Establish a collective path towards peace. With this objective in mind, the we are preparing to burst onto the national and European cultural scene once again Our theme for 2023, ‘United for peace’, endorses this ambitious challenge that the macro event has set itself for its 28th edition, in which it, once again this summer, strives to be much more than a music festival: a multicultural, inclusive, family-oriented and committed gathering.
“We are extremely concerned about the war in Ukraine; it seems that we have become accustomed to talking about it, without focusing on the risk of nuclear war that it poses, and we say no loud and clear. No to war. No to the risks that come with it”, say the festival organisers. “We want the political class to know it, to raise the volume of our voice and not give the slightest chance for this destructive path to continue; we want to create, within the framework of an international and diverse event like Rototom Sunsplash, a global movement against all wars, not only against this one that we feel so close to us, and for peace”, the festival’s management said.
Thus, the defence of peace, and the collective effort to make it possible, which emanates from the festival’s theme, will be present in all its cultural areas. Above all in the Social Forum, the space par excellence for debate, reflection, interaction and the construction, together with experts, of proposals to address the great global challenges, such as war.
Precisely the first debate of this year’s edition, takes its title from the theme for 2023, ‘United for peace’, will mark the path towards this challenge, and will do so with a dialogue between the political scientist and activist Noam Chomskyconsidered to be “the most important contemporary thinker”, by The New York Times, and the journalist specialising in international information and Human Rights, Olga Rodríguez.
Together, at the heart of the Social Forum , they will weave this much-needed discussion about the convulsive reality that not only Europe, but many other places on the planet, are going through, and which feed back into parallel “interests” that hinder dialogue towards peace, as Chomsky himself has indicated, critical of the government of his country, the USA, in allusion to the war in Ukraine. A confrontation that is, he says, “a death sentence for humanity” from which “no one will come out a winner”, although he leaves a halo of hope: “The only way to know if there is a possibility of a political solution in Ukraine is to try”.
The voices of these two protagonists, their experience, and the contributions of the audience, “will undoubtedly be the best starting point for what we want to achieve this year, which is to build a world in which we get used to talking about peace, and not war”, say the festival organisers.
Noam Chomsky (Philadelphia, United States, 1928) is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and laureate professor at the University of Arizona. Chomsky dissociates his scientific activity from his political activism, which stands out for its defence of human rights and freedoms, with particular emphasis on the media and also on the defence of peace. His activism began against the Vietnam War.
Olga Rodríguez (León, Spain, 1975) has covered as a journalist some of the most important events of the last twenty years in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She is the author of several books, such as ‘El hombre mojado no teme la lluvia. Voces de Oriente Medio’ and winner, among others, of the Journalism Award of the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España 2015 and the one awarded by the Club Internacional de la Prensa for Best News Piece 2006 for her reports from Gaza and Ciudad Juárez, Rodríguez is also co-screenwriter of the film ‘En los márgenes’, directed by Juan Diego Botto, starring Luis Tosar and Penélope Cruz and with five nominations for the 2023 Goya Awards.