Last Thursday at 8:30 p.m. in the assembly hall of the centennial Sociedad Democracia de Arrecife, the traditional festivities in honor of San Pedro were inaugurated. This tribute began with the reading of the proclamation by the director of the Municipal Archive of Arrecife, Benchomo Guadalupe Oliva, presented by the president of the Sociedad Democracia, Lorenzo Lemaur Santana.
The proclaimer began by thanking for such privilege and, at the same time, recognizing the great responsibility of being the proclaimer of a Society with so much history and for the respect he professes and above all for those who preceded him in such an honorary work. The proclamation entitled "New Retazos on the history of the Sociedad Democracia", according to Benchomo Guadalupe Oliva is a better structured complement, thanks to the maturity that time imprints.
It was a time when poverty, unsanitary conditions, starvation and illiteracy camped at ease in the streets of Arrecife. The project financed by Democracy to hire a steamship to go to the neighboring African coast in search of viable areas to establish fishing industries by 1882 or how the Society itself hired some engineers to investigate the Famara massif in order to find water to eradicate that great problem of the island of Lanzarote.
In other matters, there was talk of the symbolism of the handshake and the change of name from Circulo Mercantil, a name given during the dictatorial mandate by the recovered Sociedad Democracia after a reform in the board of directors in 1986.
The proclaimer concluded his speech with these last stanzas "wishing that Arrecife awakens with parsimony, but with firmness from its artistic and cultural lethargy, and we can only congratulate ourselves on the presence of such a significant phenomenon. May La Democracia be largely responsible for this encouraging resurgence. And may this society proudly bear the title of Society of Culture and Recreation at the end of time.
A journey from the emergence of the Society, back in 1850 and focusing on the most relevant milestones such as favoring free education to the humble class.
