APPEAL FOR PEACE AGAINST A PERMANENT STATE OF WAR
Open and undercover bombers have dropped and continue to drop thousands
and thousands of bombs.
They fall on the heads of communities with different traditions
(established as political entities by the West after the break-up
of the Ottoman empire, and subsequently freed from their status
as Protectorates) and upon the remains of a five thousand year old
civilisation that has survived the ravages of invasions and the
levelling force of history.
These bombs can penetrate any defence; there are those whose fragments
target and destroy individuals, the electro-magnetic variety that
damage both material objects and living persons, and thousands upon
thousands of missiles which the most advanced technology has designed
for destruction and massacre.
There is a war, a new war that the Superpower has decided with the
self-same certainty of all of the superpowers of the past; like
the Roman Empire when, having lost its dynamic force and cultural
splendour, it proclaimed its pride at having been elected to dominate
with its illuminated laws peoples who were oppressed by unjust ones;
like Byzantium, which while it contrasted its superior civilisation
and Christian values against the Barbarians, having reached the
end of its cultural and religious expansion, had closed itself off
behind the defences of an imperial and ecclesiastical structure
and maintained its own privileges either through war or by buying
peace; like the Mongols who, once their horsemen had run their race,
congratulated themselves with the power they had achieved and even
proclaimed the divinity of their mission to the Pope; like Islam,
which when it had ceased to redistribute the wealth it had conquered
and to stimulate commerce and culture, isolated itself in a splendid
and dissipated Imperial Caliphate.
Western Civil Society has said no to this war. This refusal comes
after the tragedy of the Second World War (which was the result
of a degeneration of Darwinism into Eugenics, of the spirit of national
liberation into nationalism, and of the expanding force of civilisation
into colonialism) and because Europe has re-awoken to the values
that three centuries of civil conscience have created: social and
human rights, peace between nations, the value of dialogue as opposed
to war, and the rights of majority consensus over individual decisions.
It is true that the world is full of dictatorships. But this is
particularly so in countries where exploitation over the centuries
has produced a degradation of life, society and politics. We are
all responsible for these dictators, not only those Nations who
supported them for a certain period, when it suited them, and who
now while fighting against them make alliances with the others.
We are determined now to shake off these responsibilities, to revive
the U.N. so that it will oppose the power of one member against
its collective decisions, and ensure that no one State invades,
represses, impoverishes and offends; so that the smaller States
will be respected in the same way as the larger ones, that the weaker
elements may have the same dignity as the powerful; that no one
assumes a divine mission, and in the name of God brings destruction
on earth.
Dialogue, International Law, the spirit of equality, the power of
compassion-these constitute the means by which this millennium that
has started with suffering and strife can be transformed into an
era of solidarity and justice. These conditions depend on us as
European citizens, who have used our aggressive modernising force
to shake the world, and who now want to transform it into a modernity
of reconstruction and peace.
Naples, 18th April 2003
First signatories
Nullo Minissi, Caterina Arcidiacono, Michele Capasso, Predrag
Matvejevic’
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