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 Rodríguez 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

New Humanism is based on two 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. This vision of the future is called the Universal Human Nation. 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 on May four, 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.

By 1980 the Movement was functioning in forty two countries. In 1981 The Community for Human Development organised a lecture tour around Europe and Asia. The Look Within, The Internal Landscape and the Book of the Community started being published and translated into many languages.

In 1983 the Movement was articulated into Councils (see Organisation) and a way of working was defined in a material called the Norms. Subsequently in 1984 the Humanist Party was founded, followed by The Greens.

After the launch of the Humanist International in 1989, the strategy turned once more to the development of the Humanist Movement in a more general form and its organisation structure. A stage of putting down roots in communities, with the opening of Centres of Communication and the publication of hundreds of neighbourhood newspapers around the world was started.

By 1995 the direction of the Humanist Movement went towards a phase of massive growth with the opening up of 10s of new countries across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. This mostly was made possible through the launching of the Centre of Cultures

1999 saw the detachment of the first autonomous council (council 2) away from the original council (council 1) having fulfilled the requirements previously laid down in the Norms.

In December 2000 with the creation of a further nine autonomous councils, the conditions were met for the inaugural meeting of the Assembly of General Coordinators in Mar del Plata in January 2001: each General Coordinator as the orientator of an autonomous council.

In December 2001, all councils previously oriented by Silo had met the conditions for their autonomy and Silo became "hands-free" and having other plans in mind he took the opportunity in the meeting in January 2001 to retire from the Assembly of General Coordinators.

Since that time more than 250 councils have gained their autonomy.

Organisation

The way in which the organisational structure of the Humanist Movement functions is described in the document called The Theory of Organisation.

Structure

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

The structure is the membership of the Humanist Movement. To be a member of the Humanist Movement there are three requirements:

• Pay the membership fee twice a year that is set at a level according to the country of residence of the member
• Participate in regular weekly meetings of personal work (or personal development) and organisation of social activities.
• Participate in seasonal meetings that take place on or around the 21st of March, June, September and December.

The structure is generally considered to be the driving force for the growth of the organisation.

Functions

There are three functions or roles in the organisational structure.

• Orientator/Orienter - The orientator (UK) or orienter (US) is the person who put the group together and the person who ultimately decides the strategy of the group.
• Support - The support member is the person in the group who takes responsibility for the training in the elements of personal work.
• Administrative - The Administrative or Admi is the person in the group who takes responsibility for distribution of information, compilation of the seasonal census of members and the collection of the membership fees.

The objective of the structure is to reproduce itself. In this way, it is hoped that new members of the organisational structure will eventually take one of the three roles. For instance, a new member participates in a group for a time, decides they would like to become an orientator, starts their own group and finds two members in that group that can take on the Support and Administrative functions.

Once a group has developed levels and functions it is considered to have transformed from a group into a structure and is known as a council.

Levels

People who have taken on the above three roles are promoted up through the levels of the organisational structure through their ability to grow their groups. The following are the five levels of the organisational structure:

• A participant in a group takes the level of Group Delegate
• An orientator who has a group of ten Group Delegates is promoted to Team Delegate
• An orientator who has a group of ten Team Delegates is promoted to General Delegate
• An orientator who has a group of ten General Delegates is promoted to Coordinator
• An orientator who has a group of ten Coordinators is promoted to the highest level in the structure known as a General Coordinator

According to the current agreements of the Assembly (see below), female members must meet 70% of the requirements of male members. This was implemented to address an imbalance in the genders of members at the highest levels of the organisational structure.

Assembly

When a Coordinator reaches the level of General Coordinator, the organic link between the new General Coordinator and their orientator is broken, the two General Coordinators become peer members and the new General Coordinator joins the body known as the Assembly of General Coordinators which is the highest instance of the Humanist Movement.

The Assembly is a collegiate body that is permanently in session through virtual communications, informal meetings and the Annual Ordinary Meeting that takes place in January. Every two years the Assembly elect a General Coordinator Delegate who takes on the responsibility for facilitating the functioning of the Assembly and making sure the Annual Ordinary Meeting takes place.

