2023-06-23 22:37:05
“We want hands open to the hug.” In times marked by such a convulsive and tense national panorama, and with the extreme right so close to – and even within – power in Spain, listening to a figure like Federico Mayor Zaragoza advocate for understanding, knowledge, and a well-founded hope, works like a halo of light. And not in the form of fleeting lightning that lights up the sky for thousandths of a second to immediately disappear and take that brightness with it; but as a patient and conscious beacon of his pertinent, necessary and relevant mission. This premise is the heart of the documentary memories of the future that the Iranian director Sholeh Hejazi has assembled around his generous words.
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Further
With them, she travels through recent history from a perspective more related to thinking about what she can contribute today and tomorrow, than staying anchored in a past that doesn’t matter if it was better or worse. The key is to extract from it what can be useful to face the future, understand it and take responsibility for changing it. Because it can. In this he trusts and argues for Mayor Zaragoza, a man who was born in Barcelona during the Civil War into a humble family. During the dictatorship he was professor of biochemistry at the University of Granada, in 1968 he became the youngest rector in the history of the center, he was vice president of the CSIC, and undersecretary of Education and Science in 1974.
He also played an important role during the Transition, as a UCD deputy, adviser to Adolfo Suárez, Minister of Education and Science in 1981 and MEP years later for the Democratic and Social Center. His biography does not end there, nor do the borders he crossed. He was director general of UNESCO between 1987 and 1999 and he created the Culture of Peace Foundation, demonstrating his confidence and conviction of the capacity of civil society to generate change. That is why his arguments are so inspiring.
The film, which was presented this Thursday at CaixaForum Madrid with the presence of the protagonist and the director, will arrive at the audiovisual platform CaixaForum+ next June 29; and is articulated around an interview conducted in 2019 with the politician. The talk takes place in different locations interspersed with archive images and others of landscapes. In it, the professor is shown defending that it is necessary to “replace the traditional culture that since the beginning of time has been based on imposition, domination, violence and war” with one of “conciliation, conversation, alliance and peace ”.
At the event, Mayor Zaragoza said that Sholeh Hejazi had been an “excellent recipient” of her points of view, and publicly congratulated her on her work: “You are an artist, thank you very much.” “In a very normal way we have to tell ourselves now that many of the things that they told us were not possible are possible,” she said from the stage in a presentation in which the unknown facet as a poet of the protagonist was also claimed. “The voice must precede the fact, prevent it. After that, it’s useless. It is shaken air ”, are some of her verses.
culture of peace
Mayor Zaragoza laments, calling it “shame” that we live subjected to “the sword of Damocles of the nuclear bomb.” Faced with this “terrible threat”, the professor supports “a historical inflection” that goes through a transition of understanding and peace, as well as generating a culture in which “people do not starve every day.”
Mayor Zaragoza is not limited to pointing out the goals to be achieved, but stops to explain the reasons that show that they are possible. The first: “We are citizens of the world. Just a few years ago, we were invisible, anonymous, and in fear. Today we are visible, we can express ourselves and know what is happening beyond 50 square kilometers”.
Digital technologies fill me with hope. They have their risks, but we can demonstrate. The gag is over
Federico Mayor Zaragoza — Politician and professor
The politician takes digital technologies as allies for this transformation. “They fill me with hope. They have their risks, but we can demonstrate. The gag is over. We are neither silenced nor silent. We can say what we want ”, he exposes. The third pillar on which he bases his optimistic and responsible look towards tomorrow is “the woman”: “Until recently, she did not paint anything. They did not make decisions more than at most 5% of the total. She is an absolutely angular piece for this other world that we long for ”.
“Thanks to the fact that we can unite, we can give a big shout saying no. And not only with protests, but by giving proposals”. Naming the solutions makes them possible, feasible, and not utopias. “The future must be invented. The past has already been written and must be accurately described, but the future remains to be done”, he concludes.
A postwar childhood
The title starts with the pharmacist talking about his childhood and the Civil War. “I remember the bombings and that terrible vision of people running scared. We were being space for the technical tests of the German and Italian aviation ”, he expresses. From the formative stage, he remembers that at the entrance to the office of the chaplain of his school it was written: “The door is open, but more so the heart. A message to realize that you also have to open your mind to people. Be supportive, people with hands outstretched and not raised, armed or closed.
I remember the bombings and that terrible vision of people running scared. We were being space for the technical tests of the German and Italian aviation
Feerico Mayor Zaragoza — Professor and politician
Mayor Zaragoza emphasizes the value of science to build a better world. “There is no applied science but there is science to apply. To the extent that we know reality in depth, we will be able to modify it in depth”, he assures while stating that scientists must be close to power to “anticipate” and that “all people perceive that knowledge is always positive”.
Vision, generosity and democracy
In his journey through the history of Spain, Mayor Zaragoza looks towards the Transition to highlight “the generosity and vision that many of the politicians of that time had, who understood that the priority was to move from a dictatorial system to one of pluralism and democracy ”. In this map, the vision of Adolfo Suárez stands out.
Regarding the international context, he reflects on how at the end of the 80s “they were years in which everything cried out for peace.” Nelson Mandela “had been extraordinarily capable of ending racism, which was one of the most abhorrent things”, the Soviet empire “had collapsed”, the war in Mozambique ended, peace was signed in Salvador and ” the peace process began in Guatemala”, he lists.
The analyst believes that it is “inexcusable” that the guidelines of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were imposed. Both decided that “outside the UN” it would be the eight or 20 richest countries in the world that would rule over the 196 countries that make up the United Nations. “Globalizing neoliberalism was a huge trap into which those who agreed to confuse value and price fell”, he warns in the interview.
Mayor Zaragoza affirms that his time at UNESCO helped him “to know that there are solutions” and how they “have to be considered using the authority that having been elected to a certain position gives one.” And he adds: “You can’t play half measures.” He recalls that the future has not yet been written and is open to “the creative capacity of the human species” since “every human being capable of creating is our hope.”
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