| PRESS RELEASE
Naples, 18th April 2003
APPEAL FOR PEACE
The Fondazione Laboratorio Mediterraneo, with the Accademia del
Mediterraneo, calls an Appeal for Peace against a permanent state
of war and promotes, as main tool, the dialogue between cultures
and societies: an essential element to ensure progress and shared
development, on which the Fondazione has been founding its action
for almost ten years.
A strong and determined action, because it is oriented to the future
and based on the hope that Mediterranean peoples may achieve an
enduring peace, work for the economic, social and political reconstruction
of their Countries, within the limits of the borders recognized
today; live their differences in perfect harmony and with a spirit
of tolerance, dialogue and freedom.
The original approach followed by the Fondazione Laboratorio Mediterraneo
since 1994 – in agreement with the principles stated by the
Council of Europe and then by the European Union through the Process
of Barcelona – consists in promoting the Euro-Mediterranean
integration process through science and culture.
It is an original and realistic approach, because I am firmly persuaded
that, both in the Euro-Mediterranean area and elsewhere, dialogue
and mediation must anyway be preferred to military solutions. This
approach also coincides with the fundamental orientation of the
Accademia del Mediterraneo-Maison de la Méditerranée
which is meant to be first of all a point of reference for the respect
of cultural and linguistic diversities and for an enduring dialogue
between cultures and societies. This is a political, economic, social
and cultural challenge that involves all of us.
The interdependence between men, societies and spaces is nowadays
the rule and scientific and technological changes, economic and
financial globalisation, the immediate circulation of information
lead the whole Mankind towards a future of homologation. This does
not mean to go towards a shared destiny, it is just the opposite:
inequalities and poverties increasing across the world are evidence
of this different destiny. Evidence of this is also given by the
risk of hegemony of some powerful countries with regard to decisions
involving the future of our planet – as shown by the events
of these last days – or by the block of information with regard
to the weakest and poorest groups of the population.
Another risk arises either from the submission of local economies
to industrial strategies poorly connected with the real needs of
that country or from the monopolies of specific private or public
players on the construction and diffusion of standardised models
of behaviour, consumption, thinking, creativity and, therefore,
existence.
When the international exchanges are widespread and huge, the States,
but above all the citizens, feel that the management of their own
world is taken away from them and that a “monoculture”
is imposed on them. Facing this loss of identity, especially in
the Mediterranean, there is a great temptation to withdraw from
the surrounding world, to cling to archaic values, rooted in the
past, in a climate of intolerance often leading to fanaticism, hatred,
refusal of the Other.
If we want to prevent the cold war of the past from turning into
a cultural suicide, facilitated by international mass migratory
movements, it is necessary – in the broadest sense of the
word – to democratise the globalisation before the globalisation
denatures democracy.
This means promoting, in a rapid and effective way, dialogue and
cooperation between areas that are potential conflict generators,
such as the Euro-Mediterranean area. The great cultural and linguistic
areas – of which the Mediterranean is an ancient guardian
– represent today privileged solidarity areas which, if they
are strengthened by dialogue and cooperation, are the best guarantee
for democracy, peace and shared development.
The dialogue among cultures is, today more than ever, absolutely
necessary not only in the Mediterranean but also as a world-scale
project: a project of society where the different cultures complete
each other without a mutual exclusion, are strengthened without
disappearing, are joined together without losing their own identity.
We have, all of us, to contribute to the construction of a “multi-polar
world”, respecting languages, cultures, traditions and a truly
democratic management of international relations.
However, all this relies on the fact that the world cultural diversity
becomes a preliminary condition to construct a true dialogue between
peoples, that recognizing culture as a prevailing force is not an
exception but rather the foundation of the new civilization process,
that culture is not limited to arts and literature but involves
all the aspects of life in its spiritual, institutional, material,
intellectual and emotional dimension in the different social contexts:
in short, that – in a hard world made up of often conflicting
forces – culture can hold the role of “good force”,
enabled to influence the processes of history.
Recognizing that culture and development are inseparable, avoiding
a mere commercial and economic approach to culture, is essential
for the construction of the future both in the Mediterranean and
elsewhere.
The Appeal we want to call today in Naples is simple : to promote
the dialogue for the coexistence of diversities and for an enduring
peace.
The strong hope is that weapon will be silent for ever. Violence
must cease.
The peoples of the Mediterranean, at the dawn of this new millennium,
must definitely finish with a tragic past and exalt all their wealth
and their huge heritage, which have represented and still represent
a universal value for the whole Mankind.
Naples – via Depretis, 130 – 80133
Tel. 0039 081 552 30 33 – fax 0039 081 420 32 73
medlab.euromedi.org
info@medlab.org
The appeal
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