The strength of hope

Dear President, it is touching for us to have you here again at the Arsenal of Peace, this time together with your children and grandchildren. The friendship with her over the years has been interwoven with many meetings and appointments.
Since that first time in May 2015 for Forgiveness Day, her presence and her words have always accompanied us, they have punctuated the most significant moments of our lives.
Today, however, is a special day. The Arsenal of Peace turns forty years old. It was August 2, 1983 when we entered the ruins of the old military arsenal for the first time.

The arsenal made us enter into the disproportion that all things of God have, but with the gaze of clean ideals, faith and determination, we saw it in some way already done. We witnessed a moving reconversion that truly involved millions of people.
However, the Arsenal was not just the story of a great material conversion. We like to see it as a great metaphor. Because what happened here can also happen in the lives of each of us, in society, in relations between states.
This is also why we wanted to combine the celebration for the 40th anniversary of the Arsenale della Pace with the memory of Piersanti Mattarella.

We do not want to remember only his merits, his service and sacrifice, but first of all the man, because for each of you Piersanti was first of all a father, a brother, a grandfather, an uncle, a loved one who it was torn. Today we want to dedicate the Craftsman of Peace award to him with the motivation, «so that his sacrifice is never forgotten and helps young people to live the courage of truth, commitment to the common good, every responsibility as a service, politics as highest form of charity, ideals as the foundation of life".
However, this award is also for you, for you, dear President, and for your family, for the example you have given in all these years. You too were like an arsenal, wounded by evil and marked by pain. Yet, you were not prisoners of it.
By walking together, you too have managed in your own small way to transform that evil and in his case, President, to make it the driving force of his public commitment, at the service of everyone.

Without many words, with facts and with life, you have taught us and demonstrated that if the pain does not go away, cannot be erased or explained, it certainly never has the last word. This, even if sometimes it is difficult and we don't pay attention to it, is the strength of Hope. The only thing that matters! Thank you with all my heart!

Sermig editorial team
NP August / September 2023

Dream, a moving video by Michelangelo Dotta turned the clock back 40 years, to the moment of entry into the Arsenale «blackened by the years and wrapped in a deathly silence», as the witnesses recall. The images end with Olivero's words spoken today in what is an urban monastery, a meeting place for different cultures, solidarity and peace. «I was a boy and I had a dream – states the founder of Sermig -. I encountered the tragedy of hunger, I dreamed of defeating it and defeating the war. We believed in Isaiah's prophecy that weapons became plows. Every stone in the Arsenale has the face of a friend who worked here for an hour, a day or remained there all his life. The Arsenal has never stopped since then, we gave all our energy against the horrible war and hunger. The Arsenal belongs to everyone. We need to give love to multiply love."
Like Pertini 40 years ago, Mattarella was warmly welcomed by the people of Sermig, stopping in particular to greet, in addition to the volunteers, the children of Felicizia, the project that brings together children of 25 nationalities from the multi-ethnic district of Borgo Dora, next to Porta Palace, where the Arsenal is located.

Paolo Lambruschi, correspondent for Avvenire