To Joe Biden, hoping for another civilization
Mr. President of the United States of America:
I wish you Peace and Goodness.
It would be pretentious for me to address these lines to you thinking that they could even reach you. It is not so. It is only my way to join the universal outcry that expresses pressing concerns in this crucial moment for humankind and for the planet, moment of the most serious threats and the most transcendental decisions.
You have been elected President of the United States of America when the world’s confidence in your country is at its lowest and the crisis of confidence in humanity is at its highest. When the Earth, that community of living beings, is ravaged by a merciless system that prevails among humans: absolute power at the service of individuals. When the planet is ungoverned by the three major powers –USA, China and Rusia, in whatever order or disorder you may place them-, confronted among themselves because of their common goal: to dominate the world. When Africa is important only because of the riches it hides in its underground. When the so-called Arab Spring, after 10 years, is not in bloom yet. When the extreme right and fundamentalists of all colors take the streets.
The great majority of us applauded your election, and breathed relieved. But uncertainty persists. It persists the fear that you, too, will defraud the most universal demand and the most noble hope: that justice and peace be established on Earth. The fear that you, too, serving the same predominant system, will betray us just like your mentor and democrat predecessor in the White House did: Barack Obama. None of his inspiring words was fulfilled. Yes, we can, he proclaimed, and we believed him. But he deluded himself or deluded us, and 8 years later the world was in a worse situation, and the despaired people of your great country elected the worst candidate of all times for president, and we are still asking ourselves this terrible question: what does it mean that such a candidate became president of the US?
In spite of everything, Mr. Biden, we congratulate ourselves for those measures that, in the first 15 days after you were sworn into office, you promptly adopted or announced: the re-acceptance of the Project for two free and viable States of Israel and Palestine, the return to the Agreement agains Climate Change, the legalization of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants in the USA, the reactivation of the nuclear agreement with Iran, the stop of arms sales to Saudi Arabia… These are bright signals after very dark years, not only the last four. Will they be the morning lights of a new day? They will not, if you abide by the principle that has always inspired republicans and democrats alike, “America first”, if above all you insist on pursuing “America will be great again”, like we heard during the last few days, on strengthening its Armed Forces and military bases, on recovering its world leadership, on helping Wall Street, on winning and conquering.
You have the responsibility that corresponds to your power, which I am not able to evaluate, nor can I evaluate your willingness. One thing is certain: the Earth cannot tolerate so much spoliation any further. Humanity cannot suffer so much inequality any longer for the benefit of the most powerful, enemies of the Common Good. No one person of good will can tolerate that the 1000 wealthiest persons of the planet may have now recovered by far their losses at the beginning of the pandemia thanks to the booming stock market which has destroyed 255 million jobs and plunged into desperation hundreds of millions of women and men. Politics cannot continue being subject to financial powers which have no homeland but profit, no frontier but their own benefit. World governance cannot continue being dominated by a speculative economy at the service of the individual’s benefit. Greed is the worst pandemia and the source of all evil: we either end greed or we will end everything including ourselves, as it is already happening. But how will we end greed if we are not born again, that is, if we do not discover that we are happier when sharing more and having less rather than when having more and sharing less? And how will we be born again?
You profess faith in Jesus of Nazareth, and I want to think that he inspires his criteria for political action looking at the world, and being sensitive to suffering. Jesus, the man who was free and a brother, the man who was compassionate and happy, the man who was human. He did not adhere to the Christian religion but to a free, liberated and liberating humanity, to the breath that moves the universe and life: The Spirit encourages me to announce the good news to the poor, to proclaim the liberation of the slaves, to free all those oppressed (Lk 4,18). The heart of the world and of the Gospel proclaim with one voice: Blessed are the poor in spirit: those that look at, feel with and live beside the poor. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice: to give each one what each one needs. Blessed are the merciful: those who know how to step into the other person’s shoes. Blessed are those who build peace from the depths of peace (Mt 5,3-9).
Those are the keys to rebirth. That is the way towards a new humanity in communion with all living beings, solidary with all peoples as brothers and sisters. That is the horizon to a new understanding of reality, beyond all creeds, cults and codes: a new collective conscience, a new planetary organization, a new civilization, inseparably spiritual and political. All this can be summarized in a simple and universal idea: nobody –be it an individual or a state- will be happy without the other one or against the other one, but only with the other one.
I respectfully greet you.
Aizarna (Basque Country), 31 January, 2021
Translated by Mertxe de Renobales Scheifler