Homaranismo

Homaranismo (roughly: "Humanitarianism" or "Humanitism") is an Esperanto word used by its creator, Ludwig Zamenhof, to describe his philosophy of human interaction and behaviour. Based largely on the teachings of Hillel the Elder, a 1st century BCE rabbi, Zamenhof originally called this philosophy Hillelism. He sought to reform Judaism, because he hoped that Judaism, without the strange dress code and purity requirements, would no longer be the victim of antisemitic propaganda. The basis of Hillelism is the sentence with which you could abstract the whole bible. This sentence is called the Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.

Zamenhof says about it:

With Hillelism we don't mean a new denomination, we mean a new corporate-religious order inside the old jewish religion, which exists for a long time. Everybody who lives ethical could take part in this religion with a clear conscience, however his religious views he had before, look like. This base brought him the idea that this philosophy could be a bridge between the religions. So he renamed it into Homaranismo.

Zamenhof first described this philosophy around the year 1900 and published it anonymously in a brochure in 1906. He later published a revised version in 1913 under the name Homaranismo.

While many different motivations drew early Esperantists to that movement, for Zamenhof Esperanto was always a means by which to facilitate improved human relations, especially beyond boundaries of race, language and culture. Zamenhof's daughter Lidia embraced this philosophy and taught it alongside Esperanto, and her adopted religion, the Bahá'í Faith.

Doctrine and cult of the Homaranismo have many similarities to the civil religions of the French Revolution, mostly to the Theophilanthropy

The symbole of the Homaranismo is a green star, which looks like the green star of Esperanto.

Excerpt from the declaration of Homaranismo

1. I am a human being, and I believe that there are only human ideals and ideals linked to the country of origin; every ideal which brings hatred among peoples and entails the power of one ethnicity over another I believe it to be human egoism, which sooner or later must disappear and to which disappearance I must contribute according to my possibilities.
2. I believe that all peoples are equally part of humankind, and I value every person only according to his personal values and actions, and not according to his/her origin. Every offense or persecutions of people because they belong to a different ethnicity, with a different language or religion, I regard it as a barbarity.
3. I believe that every country does not belong to a particular group of people, but equally to every people who live in it, regardless of their language or religion; the mixing of the country’s interests with those of one or another group of people, language or religion I regard it as reminiscence of barbarian times, when there was only the right of fist and sword.
4. I believe that in his/her own family life each person has the natural and indisputable right to speak whatever language or dialect he/she wants and to confess whatever religion he/she wants; nevertheless, when communicating with people from other origins he/she must, when it is possible, aim to use a neutral language and to live according to neutral religious principles. Every attempt of a person to impose his/her language or religion to other people when it is not absolutely necessary, I regard it as a barbarity.

See also

• Lidja Zamenhof
• Humanitarianism
• Religious humanism
• Bahá'í Faith

References

• Welger, Helmut: Kosmopoliti human (Homaranismo). Version 1999. ISBN 3-933417-02-3

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Note: This article was adapted from the German Wikipedia article