The Humanist Association of Germany (HVD) is pleased to be able to commemorate the International Day of Friendship proclaimed by the United Nations for the first time this Saturday. On July 30, the value of friendship between people, countries and cultures will be commemorated. “It is an honor and a pleasure for me, on behalf of our association, to ask everyone we can reach on this day to pay attention to this event,” said HVD President Frieder Otto Wolf yesterday. “Friendships can also be described by non-religious people as the last mysteries in an increasingly enlightened society,” Wolf continued. “For this reason alone, this small miracle and yet everyday phenomenon should be given special appreciation, attention and reflection today.” The spiritual and mutual connection between people or groups of people, for whom superiority or rational calculation no longer have any meaning, is an indispensable foundation for a happy, human existence and also for the cohesion of humanity and its communities as a whole. Wolf pointed out that friendship has always enabled people to overcome conceivable and man-made barriers and differences: whether gender, origin, culture, religion, status or age. “Everyone can and should have friendship,” says Frieder Otto Wolf. And it is not even a privilege of human beings, as comparable bonds have also been discovered and proven in non-human species. “On the other hand, the fact that we humans are probably the only species capable of consciously remembering friendships as such seems to be a real privilege. Should we therefore not only recognize this privilege, but also celebrate it in practice?” The general need for friendship and the practice of friendship between people and the communities to which they feel they belong will probably exist for as long as humanity itself. “But it is precisely in a present that continues to change rapidly and increasingly challenges us as individuals with limited abilities that we should become particularly aware of the value and importance of friendships,” said Wolf. Friendships therefore continue to play an important role as a haven of stability, peace, help, compassion and understanding. Friendship is also something that no group of people, no religion and no specific ideology can claim to have invented. “Only those who stand up for friendship in practice can make a name for themselves by promoting it,” said Frieder Otto Wolf. As a representative of non-denominational and non-religious people in Germany, he therefore appeals on the occasion of the 1st International Day of Friendship to all humanistically minded social leaders, regardless of their faith, to become aware of the importance of friendship between us humans and their roots and to actively promote its development. The International Day of Friendship goes back to a UN resolution of April 27 of this year, which was introduced and signed by over 40 member states. The Federal Republic of Germany is not yet among them.
It aims to promote international understanding, respect for diversity and a culture of peace among people, countries, cultures and individuals and is intended to be celebrated “by UN agencies, other international and regional organizations, civil society, non-governmental organizations and individuals in accordance with cultural practices and other local customs”.
