Dear friends and members of the Council for Dignity, Forgiveness and Reconciliation,
When Nicoletta Gaida introduced this project to me, my first impression was that she was completely mad, a person dreaming of building a reality that is utopian.
However experience teaches us that there are “pure” madmen, or rather those who are completely mad but use this purity as an instrument to alter logic and natural balance. Thus I adopted this project and pay close attention to it because I truly think it can add a profound contribution to the process of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. I want to explain why I think this - it is because I believe that there is an additional element in the numerous challenging processes that comprise the world.
You see, when a politician, a man of the institution or simply a stranger to the conflict talks about a conflict, perhaps calls for peace and reconciliation, it is easy to take it as insensitivity or hypocrisy. Because one can say: “You have not experienced what I have, it is easy for you to say to strive towards peace, because in fact you do not have on your body or in your memory the marks of war and that which war generates – hate and revenge”.
But when a Council such as this brings together people who unfortunately have these marks - on their body, in their memory, in their family; people who unfortunately have experienced the after effects of war - I believe it becomes impossible to think that this Council is home to hypocrisy or superficiality.
Hon. Gianni Alemanno, Mayor of Rome
Inauguration of the Council for Dignity, Forgiveness, Justice and Reconciliation - April 21st, 2010
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|