Today in Verona an important meeting is taking place on the topic of peace. And once again it is surprising that Pope Francis was the one who strongly wanted an appointment of this political significance, the only one on a global level who is trying to take action – without ifs or buts – with respect to the great risks to which the country is subjected today. ‘humanity.
For over two years now, we have been at an impasse on the issues of war in which we are all involved. In this stalemate any pacifist thought is taken lightly or even denigrated. The Pope’s message, in addition to being the only one, is unheard or taken for granted because it is relegated to a purely religious obviousness and concerns aspects that are more spiritual than real. But all this has the flavor of the absurd. And the inability of the world’s highest political spheres to concretely resolve today’s challenges is jeopardizing the future of human beings. In essence, we are witnessing a deafening silence that causes concern.
Here, in the absence of a policy that knows how to deal with the issue of peace, it is necessary for these messages to start from the bottom. Precisely for this reason this morning’s event – called Arena of Peace – is dedicated to all those associations and movements that operate in the territories. This makes explicit a further message from the Holy Father: the strength of these realities, which are spreading within our societies, is determined to start a path that can undermine the general impasse and reawaken international governance to what are the true priorities, without hiding behind purely selfish and opportunistic interests.
In my opinion, the diversity represented by this associative and activist world is capable of expressing a complex and transversal vision of all the variables at play. It is in fact nothing new that with the outbreak of the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip (which, it must be remembered, are not the only outbreaks in world geography) have effectively canceled from the international political debate the discussions – and also the agreements that they had already been taken – on the environmental climate issue; another absurdity.
With today’s meeting, Francis demonstrates that to carry forward a true message of peace it is necessary for the request for disarmament to be linked to ecological and environmental issues. His vision – which I repeat is truly political – based on the democratic principles of people’s rights, also pays important attention to migratory flows and the need to regenerate an economy blinded by the logic of profit and which finds greater benefit in war and in destruction, rather than in peace and healing.
Fighting for the climate is a political battle against war and is connected to disarmament and understanding and mitigating migratory processes. Changing paradigms on the economic and labor front is preparatory to the full realization of rights. In short, the peace process is being played out on a broader and more engaging stage.
I believe that today’s appointment is thus a strong relaunch of those contents already expressed in the encyclicals Laudato Si’e Fratelli tutti, and for this reason it is strategic to underline a concept in particular: everything is connected.
Today it is necessary to implement a serious disarmament operation that does not forget all those dynamics which, in cascade, do nothing but produce death and suffering. It is good to remember, in fact, that people don’t kill only with weapons. There are forms of violence which, despite being outside of wars, achieve the same dramatic effects. This is violence against people, their freedom or their access to health, water and food. But it is also about violence towards our Common Home, which – too – has been shouting for a “ceasefire” for several years without being heard, without anyone rushing to protect it.
On war, as on the climate crisis and many other forms of brutality, everything is being done to clip the wings of any type of decisive action. And it is good to say, we must be aware that we may no longer have time to eradicate those perverse paradigms on which many societies are based. Social changes occur in slow and troubled processes. While climate change is happening at a very different speed. The great contradiction of the historical period in which we live is that the virtuous actions that we can all implement could be part of a climate crisis that has reached the stage of irreversibility and therefore prove insufficient.
Citing Gramsci, however, today the pessimism of the intelligence must necessarily be compensated by the optimism of the will, which, upon closer inspection, finds its maximum expression precisely in the aggregation of civil society.
The Peace Arena represents a truly varied and significant component of all those movements that loudly fight for forms of justice that are still denied. And if it is true, as it is true, that the majority of Italians are against the sending of weapons, the political offer that currently presents itself as an obstacle to changes will necessarily have to give voice to this multitude of people. Thus overcoming the reality, which in the current state of affairs only benefits the arms industry.
Only from this perspective will the Verona event respond to the need for a mobilization that, starting from the bottom, contributes to changing the political and institutional framework. This is the moment of restart for real politics. Only in this way will the substance of Francis’ message be able to mark a great turning point for peace on this planet.
