Rome
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05 November 2022
Parent Category: Tutte le Attività (EN) -
Category: Anno 2022
"I felt a sort of powerful call, a motion of the soul. And so I also chose to be in Piazza San Giovanni," said Secretary General Michele Capasso.
The President of the Human Rights Commission Sen. Giuseppe Lumia, who was present at the event, said: "The EUROPE FOR PEACE event involved thousands and thousands of people, from every corner of our country and with representatives of so many humiliated and offended realities, such as Iranian women.
The world of Associations and Volunteers, NGOs and Trade Unions, got involved, broke ranks and promoted an initiative in support of Peace that had been missing for so many years.
It is a truly diverse world: many Catholics, others of Christian inspiration and of various other religions, and still others of more secular and culturally diverse principles, but all capable of expressing a common, solid and projectual feeling to give Peace a demanding and operational profile.
Traversing the square far and wide, talking and exchanging views with many of the participants, I caught three features above all.
The first: the demonstrators did not, for the sake of peace, fall into the trap of neutralism. In essence, it was clear in those who promoted it and in the vast majority of participants that Ukraine is the victim and Putin's Russia the executioner. At the same time, there was a widespread awareness that one's gaze must always be on all wars around the world.
Secondly, the demonstration was promoted by a world that was not only plural, but also in tune in expressing a concrete commitment to seeking Peace. In fact, in the square there were people who act concretely and on a daily basis in the thousand fields of the fight against marginalisation, of welcoming, of supporting those who suffer and live in poor countries without the most basic human rights and often without the basic principles of democracy being respected.
Thirdly, in the various speeches I listened to, I heard many serious proposals to achieve a "ceasefire", to give a greater role to the irreplaceable diplomacy, to reduce the now uncontrolled military expenditure, to avoid the production and use of nuclear weapons, which are more than ever a threat not to be underestimated, and to open up new scenarios for cooperation and change in the way of thinking and planning the path of humanity.
Can Peace be made? Yes, it must always be sought and achieved. These steps are therefore necessary:
1) China must get going and push Putin to radically change pace. At the same time, the US must provide Zelensky with the security that will allow him to sit down at the table for serious negotiations that do not affect the integrity of Ukrainian territory. Europe, for its part, must be a more convinced "bridge" of balanced and agreeable solutions, to give those disputed territories the spaces of autonomy that in the history of our Continent we have learnt to use, without them being subject to the primacy of Russia.
2) We must rethink and redesign the role of global governance, no longer assigning to armed conflict the role of settling disputes between states and peoples. In this sense, the UN must be put in a position to really play the institutional role of global governance of peace, with powers and instruments that can finally achieve the goals for which it was created. In short, the time is ripe to create the United States of the World, as the Fondazione Mediterraneo recently indicated with a series of high-quality proposals.
3) It is necessary to promote socially and environmentally sustainable development on a global scale in order to combat unbearable inequalities, unspeakable poverty and natural disasters with very concrete and measurable projects-objectives in terms of resources, timeframes and results.
The Rome event is therefore to be considered a milestone. Following this virtuous example, it is foreseeable that other world capitals will take action in the coming weeks and months.
The idea that we must all mature is that everyone can do something, because Peace walks with legs, acts with intelligence and moves the heart of the "We", the fraternal We, the just We, the We who participate in the common destiny".
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