AVP - CRISTIAN DEMOCRATA ARUBA
   
AVP, FESCA & Fundacion Digna Lacle-Herrera present
THE 1ST SYMPOSIUM ON COMMUNITARIS IN ARUBA
Focus on family, neighborhood, community and values for a better community
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dr. Amitai EtzioniHe is known internationally as the father of the modern Communitarian concept. He is recognized as one of the 100 greatest thinkers in the world today. He received countless prizes, nominations and recognition for his books and publications and his contribution to creating a better quality of life for humanity. We are referring to Professor Amitai Etzioni, presently Professor and Director of the Political Science department at George Washington University. He was a founder of the communitarian movement in the early 1990s and established the Communitarian Network to disseminate the movement’s ideas. His writings emphasize the importance for all societies of a carefully crafted balance between rights and responsibilities and autonomy and order. The main idea of Etzioni is that individual rights and aspirations should be protected but that they should be inserted into a sense of the community (hence the name of the movement he created, 'Communitarianism').

Professor Etzioni will be the keynote speaker at the symposium given by the AVP, FESCA and the Digna-Herrera Lacle Foundation with the main theme being “Communitarianism”, on November 6th 2007.
The other special invited guest at this symposium will be Professor José A. Ruiz San Ramón from the University of Madrid’s Sociology Department. A great academic authority also, who together with other professors such as Professor Jose Perez Adan and Professor Carlos Diaz are spreading the Communitarian word and thinking in the Castilian world..

“This symposium will go deep into the communitarian philosophy and will put this concept on the table as the source of thinking from which we can get our inspiration for a political process and organization with a more humanitarian emphasis, which puts our standards and our values as the center, which concentrates on reinforcing the family nucleus and the bonds of friendship, solidarity feelings and the coexistence in the community”, leader of the AVP, Mike Eman explained.
“Many of the problems we see here in Aruba are related to the deterioration of our family ties and in our community. In order to remedy this situation we have to have a better handling directed at strengthening these values, reinforcing the fibers which bind a society together”, Mr. Eman expressed. Professor Etzioni instituted ideas, recognized internationally, on how with management, example and inspired leadership we can reach this better society. Communitarianism shows that we have individual right, but we also have a social responsibility to our neighbor, our country and our future. To reach the common good is a shared responsibility. We should not live with the thought of “me”, but of “us”.
Men, women and children are members of many communities: family, neighborhood, a big number of social nucleos, religious, ethnic, work related and professional associations and of a complete town. Neither human existence, nor individual freedom can be supported for a long period of time outside of the interdependent and interrelated communities to which we all belong. Nor can any community survive for long if its members do not dedicate part of their attention, energy and resources to common projects and common causes. A community which is well treated by the state will respond to the call to get together for the common cause.
Considering the importance of this theme, its similarity with the fundamentals of the AVP’s Social Christian ideology and its relevance for the future of Aruba, the leader of the AVP, mr Mike Eman and parliament member Benny Sevinger participated at the 1’er Encuentro IberoAmericano on Communitarianism in Boyaca, Colombia in July of 2006. There they sought in depth knowledge on the subject during a 3 day seminar and made the contacts with the intellectual authorities on this issue to bring a symposium on Communitarianism here in Aruba. In March of this year, Eman visited Professor Amitai Etzioni at the George Washington University and extended an invitation to solidify the organization of the 1st Communitarian symposium in Aruba.
Communitarianism is based on the thinking that a good society can be reached if it has the following 3 support pillars: the state, the market and the community. In the great ideologies like the social ideology, the state plays a dominant role. In the liberal ideology the market is the predominant factor. In the development of the Christian democratic ideology, the idea of communitarianism got its roots a long time ago, with the social-christian thinking which has a 3rd factor that has to carry a society, which is the community. This fact stands out at the starting point of “shared responsibility”.
Here the citizen, the family, the neighborhood, the church, the educational institutions and all other non governmental organizations in a community, be they social, sport related, commercial, union oriented, political and the constitutional institutions advise and control the government. To attain a good society, the 3 factors, government, market and community must also have an agreement with a moral base, with the emphasis being on respecting the freedom and the necessary space of each individual and must have as its goal to share the realization of a better society for one and all.
In this situation, the state must act responsibly with the resources of the country and must create more space for communitarian aspects and at the same time must create the space and stimulate the market so that it also feels that it has to share the responsibility in the common goal for the general interest. The individual family and the communitarian organization of the nucleus must be stimulated into solidarity with their neighbor but also into social responsibility, for one another and for the general welfare.

In countries which grow and modernize with the goals of globalization, the fibers of the society are under a lot of pressure. It is important to analyze how to strengthen these fibers within the new reality of life. This is the goal that the AVP, the FESCA and the Digna-Lacle Herrera Foundation wish to reach with this symposium about communitarianism.

 
 

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