” “Critical conscience

Africa and Europe united in an exchange of values and a partnership built on new foundations, also at the economic and cultural levels: that’s the hope of Eugenio José da Cruz Fonseca, president of Caritas Portugal and representative of Caritas Europe, who will participate in the meeting on “Africa and the European Union: partners in solidarity” (cf. SIR 11/2003 and SIR 9/2003) to be held in Lisbon in 27 and 28 February. The meeting is being organized by Comece (Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community), in collaboration with the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Sceam). Simultaneously, the presidency of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (Ccee) is due to meet the executive of the Latin-American Episcopal Council (Celam) at Medellin and Bogotà (Colombia), from 24 to 28 February. The meeting is aimed at “getting to know the situation in Latin America, exchanging information on the activities of the two Councils and conducting a joint reflection on the themes of globalization and the new evangelization”. We put some questions to the president of Caritas Portugal. On what new foundations can partnership between Europe and Africa be established? “What’s new is the recognition that the African continent may be a resource for Europe. Hitherto cooperation has been perceived as a one-way process, on a donor-beneficiary basis. That’s no longer the case. Africa is a continent full of potential. Europe, which has rather lost sight of its own values at the present time, may learn from Africa the values of brotherhood, the family, the sense of community, to restore to the old continent the universal conscience of the importance of personal relations. In the economic field there must be a reconciliation between giver and receiver; it should be recalled that many of the resources that Europe uses are already products transformed in Africa itself. Europe therefore must invest to strengthen the potential of the African continent. And Europe can also help Africa’s democratic process. In some African countries the hierarchical structure is very rigid and the principle of democracy is not always well understood. Europe, with its experience, can assist in fostering a process of political organization. However, care must be taken to ensure that Europe’s support for the development of democracy in Africa does not smack of a colonialist mentality”. Yet the effects of globalization do not always facilitate the economic development of the African countries… “Globalization is a world problem that does not merely concern the relations between Africa and Europe. But Europe, in its bilateral economic relations, could experiment with processes within a new, more just and more coherent model of economic system”. Moreover many of the weapons used in African wars are sold by the Europeans themselves… “A great hypocrisy in fact exists in some European countries, because they frequently support a humanitarian project for the development of an African country while at the same time selling it weapons that cause death and destruction. That is cynical and hypocritical. Europe must turn over a fresh leaf and develop a platform of dialogue with Africa, also on the basis of its own humanist tradition, which requires respect for human rights and the abolition of the death sentence”. What are your hopes for the meeting in Lisbon? “First, I would like it to reaffirm that the task of the Church consists also in the reinforcement of cooperation between the two continents. The Church must be the critical conscience of this cooperation: being the depository of values, it must facilitate relations between the two continents, and recall that the dignity of the person must be respected in all fields of life: spiritual, social, educational and that of health-care. The governments of each country must try to remedy the ills of globalization by establishing bilateral relations capable of seizing opportunities and reinforcing cooperation, also at the cultural level”.