The strength of nonviolence will transform the world!

With this and other slogans such as Violence can be learned, nonviolence too! the campaign: Let’s organise peace and active nonviolence Now! closed on Sunday 23 October in the Ihuanco Park of Study and Reflection.

From the moment we arrived at the Park, the meeting place, we could sense an atmosphere of joy, happiness and reunion among those we had not seen since before the pandemic. Undoubtedly that festive, joyful, gentle way of companionship is the one that we are building day by day with our actions and that already heralds the world that is being born in the midst of the confusion produced by the collapsing system.

We left in a caravan from the Park to Cerro Azul and gathered in the Plaza de Armas. The sit-in in the Plaza was a celebration of nonviolence, everyone dressed up with banners, posters, pennants, etc. invited those who were passing by or resting on the benches in the plaza to talk or take photos of themselves joining in nonviolence. Passers-by got caught up in the proposals and the festive atmosphere and took photos to upload on their social networks. Other activists handed out flyers to passers-by and talked with them about the need for nonviolent action and shared the need to build the world we long for in the depths of our hearts.

It was a great surprise for all of us to see the openness of the community to our themes, as well as to realise, that many people in Cerro Azul still do not know about the Ihuanco Park of Study and Reflection.

Then, with a banner in front of us, we walked through the streets of Cerro Azul towards the beach, chanting slogans and inviting people to join in this joint construction of a world of peace and active nonviolence. We could perceive a great receptiveness in the public. This whole journey was extremely inspiring, we felt attuned to the open future and many images of what we could realise in the future were launched. We talked for example about the need to be rooted in the environment in which the Park is located.

Then we went by caravan to the Park of Study and Reflection Ihuanco where we closed this wonderful day with a closing speech given by our friend Carlos Degregori and a craft ceremony in the hall.

Here I share the full speech of our Carlos Degregori because I think it is the most evident example of what all of us who were there felt.

“It has always been our work together that has brought us this far, otherwise it would be incomprehensible to maintain our objectives, our voluntary work in the world. We live in an environment of great disorientation and mistrust as factors that detract from our action.

Our action is valid, we overcome personal and social inconveniences, this strengthens us and gives us confidence, nobody can tell us that our activities are not important and useful, we are still a weak voice and our cry does not reach everybody, our historical moment is yet to come, because many of us already live day by day that desired future. The sacred reveals itself in us leaving us with great insights and gives us the force to bring our voice and conventions to the people around us.

After this pandemic enclosure our actions will grow, war is fear, barbarism and madness, and so is discrimination and poverty.

This world is about to explode and there is no party or movement on the planet that will solve this crisis’, words of Silo in 1969.

Only inner meditation and contact with the sacred will open our future and give us clarity and force to take our goals into the world. They will give us the balance and joy of living and death will not be fear and suffering, but a transcendent experience, there is no human future without our values and coherent conduct.

We have to distance ourselves from the fanatical rationalism and materialism that has created a spiritual void in the world where only individualism, success and money remain as gods and central values.

Finally, thanks to this total crisis of civilisation, we can illuminate a different future, change our lives and humanise the earth, leaving violence in human prehistory, to understand forever that we are all brothers, that life has meaning and that we can live twenty-four hours a day in the presence of the sacred.

Peace, force and joy to all!”