Communication for Integration: a message to CELAC
28/01/2014
- Opinión
On the occasion of the second Summit of CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), from the Forum on Communication for Integration of Our America, composed of social organizations and movements, alternative and popular media and media networks from the region, we underline that regional integration can only become irreversible through vibrant people’s participation. This means incorporating citizens, people’s organizations and their rights, since without such participation, this process could become fragile.
The establishment of a common Latin American and Caribbean space, that would detonate a substantive increase in interchange and trade among our countries, propose common policies that lead to better infrastructure, provide incentive for shared productive policies – both industrial and technological – that complement one another, as well as common educational, social, environmental and cultural plans, would provide a necessary demonstration to the effect that this is not only a utopia, but the outline of a road-map that would confirm the fact that it is possible to begin to develop regional-level public policies.
Communication and information constitute strategic lines of action for the processes of regional integration as well as approaches to political, cultural and ideological disputes that arise, themes that to date have not formed part of the agenda for integration processes in the region.
A policy of integrated and integrating communication should be promoted by the regional integration bodies, States and spaces of public and citizens' communication. To democratize our societies it is absolutely necessary to democratize culture, education, information and communication.
We can only applaud the efforts undertaken by distinct integration initiatives designed to guarantee technological sovereignty, prioritizing free/open source software and platforms, to develop a common and complementary fibre optic ring as well as to democratize Internet governance.
Together with the recuperation of technological sovereignty in Latin America and the Caribbean, we need public communication that is totally free of promotional interests of any kind: commercial, partisan, national or religious, and committed to one cause, that of integration. And by integration we understand the horizontal coming together among social subjects of distinct nationalities, capable of sharing common projects in a climate of diversity and plurality.
This should have as a starting point the significance of integration as a strategic project and should stage a debate in Our America concerning the meaning and the benefits of consolidating processes such as that of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). A policy of integrating and integrated communication should create ties between the media, universities, research centres and integration processes in order to carry out common activities and put together a network that will contribute to the consolidation of the symbolic and cultural basis of integration.
It is necessary to provide greater context, a broader historical framework, to show the multiplicity of actors in the processes of integration, and to open a debate founded on critical thinking. In order to consolidate an integrating future it is necessary to consolidate an integrating past.
The Forum on Communication for Integration of Our America, committed to furthering the integration of people’s organizations, native peoples, alternative and popular media, along with academics, in order to influence policies of regional integration, recalls the fact that there will be no integration if it is not consolidated through the specific relations of culture and communication.
Forum on Communication for Integration of Our America
https://www.alainet.org/en/active/70861
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