society. "No Man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the Main. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" (John Donne).'

Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer, doctor and campaigner for women, has been in exile in Europe after a threat of trial for blasphemy. She is devoted to the ideals of tolerance, respect and equality.

She claimed to be an atheist from personal experience. She grew up in a country where people were forced there by the partition of India on religious grounds. She accepted that religion could cause great art, but said that it also did too much damage. She began to apply her powers of observation, analysis and reason to religion and found she could not accept it at all. She used her writings to expose the crimes of religion, which teaches people to hate one another and glorifies poverty. The position of women concerned her and she questioned why women in the East should be deprived of education. Democracy and secularism should be put in practice throughout the world.

Xiao Xuehui, who was not able to be present from China, was given an award for her stand in defence of human rights, democracy and humanism.