Heroes for a Better World

Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia
(1924-)

Mexican Indigenous Human Rights Activist
1996 Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award
1997 Martin Ennals Human Rights Award Winner
1998 AFSC Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
2000 International Simón Bolívar Prize

birthdate: November 3
birthplace:
ciudad de Irapuato, state of Guanajuato, Mexico

QUOTES

The indigenous peoples understand that they have to recover their cultural identity, or to live it if they have already recovered it. They also understand that this is not a favor or a concession, but simply their natural right to be recognized as belonging to a culture that is distinct from the Western culture, a culture in which they have to live their own faith.

The indigenous peoples are emerging with an awareness of their identity.

Today in America as in other parts of the world we see a model of a society in which the powerful dominate. They marginalize and they go as far as to eliminate the weakest before the homogenization caused by this system of globalization. Through providence we have the taking of conscious cultural identity. As such the church has a special mission to be the defender and promoter of a culture of life. This culture of life assumes a preferential option for the poor, opposes or puts the globalization of solidarity in opposition to the globalization of the markets. It makes itself a voice for those who have no voice; denounces all violence, all racial discrimination; walks beside those condemned to the land, those that are displaced; is a promoter of integral development in the construction of peace in the search for justice and liberation. This culture of life is what is expressed as a service of hope. This urgency exists in this precise moment in which the indigenous person, conscious of being a subject to their own history, will not opt for a church that submerges them in a conflict where they have to live their faith being aware of expressing it within a dominant culture.

we also now have consciousness that poverty is not a result of a lack of education or of drunkenness or of non-participation by indigenous people but rather that it is the social structures that cause that lack of education and that lack of participation and the poverty of indigenous people.

despite the homogenization that globalization tries to impose on.us, we are seeing a rise, an increased awareness of cultural identity.

we begin to see solidarity between the first world and the third world in the understanding that this world can be changed, that we can build a better society if we work together and that another world is possible and necessary. Two very positive points of the moment we're living in. The first is that despite the homogenization that globalization tries to impose on.us, we are seeing a rise, an increased awareness of cultural identity. That despite what's happening externally and what's being imposed, we are becoming more in touch with our cultural identity around the world. The second positive is this growth, this unprecedented growth of international solidarity working for a better world. These two things mean that we're working for change now, not in the very long term but in the near term future and we'll begin to see those changes. And on the third level, the final level, we're all becoming aware that we have a role to play in the two other levels, whether it be through political involvement, political engagement, participation and community group participation in fair trade initiatives. We have a role to play in those levels, but more importantly, we need to realize that we have a role to play in overcoming our own discrimination which is sometimes very subtly held but that we do need to overcome it and see our indigenous peoples as brothers and sisters, not because we are legally mandated to do so, but because we genuinely see them as our brothers and sisters in the struggle for a better world.

 


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