2015 UNESCO CHAIR’S ORATION DR RIGOBERTA MENCH ú WELCOME.

2015 UNESCO CHAIR’S ORATION

DR RIGOBERTA MENCHú

WELCOME

Dra. Rigoberta Menchú Tum1992 Nobel Peace Prize

Theme: Social Justice and its

Global Perception

Job’ Tz’i’ – July 29th, 2015

Translated by Laura Barraza & Mayte Orellana

Within their complementary and dual nature, humans are material, social and spiritual beings.

From the Mayan vision of the cosmos, different aspects are considered to achieve a plentiful life, such as material, social and spiritual factors. Without these, one cannot reach harmony or balance, and therefore cannot reach plenitude in life.

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Where reciprocity, integrity and unconditional love towards Mother Nature and its duality are inherited values. These values are the basis of healthy human relations between men and women, between people, cultures and communities, and that teach us how to live in unison with diversity, holding a mutual respect towards each other as a core value.

According to the Mayan vision of the cosmos, it is important to understand these principles before being able to understand and give meaning to the Western concept of Social Justice.

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For centuries, human history has been characterised by the oppression resulting from violence and war, particularly in relation to the imperialist powers that have colonised Indigenous nations and forced its people into slavery and submission.

Throughout our history of dominance and submission, our means of reaching balance and equality through our material, social, spiritual connections with others have been constantly altered and destroyed. These events have broken and scarred the fundamental principles humanity must follow to reach a just and plentiful life.

FUENTE: https://paideiablog.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ciudadaniaglobal.jpg


Social justice has leaped forward and regressed after events such as the great economic crises in the global capitalist system and the emergence of two world wars and the subsequent cold war, all of which involved the world’s most powerful nations.

From these, the central European and industrialised countries received the most benefits, in which the progress resulting from the social economy and wellbeing led to leaping rates of human development.

FUENTE: https://paideiablog.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ciudadaniaglobal.jpg


Those who were most severely affected by the consequences of the Cold War were the developing countries, suffering from the insurgence of armed conflicts and military dictatorships. Furthermore, the First Nation’s people were those that faced the worst forms of racism and discrimination, often becoming victims of genocide. As such, our communities in Latin America grew in the opposite direction as Europe, with escalating rates of social injustice.

Fuente: http://www.google.com.gt/url?sa=i&source=imgres&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAgQjRwwAGoVChMIvsyzmY_qxgIVgiqICh2ukAai&url=http%3A%2F%2Fburbujitaas.blogspot.com%2F2013%2F10%2Ftrabajar-pueblos-originarios-nivel-inicial.html&ei=XiCtVb6lKoLVoASuoZqQCg&psig=AFQjCNGhZUqy_zA-aNaMQg63mT-dZmOzOw&ust=1437495774874160


We can take the United Nation’s 1949 Declaration of Human Rights as a reference point of the outcome of the Indigenous leader’s and organisation’s ongoing fight for Indigenous Human Rights. We have in this declaration a vast normativity in favour of the human, individual, and collective rights of First Nation’s people which has led experts and relevant organisations to believe that there is already a political and legal framework that can be used as a basis to implement these rights.

Some Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala have shown significant progress in their constitutional framework, as they offer exceptional political opportunities and have set a new agenda in the relations between the state and the Indigenous communities.



As positive outcomes are slowly arising, some Indigenous communities have paved their paths to success through reforms in educational policies within a multicultural context, and through the administration and access to justice systems and self-managed projects that foster local economic development.

However, there are many impediments and obstacles that have been faced in the process of applying and implementing these doctrines of positive law. Their correct implementation depends on the establishment of effective public policies that are able to offer operability and purpose to the application of Indigenous rights, and consequently pave the path to longstanding social justice.



The capitalist and neoliberal systems have created a civilisation centred on the market economy, focused on buying, selling, destroying, and disposing of resources. These systems are the primary contributors of social inequality and of the excessive destruction of the planet Earth.

These systems have made use of all of their institutional, technological, political, legal, judicial and repressive tools to impose financial, occupational, educational, and energy sector reforms. As a result, these reforms have become a hindrance to the advancement of social justice in our communities. Fuente:

https://puntodevistaypropuesta.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/neoliberalismo.jpg


These systems are resolute in their eagerness to weaken the major social economies of the market, and will not be satisfied until they see a total collapse in our wellbeing and take away the life of our systems of social justice that were defended by countless generations of social activists and leaders.

The ambition of globalising the transnational capital along with Creole economy has altered and broken the general principles of law, institutionalism and democratic governability of the basic human rights. It imposes norms, ethical and juridical laws that oppose and harm the set of principles that enable a social life in harmony, mutual respect, and uphold to the values most people still abide to.

Fuente: https://puntodevistaypropuesta.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/neoliberalismo.jpg


The profound nature of the social inequality and instability that we now find in humanity is the consequence of our way of producing and distributing resources. This has significantly contributed to the industry that produces poverty, the destruction of identities, cultures and ancestral values, all of which are necessary for a harmonious coexistence based on mutual respect.

It has been responsible for promoting the precepts of arrogance, greed, jealously, limitless ambition, intolerance and voracious materialism that cause pain and suffering, and further result in social instability and the unprecedented decadence of the planet.

Fuente: http://www.profesionalesetica.org/wp-content/themes/volt/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.profesionalesetica.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Democracia-sin-religi%C3%B3n.jpg&w=460&h=300&zc=1&q=100


In this moment of history, humanity needs to visualise the signals of our own strength so that we may redeem, recreate, and reinvent our lifestyle and claim our self and collective happiness. We must stop the destruction of humanity caused by our individualist and materialist ways.

We must articulate a vision of change rising from the organisation and construction of the global, regional and local alliances. These must be centred on generating a dialogue seeking to create a single agenda that benefits all of our First Nations people and communities in the planet.

We must therefore construct our history on the foundations of ethical equality, gender equality, and generational equality, because diversity is the root of our strength and natural wealth.



To our children and youth who are the centre of the present and the future: Help them cultivate the guiding principles of political, social and ethnic consciousness which are the nature of our being, and to raise awareness of our own strengths and limitations to find a collective solution to break the silence of injustice.

It is thus vital to tell the children from humble families: you have the right to dream, you have the right to succeed.



Kin K’amawaj Chiwe

Muchas Gracias

2015 UNESCO CHAIR’S ORATION DR RIGOBERTA MENCH ú WELCOME.

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