The Assembly develops its strategies, its internal agreements and its ideological positions through the forming of Commissions that; study particular themes, develop proposals and seek approval from the other members of the Assembly.

Adherents

An adherent is simply one that agrees with the project of the Humanist Movement and takes no commitment.

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 three 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

Humanist Party logo

The idea of the Humanist Party as a political party was launched 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 Rodríguez became the first elected representative of any Humanist Party in the world after winning a seat as part of the Concertación coalition, 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 six 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 other organisations). Eventually, the Environmental policies of the Greens were incorporated within the Humanist Party which resulted in their merger.

The official documents of the Humanist Party can be found in the Book of the Humanist International.

The Centre of Cultures

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

Action fronts of many themes are developed by humanists around the world. They do not necessarily fall under the umbrella of any of the specific organisms. For more information consult the list of websites referred to at the bottom of this page.

• World Without Wars
• Humanists for Health
• International Federation of Human Support (FIAH)
• International network for Humanist Education
• Education for non-violence

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-liberación) by Luís 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 referred to as Siloist Psychology and a concept known as the "Space of Representation", what has been referred 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.

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

Letters to my Friends: On Social and Personal Crisis in Today's World is a book that outlines the scope of the crisis in which societies and individuals are immersed according to the point of view of the author. It is put together as a series of ten letters that were written between 1990 and 1994. The sixth letter, which is better known as either the Statement or Document of the Humanist Movement and has been taken as one of the Foundational documents of the Humanist International, contains a general point of view about; Global Capital, real vs formal Democracy, the emergence of a Humanist sensibility in the world, anti-humanist characteristics and Humanist Action Fronts.

Some of the other chapters deal with such themes as; personal coherence and solidarity; the nature of human beings; social revolution; the armed forces and Human Rights.

Silo Speaks (Habla Silo) by Silo

Silo Speaks is an anthology of opinions, commentaries and speeches given by Silo between 1969 and 1995.

The book starts with the first public explanation of New Humanism in a speech called The Healing of Suffering. It continues with a section that contains many explanations about themes such as: meaning in life, perception, voluntarism, the nature of human existence and religiosity.

The second part is a series of book presentations given during the publication of some of his previous works.

The third part is a series of talks given on such themes as: Humanism and the New World, Humanism and the Crisis of Civilization, What do we understand by Universal Humanism and the Theme of God.

Others

• Morphology (Morfologia) by Jose Caballero
• Guided Experiencias (Experiencias Guiadas) by Silo
• Contributions to Thought (Contribuciones al pensamiento) by Silo
• Universal Root Myths (Mitos raices universales) by Silo
• The Day of the Winged Lion (El dia del leon alado) by Silo
• On Being Human by Salvatore Puledda
• Complete Works Volume 1 by Silo
• Complete Works Volume 2 by Silo

Founder

Mario Rodríguez 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 other organizations

The history of the Humanist Movement has not been without its conflict with other organisations and individuals.

During the 60's as the initial groups were forming with the name "Young Power" many problems existed with the Catholic Church in Argentina. The organisation being clearly anti the military regime in place in Argentina at that time also came under attack from the government with many people arrested and put into jail, two people were killed and an attempt was made to shoot Silo.

Later on with the advent of the Humanist variant of the Green Party, humanists were exposed to a lot of opposition in Italy, Spain, the USA, the UK and Germany. Some people in the Green movement interpreted the Humanist Movement as being opposed to environmentalism, considering that humanity, not nature, should be the focus of attention. The response from the Humanist Movement was that environmental exploitation happens because society is following values (such as money, economic growth, etc) that are contrary to the human being. The argument continued 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.

In the UK and USA there has been confusion between the Humanist Movement and organisations such as the British Humanist Association and the American Humanist Association who promote secular humanism.

Some disaffected former members have also complained that the Humanist Movement is a cult, though some ex-members object [1] to this label, considering this merely an attempt to discredit the organization.

See also

• Regularly updated list of Humanist Movement websites around the world.
• Silo's message
• Presentation, some history
• Chicago humanist
• An "cult watch" website with many resources
• "The other humanists" - a secular humanist article critical of the Humanist Movement