Humanity urgently requires a culture that is both responsive and responsible for human needs. For humanization to become possible, it is imperative that humanity directs its energies towards the “recreation of cultural alternatives informed by ancestral visions of a future that celebrates all of humanity and encourages the best of the human spirit.” Marimba Ani reminds us that true humanism is spiritual, not rational and adds that it is the recognition of the possibility of spirituality in human beings and in terms of concrete behavior. The freeing of spirituality rests upon a cultural reaffirmation that revives the ancient qualities in forms, which deal with the exigencies of the past, present and the future.
A culture that embraces human needs should have the will-to-power demands for a world to be redefined in terms of power-relations. It is a culture that works for mode of balance and harmony where unity can be perceived even in ambiguity, contrast and inconsistency. Ani claims that such a culture itself is designed to be a humanizing force. Cultural independence with a corresponding intellectual decolonization, therefore, is crucial for humanization. Robert W. July notes that a vigorous culture is an “essential prerequisite to political health and economic prosperity.”
Paulo Freire views human beings as historically, culturally, and socially existing, and cannot just be simply living. Hence, he understands humans “only as beings who are makers of their ‘way,’ in the making of which they lay themselves open to or commit themselves to the ‘way’ that they make, and that, therefore, remakes them as well.” This reminds us that human beings are inherently makers of their own ‘way’ and capable of constantly remaking themselves according to their needs. However, it is the concept of the right to self-determination alone which confers power on a people to make their own decisions, and, therefore, competent and entitled to develop a subjective response to its needs.
For this reason, Maivân Clech Lâm points out that, the praxis of self-determination straddles the realms of need and power. Whereas the concepts of “human rights and autonomy, on the other hand, represent responses to needs that emanate from an external vantage point, and confer no creative power as such on the needful party.” Self-determination is, therefore, more than just a right; it is a basic human need, required to translate the peoples’ aspirations into concrete reality.
