Some people often use to say that in life we have few privileges. However, most of them fail to measure the greatness of simple, or apparently simple, things like seeing, reading, feeding ourselves, being able to access health services, education, justice, freedom.
That simple word contains what, in my opinion, is the greatest wealth we can possess. Freedom to move, think and express ourselves, love and choose who we love. Even destroy or destroy us.
This book has made me think about the exercise of freedom, about the way in which the world acts and how we act in it, almost without awareness of what we do, about the way in which we are free to associate, relate and therefore, Freedom forces us (paradoxically) to exercise it within the limits of rationality and responsibility with ourselves and with the planet we inhabit. After all, we have nowhere else to go.
What need do we have to establish boundaries, to separate ourselves more each day from the other? Have we ever stopped to think about what the world would be like if we were aware that we could be one, although diverse? This book, like almost never before, has brought me to that point.
Dreams, the place of freedom par excellence, can come true if we fight for them with determination. World Citizenship is a possible dream.
The articles - chapters that make up this book guide us towards the awakening of individual and collective conscience which, ultimately, is what is desirable, so that we can be citizens of the world, a phrase that has been heard or read many times, but not has been sufficiently well presented or considered. This is a happy exception.
The social, economic, cultural, ethnic, and political aspects are addressed clearly, with a language and style that makes it easy to be read and understood.
This is not intended to be a book of dogma, but rather a proposal to begin the path towards a better future, built by everyone, compiling the contributions of different visions but that focuses on the Human Being, in our home. Planet Earth.
Great progress has already been seen in regional and even international, intercultural, political and economic agreements, which are good, but not so good in terms of the production, distribution, sale and purchase of weapons, substances that, in some parts, are members of the cultural acquis and in others they are considered illegal.
These phenomena could well be explained from the perspective of Habermas, Bauman, and others, even at the risk of falling into simplism and/or deterministic reductionism.
We are all one, respect for otherness is the key for freedom to be established and thus, the “Global Village” can overcome the crises in which it is immersed, many times due to failures in communication and absence of empathy; the pretension of wanting to impose ideas on others, to dominate through force and not with the force of reason. This is the origin of many unnecessary conflicts. This text is not about proposing a unified vision of Orwell and Huxley, but rather about understanding that we can be united in diversity, as the Baha'i principles clearly state, to cite a current of thought.
It is in the communication where we have the best tool to forge a global society, where we can agree on the common goals of the survival and preservation of our habitat, with all that this implies. We have used it efficiently and we have succeeded. Or we have almost achieved it.
The creation of blocs such as the European Community, Mercosur, the Arab League, and others, has made it possible to bring together communities similar in thought and interests and thus become stronger to negotiate, assert their rights and defend themselves against possible attacks. However, will it be possible that all groupings can ever be governed by a global control body?
Any reader who approaches the text will soon find themselves reflecting on themselves and what they can contribute to improve from within and towards the environment, analyzing concepts such as Globalization and Worlding.
It is like a ticket to the world of self- and collective consciousness, allowing you to finally answer whether global citizenship is a possible dream and, if you believe so, set yourself the task of making it a reality.
This book does not pretend to be the last word on the issues raised, but it does show us a possible roadmap and, as a conscious reader, I feel obliged to reflect on what I have read, what I have learned, what I can put into practice to make the world a better place, if not already for me, for generations to come.