Foreword of Santi Vila

 

The world has changed greatly and for the better. As I write these lines, the National Institute of Statistics has just announced that, for the first time in history, there are more kids named Mohamed in Girona than Jaume or Lluís. Despite the fears of the complainers and worriers, globalization and technological progress have decisively altered the artificial division of the world and have dismantled the old administrative barriers that claimed to arrange and divide the human species into a thousand and one tight compartments.
When we, humans, become familiar with and have to live with differences (cultural, national, religious...), we learn a great lesson: that though we are all certainly different, at the same time, we are similar. Despite dressing differently, eating different foods, or praying to different gods, ultimately, men and women around the planet, anxiously yearn for the same things: freedom, beauty, and love―the great values that precisely reaffirm our humanity.
The puzzle-book that you are holding addresses precisely this, the celebration of diversity, in particular the right to create a family. The book reminds us of the importance of the family for the development of a person, and for the society as a whole. In addition, it shows us that in our modern world a family can have many different models: heterosexual, lesbian, gay, reconstituted, single parent, extended, adoptive... and, more importantly, all these family realities are justified by a single fact, which is not only related to the civil laws that recognize these realities, but also to the love that ties them together.
As a mayor of Figueres and a member of parliament, as a “different” being among equals, the publishing of Famílium by two local writers is a source of pride for me, and reaffirms the wisdom of Harvey Milk’s words, written just before he was killed in San Francisco for fighting for civil rights: “I know that you cannot live with hope alone; but without it, life is not worth living!” Initiatives such as this one make us reconcile with life and renew our hopes, probably utopian, that heaven on earth is possible while remaining the way we are! While remaining who we are!
Congratulations!
Santi Vila i Vicente
Mayor of Figueres