Archbishop José Manuel Imbamba, who was speaking this Wednesday at the opening of the Social Week 2023, taking place in Luanda, also said that the way of being and acting of Angolan citizens should also be replaced by participatory culture.
"Well, while that (culture) excludes and impoverishes this one includes and enriches," said the Catholic prelate, considering that society must "liberate and educate" for civility in the difference for respect and for the culture of justice and peace.
For the president of CEAST, the history of post-independence Angola poses several questions, such as whether the political culture has encouraged the conscious, active and responsible participation of citizens in the construction of the national building.
"Have we been able to build a healthy and inclusive citizenship? Have we been good citizens in interpersonal and institutional coexistence? Isn't our paternalistic and welfare State also the basis of infantilization and permanent instrumentalization of citizens?", he questioned.
"Local Participation, Global Change" is the motto of the seventh edition of the National Week, which runs until Friday, in Luanda, an initiative of CEAST and realization of Mosaiko – Institute for Citizenship –, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the Angolan Catholic Church.
According to José Manuel Imbamba, Social Week 2023 "once again calls on all of Angolan society to seek inclusive ways to solve the problems that drastically affect us".
"To whom, by divine mission, we cannot be separated. Thus, the reflections that will be made will be able to help us to find ways about the moments of great anxiety that we live and that must lead us to seek the light of the Gospel, the prudent ways of solution to the sensitive problems that we face together", he pointed out.
He said that thousands of people continue to be "victims of bad policies and practices that generate the scandal of endemic poverty, discriminatory exclusion, pluridimensional asymmetries and political clubism".
These people "continue to be victims of the atrophying space of citizenship and the unhealthy exaltation of the party instead of the nation and of militancy instead of citizenship", he criticized.
He recalled, in his speech, that the Constitution foresees the distribution of power for a better exercise of citizenship at local level, arguing that it is "urgent to accelerate" the entire legislative and political process for the implementation of municipalities.
"Establishing a clear agenda, with clear 'timings' for each step that still needs to be taken. Let us not indefinitely postpone healthy and harmonious coexistence against citizens and human, social, political, economic and cultural development", he pointed out.
"In each Social Week, promoted by the Catholic Church, with the participation of all actors interested in social transformation and in the search for the common good, we are guided by the principles of the Church's social doctrine", added the Angolan Catholic archbishop.
Real economy in people's participation, participation and power and taking care of the common home are some of the topics that will be discussed in this Social Week 2023.
