Federico Mayor Zaragoza, one of the most intelligent and complete biographies, as a former President, former Minister, former Member of the European Parliament and former Director-General of UNESCO (between 1987 and 1999) and currently President of Fundación Cultura de Paz, an authorized voice of assessment CaixaForum Macaya was recently appointed in Barcelona as a category C2 international center for the social and human sciences.
The future of the planet
“We cannot overburden the habitability of the land. We have a responsibility.”
What does it mean to be a UNESCO C2 Centre?
It is very difficult to be a UNESCO accredited center. It requires experience, in this case twenty years, and the ability to finance itself, duly approved by the institution box. It is the first center of social sciences and humanities in Spain and in the whole world there are only twenty.
Facade of Palau Macaya, a modern building now included in the CaixaForum network
What will your task be?
Being a hub in contact with other social and humanitarian institutions, organizing discussions, seminars and mobilizing people and entities around sustainable development and the 2030 Agenda.
And those tasks will not be the purview of the United Nations or countries?
We are having a hard time, even more so after the Trump hiatus, who put everything on hold. And Europe does not interact either, it must be able to modify its operating system, which requires the consensus of all members, and this takes away its power and maneuverability. Francesc Goma, my teacher at Fertilia, told me that consensus is the antithesis of democracy. The same can be said of the UN veto. We’ll have to go to the weighted vote. When there is a veto, democracy ends.
And how powerful is UNESCO?
UNESCO is the intellectual entity of the United Nations. For 40 years it has been for the benefit of man and the biosphere, free and responsible education, and intergenerational declaration of responsibilities, but it has become a human entity. Whoever rules the world is G-7 and G-20, and they are actually G-1 because they are always the same person who controls everything. We have to respond, we have a moral responsibility, we cannot destroy the habitability of the earth. How will we look in the eyes of our children and grandchildren! I call for democratic pluralism and the proclamation of democracy at the global level.
moral responsibility
Camus wrote: “I despise them because they can do so much, they dare not so much.” I hope our kids don’t think about it.
How dramatic is the situation?
In Tortosa, where I used to go when I was 10 or 12, my Aunt Emilia would always tell me, “My son, there is no cure for that.” I thought yes, there are cures, but now we find ourselves for the first time with irreversible phenomena, and I say so in my book invent the future. Climate change is real, the Arctic is melting on us; Thousands of people are forced to emigrate due to starvation and many die along the way, and in the meantime…the arms race continues. Given this, we cannot remain silent and also have the possibility to express ourselves through digital media. People, when they hear about the social sciences, think of something academic. No, we are talking about the fact that thousands of people in Madrid or Barcelona have to go to food distribution centers every day to eat. You have to muster! Francesc Goma himself, whom I quoted before, made us read a book by Camus at the age of seventeen in which the phrase “I despised them because they could do so much that they did not dare so much” was read. I hope our kids don’t think about it.
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