Neither in the name of God, or the State: can a Trans-Mediterranean solidarity save us from nationalism and fundamentalism?

“NEITHER IN THE NAME OF GOD, OR THE STATE: CAN A TRANS-MEDITERRANEAN SOLIDARITY SAVE US FROM NATIONALISM AND FUNDAMENTALISM?”

 Moderator: Rita Fulco, philosopher, University of Messina

Guests:

Mohammad Tolba (EG): He has founded the Salafiyo Costa movement, in the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. His movement gathers Salafis, Christians and Non-practicing believers together to end interreligious clashes, promote social justice and denounce the propaganda surrounding division of identity.

Sr. Elisa Kidané (ERI-ITA): Combonian nun, writer and poet, she defines herself as “Eritrean by birth, Combonian missionary by vocation, World Citizen by choice£. From 2000 to 2003 she has been a columnist for the online magazine “Femmis”. Since January 2011 she has been responsible for the column “Colours of Eve” in the magazine Nigrizia, hosting the works of foreign and of migrant background writers (among them, Igiaba Scego). In January 2012, she returned to Verona, as director of Combonifem, the monthly magazine of the Missionarie Pie Madri della Nigrizia.

The moderator Rita Fulco, opens the debate quoting Abraham, Messiah of all three monotheistic religions, to remind us that we need to move away from an identity-based defence and try to be affected and penetrated by the others: only like this can we create a real Mediterranean Citizenship and learn from speakers’ experiences, to understand how to act without being dominated neither by religious fundamentalism, nor by the extreme laicism of certain governments. To the first question “what is the Mediterranean Citizenship for you and how can we build it?”, Mohammad Tolba, an Egyptian Salafist activist and entrepreneur in the field of informatics, presents the social movement Salafyio Costa, which he founded and composed of activists from different cultural, religious, ideological and ethnic backgrounds. He did this due to the fact that in Egypt there is no climate of peace between Christians and Muslims, he wanted to create a group that reunited all diversities. It was also made possible thanks to public events, such as football matches, where we stop wearing a mask and we show who we actually are: “Only at the time of death are we all equal. We have to accept our diversity, and we can do this through dialogue and social activities”, Mohammad said. The actions of his movement focuses on the meeting between people at concrete events who do not automatically agree on “hot” topics, but who do regarding recreational activities. “We don’t have to force people to love each other”, he underlines,“but we have to focus on respect and equality”. Sr. Elisa Kidané, Combanian nun, writer and poetess, speaks to us about the God of life, the only one, the God of peace, which is not the God that we have made in our image and likeness. As long as each one of us hold on to the god which we created in our image and likeness, there won’t be peace, because “God does not belong to any culture”, even if “a fragment of his being is present in every culture”. She continues describing man as power-hungry, and the rule of law as a screen which hides this hunger and which creates these walls that divide us and make us believe that there is superior and inferior beings. She reconnects to what Tolba said, claiming that we can find the path to create a Mediterranean Citizenship only through dialogue and meetings, through our continual efforts to find what unites us instead of concentrating on creating barriers that divide us. Answering the question “How to create a grassroots movement that leads towards integration in the Mediterranean?”, Sr. Elisa claims that we have to free ourselves from the arrogance that brings every people to believe in their own god and to free ourselves from the presumption of belonging to a superior culture. We have to consider the Mediterranean as “the birthplace of several cultures”, where no one is superior to the other. We have to pay more attention to language, starting with the words whose current connotations come from their use inside power structures, and need to give them new meanings related to the potential Mediterranean Citizenship. She gives as an example the word “solidarity”, which has been exceeded and misunderstood, because abuses and injustices have been justified in the name of this word. She proposes to replace it with the word “synergy”, for which nobody is superior to the other and in which everyone always give something to the other. “In the name of God, this time, we need to disarm hearts, brains and hands, to have the courage to lay down the weapons and to stop weapon factories. Who has the courage, today and in the name of god and of the sovereign state, to prevent the commerce of weapons, who has the courage to stop the sending of war material in the name of peace?”, Sr. Elisa then wonders. According to the two speakers, Mediterranean’s activists can contribute to the creation of a peaceful and free space only by overcoming the stereotype of “brothersenemies”. Only by starting to see everybody as guilty and as a victim, can we save ourselves from fundamentalism and nationalism. With Sr. Elisa’s words: “when we start to recognise ourselves as simply humans, creatures, when we understand that violence generates only more violence and terror, when will we stop feeling superior or inferior, when we stop discriminating the other only because he is different”, Elisa continues claiming that we cannot blame God for our faults: we are the authors of our own destruction, and it is only by assuming our responsibilities and by having dialogues that we can build a new world where peace prevails. Also Mohammad continues the dialogue indicating that debate and meetings through simple events could be the solution, due to the fact that the majority of people are illiterate and that to reach them we have to create moments of “constructive counterpointing”, where everyone feels free to be himself. “In a world where religion easily becomes business”, Mohammad said, “to manage to recognise everyone as equal, humanity needs to look for similarities shared between people and it needs to leave behind its hunger for power and money. In this way humanity can leave space for the knowledge of the other, promoting culture, traditions and everyone’s customs”.