" "editorial" "
A bullet with a miniature flower in place of the projectile. An inscription: “A flower… from an object of death”. A signature: “The children of Albania, ambassadors of peace”. They form a small calendar. It was brought into our editorial office by an Albanian mother, who had fled from her country risking her life with her two children in crossing the sea in a rubber dinghy crowded with the desperate and the exploited. “I knew of the danger, I held my children close, prepared to die with them, for them”. Such experiences, like others, have brought, and continue to bring, terror, anguish and perhaps even hate into the eyes of American, Iraqi, Palestinian and Israeli children…Not even do the eyes of young European citizens remain wholly immune, because the message of war crosses space and time like a flash. Perhaps we ought to be less moved by seeing photos and television images that show the wreckage of hope in so many corners of the world. Perhaps we ought to protect our young with greater honesty. To the new generations the reason of adults ought, for example, to be able to explain why in 2003, having achieved so much scientific and technological progress, man is still incapable of resolving conflicts with a non-violent response. Reason, in its cultural, political and economic declensions, is the first victim of war, as was the case in Europe too not so long ago. “I have the duty to say to all young people, to those younger than I who haven’t had this experience, never more war…”: John Paul II, on Sunday 16 March, recalling that tragedy [the second world war], did not raise his voice to save only the Christians threatened in many parts of the world. He raised his voice to defend the life and dignity of all men and all women throughout the world in respect for the various religions, cultures, histories, civilizations… It seemed it were no longer necessary to emphasize the universality of the Christian message, but that’s not so. There are those who would like to see the Pope aligned. Otherwise, they conclude, he is outside the world. That is an old ideological ploy, impracticable in spite of attempts also with regard to the US ultimatum to Iraq. “When people declare that all the peaceful means that international law places at our disposal have been exhausted, they assume a grave responsibility to God, to conscience and to history”: the Holy See did not address this admonition in a single direction, to a single person. No side in the dispute can feel exonerated from an appeal for the respect and reinforcement of the international organizations established for the defence of human rights, peace and justice. Who will reconstruct these organizations, how much time will be needed to restore them to credibility, authoritativeness, effectiveness? Not even Europe, in its national and Community expressions, is exempt from “responsibilities to God, to conscience and to history”. One proof of this, among others, are its financial markets which “are galvanized, gamble on a rapid war, react to the end of uncertainty”. This is not the Europe that people want, it’s not the Europe that can enthuse and commit the new generations. The bullet with miniature flowers is the sign of the defeat of reason. It’s not yet the sign of the future of peace and justice we would like to exist already today.
