Artisans for a people of peace

Publish date 22-05-2023

by Rinaldo Canalis

Suddenly, incredibly, on February 24, 2022 we found ourselves with a column of Russian tanks invading Ukraine. Putin enunciated a series of reasons and then moved on to the deeds that are still generating deaths, devastation, suffering and misery after almost a year.

At the same time we found the "Arsenals" of Sermig full of people and materials, as if to repel, hinder the war. Something had to be done. What happened? What happened in the 1990s in the Balkans and has been happening for many years in many parts of the world has happened. In Ukraine it involved us all very closely. Europe reacted by sending weapons. We continue to see peace in the distance. How do you hinder a prevaricator who kills, invades, imposes, devastates, without weapons? Could one give in, fearful, in the face of a "Hitler-like" who, in the name of the supremacy of his people, "uncorrupted" by the decadent West, decides to use arms to assert his own reasons? And, slowly, we are realizing that for the umpteenth time we are heading towards stagnation with no losers or winners, hoping that at least the cartridges will run out!

Could it have been done differently? One thing is certain: something must be done to achieve peace goals and these come at a cost. And do it before it's too late. To think that one cannot only exploit the poor of the world, hoping that one fine day they won't rebel, emigrate, progress, realizing that we exploit them and cause our well-being to falter. And what should we say about many of us Italians who, tired of politics, don't even go to vote anymore? At the beginning of the Bible, as if to introduce us correctly to its reading and therefore to life, we read that the Lord, after having liked Abel's offering more than Cain, said to Cain: «Why are you angry and why is your spirit depressed? face? If you do right, won't you hold it high? But if you do not do right, sin crouches at your door; towards you is his instinct, but you dominate him ». So, believing that we can improve ourselves is reasonable, possible? Is believing that Isaiah is right in saying that weapons will be changed into working tools, a utopia that can be achieved, despite everything?

It is said that our help, the commitment of poor positively oriented people, is a drop in the ocean. The sea would not be sea without our drop. But we really managed to make a sea! Thanks to the involvement of thousands of people, we were able to send 1,500 tons of precious materials such as ambulances, medicines, survival technologies and food. And it continues. This is an indisputable fact. How many people have given hours, days, for these materials to be able to leave! How many people from Ukraine have we met? How many Russians who fled to Georgia out of fear or not having to shoot in the Donbass, we helped!

Did this material arrive at Sermig, by chance? It happened because there is an Arsenal of Peace in Turin that hasn't stopped working since 2 August 1983 and has now acted as a catalyst for all the drops of the sea of good. Isn't it because we have always worked with peacekeeping missions all over the world, bringing medicines and basic necessities? Isn't it because we are constantly in dialogue with the people of the world who need development so as not to have to flee, to see their children die of hunger? Isn't it because we fill our Arsenals with guests who can't live in this discarding society?

Did Gandhi liberate India from the British without firing a shot because the Indians were all noble-minded, committed, generous, responsible? Martin Luther King, with his marches, his rallies, gave a hard blow to white supremacy because the blacks who were with him were exceptional compared to us? I do not believe. With them were untouchables, pariahs of society, desperate people without culture. We need to keep a people in motion for peace: working as craftsmen, every day, so that they don't get lost, they grow. This has been known for some time, but too often we think that everything proceeds by inertia, only to realize, like Cain, that we keep our heads bowed, without hope. The people are the cradle of hope: from here atrocities and glory can arise depending on whether a drop of hope falls into it every day or not… The prophet is needed to raise a sail to collect the breath of the "spirit" of that humanity which apparently it seems to go elsewhere and set the vessel of peace in motion.

Rinaldo Canalis

NP Febbraio 2023

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