Petro, the first President of this South American nation to receive the honorary degree, in his acceptance speech, took a journey through his country’s history, from the first moments of the onset of violence that spans two centuries, to the introduction of slavery , social inclusion and the story of an eternal and perpetual armed conflict.
In his reflections he wondered if we could become peaceful societies, deep and multicolored democracies. Could we banish the word “armed conflict” from the world in all its complexity? He asked himself.
For the President, if humanity does not resolve its own violent divisions, the answer is given, and then it could be reconciled with nature.
We see it in the war in Ukraine. Everything there was centered in Europe and the United States on who wins, moves arms, thwarts processes, to see if NATO is installed or not, or if the Russian empire is established or not. And what about the climate crisis? Keep it up.
War and the division of humanity take time away from the chronometer of existence and life.
If we have a mission that is to bring to what surrounds us as planets this virus that we call life and of which we are the most evolved species because of our intelligence, then we can only do it if we overcome our own deadly division , our reign of death .
A mission maybe, but it can also be a failure. And the failure of that mission, neither more nor less, is being called the extinction of the human species on the planet at this moment, he warned.
The Colombian President led a broad agenda in Costa Rica with meetings with his counterpart Rodrigo Chaves to address common issues such as security, migration, tourism, biodiversity and the coffee market.
Ode/Alb