Openness, humility and trust: Conditions to achieving community democracy

Abstract

Mexico undergoes an enormous natural and social devastation. The situation has become almost unbearable in the last 35 years. As a modest contribution to confront such devastation I propose three general community categories to analyze and organize the struggles towards the building of a new social tissue. The proposal comes from my 40 years community life and work in the middle of a poor, despised and native people. Together with my wife we have condensed that experience in our 2014 book “Community: Interaction, Conflict and Utopia”. To carry out social transformations we have noticed that community integration and democratic commitment require the implementation of three elements: the creation of a structural basis, rather territorial, and a social cohesion resulting from a strong subjective conscience of dignity, at the personal and collective levels. These are characteristics that are visible in the life of an experience if one is able to perceive openness in the interactions, humility in confronting conflicts and trust in journeying towards the utopian horizons of a dignified life. In the XIX Century slavery, racism, and colonizing processes increased in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the XX Century the ambition and arrogance of the rich countries became patent through two World Wars and the Cold War. The last two decades have witnessed the development of human degradation and planetary devastation as new malignant fruits of nature´s abuse, human work´s devaluation, money´s idolatry, and overvaluation of knowledge by itself. The possibilities for a dignified life have now to be looked for at the levels, styles and quality of life that have survived in the life of solidarity, resilience and audacity of the poor, the despised and the native peoples of the world.