August, 2011. The team of Lavapiés (Madrid, Spain) is campaigning to protest for all the expenses and disproportionate consideration assumed by the Spanish Government regarding the visit of the Roman Catholic Pope to Madrid, albeit this should be a secular country according to the Constitution. The campaign demands the same respect for all religions, including atheism.

The Pope visits us. This happening, regarded as a kind of pre-campaign by the right-winged Popular Party (PP) and endorsed by the supposedly left-winged party in office, the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party)is indeed an upholding of old Roman Catholic Church dogmas and values.

In demanding the same respect for all religions and beliefs, naturally including atheism, we are showing an utter deference for personal experience and our right to express it, regarding each one’s sense of the transcendent, individual and cultural values.

There is no way or answer, no individual experience that should be censored or judged from one single faith’s perspective. Nor we recognize any authority to impose “their” morality. Every single human being owns a unique psychic and physic structure, and all attempts by political or religious powers to rule over them are in fact atrocious acts of violence.

In our neighborhood many perspectives and landscapes coexist, many cultures and different sensibilities, and we can dream of a convergence of this diversity as the advance of a universal human nation, manifold and rich in colors and experiences.

The Pope, his court and the youth organizations that surround him, may gather and express whenever they want to, but by their own means, without pointing anyone out with a “blaming finger” and leaving some space to breathe for those of us who think differently. There is no such a thing as “Western values”, there is no religious state in Spain and certainly not all the youth is homogeneous and obedient.

These are times of cultural blending, of uprising both spiritually and intellectually. These are times of changing and questioning the establishment. This might be a matter of worry for some, but for us represents a great satisfaction.

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Nación Humana Universal - NHU
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Translated to English by Benjamin Hernandez