Meeting with the équipe of progetto Mediterranea
MEETING WITH THE ÉQUIPE OF PROGETTO MEDITERRANEA
Moderator: Caterina Pastura, Mesogea
Guests:
Francesca Piro (ITA): doctor, founder of Progetto Mediterranea, Press Relation Officer and responsible of the logistic, she manages the relations with the institutions.
Simone Perotti (ITA): writer and seaman, he is the creator and the founder of Progetto Mediterranea, he is the cultural responsible and supervisor of the activities of shipment, the vessel’s captain. / Video
During the dialogue between Caterina Pastura and Francesca Piro, a crew member of Progetto Mediterranea, the objectives and the features of the project are described. We hereby summarize the presentation of the project through the message delivered by the founder Simone Perotti, in the video realised during his trip from Italy to Greece, where they had their first stop (sum-up): Progetto Mediterranea has primarily a cultural objective. Sailing the Mediterranean and approaching twenty-nine countries in five years by sailboat is not easy, but it is a fascinating endeavour, because in each of these places we try, all together, to build the right context to meet minds and thoughts. In fact, in our view, only the Mediterranean seems to be able to contribute with new ideas to overcome this period of decadence.
Many of the people we meet in the Mediterranean still has the sight and the heart looking at the North and the West. In Greece, for example, people have put in place an extraordinary effort to enter in Europe, to adapt to the European normative standards, and now they are terrified at the idea of possibly leaving the Euro-Zone. For this reason they are looking toward North-West. In this way, energy was taken away from looking at the South and the East of the Mediterranean. People do not know what is going on in Italy, or in Spain or in Turkey. They do not know why the media filter reality from a European point of view and not from a Mediterranean one. One of the things that we did not know was that Greece is interested in the theme of the “double”.
Maurizio de Rosa said that to us. He lives in Greece and he is a translator, an expert of literature and an astute observer of the cultural and social reality. The old Greek-speaking world (stretching from Constantinople to Sicily), now it is a world closed within the borders of a little country and it lives a moment of disorientation, in which many people are confused because they were born, educated or grown up in a country other than current Greece.
For example, Petros Markaris, who studied in Germany, or Denys Zacharapoulos, great expert of art, who passed a lot of time in United States and in France. However, they have chosen to live in their country of origin at the end of a long path. This multiplicity is one of the elements of the Mediterranean. We learn, mile after mile, that the identity of Mediterranean exists in a multiple way, where this multiplicity is very different from the so-called “contaminations” that scare many of us in Italy.
We met people such as Mario Strofalis, a civil and social revolutionist, a musician who managed a cultural institute and who used to produce music for the advertising sector. He did not suffer the crisis. At one point, he left everything to provide the opportunity for musicians who lost their jobs to continue playing on the theme of “gratuity”: “since you are not working any more, at least we can play!”, he said to them. Then they have occupied abandoned car parks and squares, to create a festival where they could play, involving directors and performers too, creating thus the Athens Art Network.
Mario Strofalis created opportunities to work with the idea to build a new economy, and not just to solve an employment problem. Then, barter trade, time banks and a widespread movement with interesting side effects have arose: in the district where the festival took place, the neo-fascist trends crossing Greece were easily removed, more than police and government were able to do. When we asked to him “What do you think is still of value in the Mediterranean, in this time of crisis?”, he answered: “the talents of the people of the Mediterranean are the treasure, and we have to focus on them. The real money, the real wealth will emerge from a new society, a new economy, in which the talents of the people of the Mediterranean will be given the opportunity to create value. “
The bad news is the absence of an active intellectual citizenship. Intellectuals should be the interpreters of the crisis, they should indicate which direction we should take and find the solutions to react to the crisis, but they are losing this train. They are not doing what they always did until the militant culture of the ‘70s, that is the hard work of drawing a new horizon. This lack of militancy and of the interpretation of the crisis is crossing Greece, Italy and other countries. Intellectuals are absent and they are missing the appointment with History.
Maria Peteinaki, spokeswoman of the Greens and present in the world of the protest and the occupation of theatres, said to us a thing that I like to refer: “this crisis is not only negative”. It is a crisis that allows horizontal communication between people who had stop talking; it facilitates the rebirth of places of social aggregation and in some way it generates the required anti-body to build a new social system. This is a very important factor, because in the Mediterranean, the horizontal dialogue has always existed and it has been a source of strength to express its own values.
Petros Markaris, novelist, famous throughout the world for his crime novels focused on the crisis, puts the accent on a dramatic thing: the emergence of new fascisms. The crisis is a breeding ground for these new fascisms, because it offers the opportunity to see in violence and prevarication, in neonationalism
and xenophobia the way to express people’s disadvantages conditions and discomfort. These trends are spreading throughout Europe, especially in the South.
Denis Zacharopoulos has a different opinion about it. According to him, the real risk of new fascism is fundamentalism: “the typical fascism needs a presentable face to be voted, while the new fascisms, that are the expression of violence and intolerance against who is different, are represented by fundamentalism that is spread in a large part of the Islamic world. Despite the fact it represents a minority, it produces bigger effects than those we would expect from a minority”.
Kostas Koutsourelis, very wise poet, struck us for a very different thing: when we speak about the Mediterranean, we always think of something that shares a lot of common elements, and it is a shame that we do not act in a unitary way. The nature of our travel is motivated from this fact. We are convinced that in this area of 29 countries there is an element of homogeneity greater than what divides us, and that this Mediterranean Citizenship can and must be established, to see one day the United States of the Mediterranean in dialogue with Europe. Italy should be part of both, playing a guiding role. Koutsourelis adds: “of course there are elements of union in the Mediterranean. We are more brothers between us than with Danes. Of course we have the possibility to build a society not based on economy, like Europe did, making a fake and plastic-like society. But, attention, there are also a lot of things that divide us.” The method to identify these things should be the realisation of a catalogue of differences, to defuse what divide us and go looking for a Mediterranean identity.
An identity still to build. A new model of Mediterranean has to emerge. “Without this new model”, Koutsourelis said, “a Mediterranean Citizenship cannot exist, nor a path of convergence between populations divided until today”. Gianluca Solera, who is there with you, gave to us a beautiful definition: Progetto Mediterranea tends to unite with a red wire what strong powers in economics, politics and finances wish to maintain divided, that are the peoples and the territories of the Mediterranean. From this point of view, who does this work to unite and to make citizenship is formally a subject that is acting in an illegal way. Gianluca speaks about his topic: legality and justice do not always go hand in hand in this era. What is illegal is often also what is right. I do not know if we are illegal yet… For sure, this travel goes on, because we are looking for ideas, thoughts, that maybe tomorrow will make more tangible this Mediterranean identity, and thus an union of the nations which belong it”.
