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Nobel prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel calls for "rethinking the world" and supports the Manresa 2022 project · 31/12/2020

31/12/2020

"At a time like this, it is important to rethink the world in which we live, and in this framework a project with the values of Manresa 2022 is completely appropriate and necessary." These are the words of Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, an Argentine activist who was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize 1980. In an online meeting with the Mayor of Manresa, Marc Aloy, the Councillor Juan Calmet and other representatives of Manresa 2022, Esquivel has expressed his enthusiastic support about the project and his willingness to cooperate with it.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel considers that in a time of transcendental changes in the whole humanity, to which the Covid-19 pandemic has been added, "it is important to recover the spirituality, the philosophy, the thought". According to him, the situation we live in forces us to "establish a loving balance with Mother Earth, which is the only way to achieve peace."

In this context, Esquivel says that "we must take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Manresa 2022 project", which promotes aspects of transformation and social change from various fields, starting from Ignatian legacy. For Esquivel, “we have to build the post-pandemic. We must generate a new social pact of coexistence, and that is why  it is important to evoke a figure like  Ignasi de Loiola and its values ”, like tolerance, the fight against poverty, austerity or the sense of community ”.

The Argentine Nobel prize, fully active at the age of 89 and still a university professor, presented all these ideas in a telematic meeting with the Mayor of Manresa, Marc Aloy; the Councillor of Tourism and Projection of the City, Joan Calmet; and the manager of the Fundació Turisme i Fires de Manresa, Albert Tulleuda, and others.

Esquivel already knows the city, which he has visited twice, and is willing to take part in the events of Manresa 2022 if his health and his busy schedule still allow it. The Argentine Nobel states that he is on the side of the project because "good causes must be supported, without much thought."

“Atomic arsenals are useless in the face of a tiny virus”

Throughout the conversation, Esquivel referred to the coronavirus pandemic that affects the whole world and recalled that "the great powers have atomic arsenals but are of no use to them in the face of this tiny virus. Pride and power in this case are useless.

According to him, in today's world “we have to focus on thought, and philosophy. We need to rescue spirituality, and I mean go beyond religions. Because religions have also caused a lot of conflict and anxiety. We have to rethink the world we live in, that's a big challenge."

The Nobel prize considers that "peace is not just the absence of conflict, it is a permanent dynamic in relationships between people and nations. As the Mexican Benito Juárez said, peace begins with respect for others ”.

In relation to the fact that Manresa 2022 is based on the figure and values of Ignasi de Loiola, Esquivel considers that “it is very important to remember. The peoples that forgot are peoples that disappear. It is necessary to recover the memory but not to stay in the past, but to understand the present and illuminate the way: to mark us what to do and where to go. Saint Ignatius was very clear about these existential issues ”.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel concludes that "Manresa has a treasure in its hands, the stay of Sant Ignasi in the city".

Activist for peace and human rights

Born in Buenos Aires in 1931, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel has a degree in Fine Arts and a doctorate in Architecture and Urbanism. Professor at the University of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidad Nacional de la Plata and full professor of sculpture at the National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. In 1976, the military dictatorship of Jorge Videla ceased his activity.

Since 1971 he has been a follower of Gandhi and non-violence. He has been and is a reference in the defense of human rights in Latin America and in the whole world. In 1980 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He had previously been persecuted and imprisoned for his defense of human rights. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Nobel this October, the Argentine government honored him and he received a letter of recognition from Pope Francis.

In October 2004 he visited Manresa in the framework of the Forum of Solidarity and Ecoviure, and shortly afterwards he gave a lecture there, together with the Catalan activist Arcadi Oliveres. In 2005, Pérez Esquivel supported the complaint filed by the family and Manresa City Council against the perpetrators of the murder of the Manresa nurse Flors Sirera and eight other aid workers in Rwanda. He was in Madrid for the act of support that took place before the National Court.

Esquivel is not the first internationally renowned activist to support Manresa 2022. Recently, those responsible of the project met with Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former Director-General of Unesco, who was also identified with the initiative and is willing to collaborate. All this after that in the last June the project was exposed to Pope Francis, during a visit to the Vatican, and he showed his willingness to visit Manresa on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the stay in Manresa of Saint Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, to which the pontiff belongs.