It is difficult for me to choose a single outstanding idea to start talking about Federico Mayor Zaragoza. He just died at 90 years old. and few people experience them so rich in results, so full of intelligence and commitment to peace, justice, solidarity, and tolerance. Perhaps the best summary for today is what he said with passion: “Do not be afraid,” invoking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which quotes the phrase in the preamble. Mayor Zaragoza said that this Declaration was promulgated precisely to free humanity from fear.
It is doubly appropriate to affirm it now, in these times in which all the ghosts of fascism are reborn. And Federico Mayor Zaragoza said it all before. There has been no significant undertaking in which he has not been involved. The Culture of Peace Foundationcreated in the year 2000, marks his figure and his ideology, prioritizing rejection of violence in all its forms. He did not stop denouncing spending on weapons, confronting this waste with unaddressed poverty. “4 billion dollars a day are spent on weapons while so many are dying of hunger,” he repeated over and over again. He was against the massacre of Palestinians at the hands of Israel and denouncing the passivity of the EU. He called for the search for solutions to the war in Ukraine. . He has been a permanent defender of women’s rights. Of truthful and verified information. And he warned at the first symptoms about the implosion of the society of the spectacle that was beginning to rot it.
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