Humanist Movement - History

History

Near the end of the 1960s, Silo organized a group to study the personal and social crisis occurring in the world. The group intends to give a global intellectual response to a world in crises which takes place in the social and personal fields. The personal and social crisis of the '60s demands responses that are not in sight and that requires previous pausing anew (reformulations) in which the inteluctual prejudice must be eliminited. Three sectors of research are organised. 1) that of daily and personal existence. 2) that of the social activity. 3) that of the methodology of the research. the group makes its own Kant's declaration: "critisism, to which everything should be submitted, is characteristic of our ephoch: in vain try to escape from it religion for being saint and legislation for being majestic, since they would then arise founded suspicions upson trying to impede their thorough examination, rationaly carried out.

This group, and others like it, organized around his writings, grew and developed into what started life as The School and after many iterations later became known as the Humanist Movement.

The Humanist Movement is often said to have been started May 4, 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. 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.

In 1993 the Document of the Humanist Movement was published. The first Humanist Forum was held in Moscow, Russia, and The World Center of Humanist Studies was founded.

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. In addition, from Spain the action front called World without Wars was legalised that later went on to become an official organisation of the Humanist Movement.

By 2006, the first Parks of Study and Reflection are launched around the world.

In 2009, the organisational structure articulated in 1983 was dissolved by Silo leaving behind 5 official organisations to represent the Humanist Movement's interests in various fields of human endeavour.

On 2 October 2009, until 2 January 2010, the World March for Peace and Nonviolence went around the world from New Zealand to Argentina calling for the eradication of Nuclear Weapons, the withdrawal of invading troops from foreign territories, the signing of peace treaties between countries in dispute, progressive and proportional conventional weapons disarmament and the implementation of articles in national constitutions to renounce the use of war as a means to resolve conflicts, such as Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. The World March was the initiative of the Humanist organisation, World without Wars and without Violence and was promoted around the world by Humanist and other organisations.