Vicente Alejandro Guillamón (4 June 1930 – 14 January 2021) was a Spanish journalist and writer.
Biography
Vicente Alejandro Guillamón was born in
Onda, Castellon, Spain in 1930, and he was the youngest child of a humble farming and ranching family.
He earned a technical accounting degree from the Official Schools of Technical Qualified Accountants of Melilla and Málaga and a journalism degree from the old Official Journalism School of Madrid. He started his journalism career as a correspondent for the ''Telegrama del Rif'' and later worked for the weekly ''Signo'', ''La Actualidad Económica'', the old daily ''El Alcazar'' published by PESA, the Mexican
news bureau
A news bureau is an office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate a geographic location or scope of coverage: a ‘Tokyo bureau’ refers to a given news operation's office in Tokyo; ' ...
AMEX, and the Spanish news bureau
EFE
Agencia EFE, S.A. () is a Spanish international news agency, the major multimedia news agency in Spanish language and the world's fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. EFE was created in 1939 ...
, during 17 years, in different positions, like first managing editor of the newly created local bureau of EFE for the Valencia region (Comunidad Valenciana) and editor of national information. He later became the editor of the religion news magazine ''
Vida Nueva''.
In the 1970s, as secondary focus, he taught several classes of Journalism Writing in the newly founded School of Journalism of the University of Valencia. In 1982, he founded the Catholic Union of Media Professionals and Journalists (Unión Católica de Informadores y Periodistas—UCIP), an organization for Catholic journalists and media professionals that includes a considerable number of Spanish professionals in that field.
Activist
In the years of the
Francoist
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spani ...
regime, he was part of the small group of Christian Democratic activists opposed to the regime. In 1960 he founded, with former members of the Catholic organization JOC (Spanish acronyms of the Catholic Workers Youth), the Unionist Federation of Workers (Federación Sindical de Trabajadores—FST), an underground union of Christian ideals. The union later folded in the Unionist Workers Association (Unión Sindical Obrera—USO). In 1964 Guillamón joined the socialist group that was trying to articulate the Spanish Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español—PSOE) of that era. He abandoned the socialist party in 1977 after he became disillusioned with the path taken by this party and his uneasiness with the socialists' Marxism, even if moderate, given his upbringing and personal beliefs rooted in the tradition of the Spanish political and classical liberalism. It is important to notice that his grandfather and father were supporters of the Spanish liberal movement. His grandfather was a supporter of the Liberal Party of Sagasta. His father, born in Santa Fe, Isla de Pinos (Cuba), started as a member of the Liberal Party, with whom he ran and was elected mayor of his small town, Espadilla (Castellón), and later, after the party disappeared during the republican era, joined the Radical Party of Alejandro Leroux.
Essayist
Guillamón wrote several key essays, including:
*''Justicia Social'
doctrine for syndicalism of Christian base; Pluma, Madrid, 1962.
*''La política al desnudo''; Pluma, Valencia, 1975, .
*''Neopersonalismo Cristiano'', A theory for participation in the public life; Editorial San Pablo, Madrid, 1997, . This book was written in an attempt to clarify the contents of "Christian Humanism" and to define the criteria of where is going and how should be Christian participation in public life. Guillamón understands the meaning of person from the Christian point of view, gives to each person individually the supreme dignity, without subordinating one to another, as opposed to what Mounier and Maritain, defended, by saying that the community personalism is like saying that the human acquires its being as part of the group by being a member of the community, instead of by him or herself.
*Prologue and epilogue of the book ''Diez horas de Estat Catalá'': la proclamación del Estado Catalán en octubre de 1934 contada por un testigo ocular, by Enrique de Angulo, Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid, 2005, .
*''El caos de la II República'', short history of the events that happened before the Spanish Civil War, LibrosLibres, Madrid, 2006, .
*''Los masones en el Gobierno de España''. LibrosLibres, Madrid, 2009, .
*''Defensa Cristiana del Liberalismo''. Foreword by Professor Carlos Rodríguez Braun. Editions: De Buena Tinta, 2013, .
Theatrical career
Guillamón was active as a playwright and editor:
*''Crónica de sucesos'', AAT Asociación de Autores de Teatro, Madrid, 2000, .
Fiction
*''Corpus de sangre en Toledo'', Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid, 1985, .
Satirist
*''Las señoras tienen un gran porvenir por delante'' ("Women have a great future ahead of them"), Pluma, Alboraya, Valencia, 1977, .
See also
*
Personalism
Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleierm ...
*
Humanism
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
*
Christian Democratic
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism.
It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...
*
European People's Party
The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily Ch ...
*
Liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
References
External links
Forum LibertasLibrosLibres, citasLiceusLibertad Digital, blogsAgencia Interamericana de Prensa Económica (AIPE), artículosRenati SuntInstituto Cervantes de Tánger (Marruecos)La Valencia de los años 70, Francisco Pérez Puche*
ttp://www.religionenlibertad.com Libertad Digital – Religión en Libertad
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guillamon, Vicente Alejandro
1930 births
2021 deaths
People from Plana Baixa
Writers from the Valencian Community
20th-century Spanish writers
20th-century Spanish male writers
21st-century Spanish writers
Spanish journalists
Spanish essayists
People from Onda
Spanish male essayists
20th-century essayists
21st-century essayists
21st-century Spanish male writers