A COMMON HOUSE AND A MANIFESTO FOR THE MARE NOSTRUM
Proposals and reflections about Sabir Maydan II Project
by Gianluca Solera
The World Social Forum has come to its end and with it the dialogues on Mediterranean Citizenship that we held under the name of “Sabir Maydan.” The first thoughts that I take home are encouraging and discouraging at the same time. They are encouraging because many speakers have emphasized the urgent need to open a path towards integration in the Mediterranean region, joining the forces among different organizations, associations and citizens’ initiatives that work for a Mediterranean Space as an area of peace, development, justice and coexistence. Either we have this, or alternatively we will experience wars, inequality, environmental and cultural degradation or migrants’ desperation. However, my thoughts are also discouraging because the burden is heavy, the urgency of the times is overwhelming, the civil society in this region is still disjointed, concerned by the internal contradictions their own countries face, and the vision of a common house is greater than our capacities. We are confronted with the Goliath of the “Clash of civilizations”, the “Fight against terrorism”, the “Reduction of the deficit,” and we have to cross the dark caverns of political and economic corruption, the troubled waters of the disaffection towards the institutions, and the heavy boulder of geopolitics squeezing people’s rights to self-determination. Rashaa Shaaban, an Egyptian participant at Sabir Maydan II, said, “It is easier to identify ourselves with a Mediterranean identity than aspire to a Mediterranean Citizenship.” It is easier to discover the common traits of the cultures bordering the Mediterranean Sea than to accept and promote equal citizenship rights among the inhabitants of this region.
However, a trans-Mediterranean citizenship is now a necessity for several people: let us think for example to a Syrian refugee, whose family is divided between Damascus, Beirut and Paris. Maria Al-Abdeh, of Citizens for Syria, reminded us that, “This issue concerns and affects deeply my personal identity.”
Among the most controversial rights we face there is the one of mobility. Kamal Lahbib, spokesperson of Alternatives Maroc, has encouraged us to launch a campaign for the right to move freely between the two banks, because this right is prior to any attempt to build an area of cooperation and understanding. This right must be at the basis when developing a catalogue of citizenship rights shared among the nations of this region.
The ideas emerged from the days of SabirMaydan II about the redefinition of the concept of citizenship, in a region that shares history, culture and geography, are numerous, but three of them in particular touched me:
– The principle of solidarity, for which we have the right and the duty to offer our support to those in need, beyond our nationality and our language;
– The sense of a “plural belonging”, and we have to speak of the possession of multiple identities, and the primacy of the principle of inclusion on exclusion in the relationships between communities and nations.
– The fact that everything is politics, and if we defend the idea of a trans-regional citizenship founded on the equivalence of rights and the sharing of duties, we must necessarily aspire to develop common policies between the two banks.
In Tunis, we argued on spaces and specific tools for the civil societies of the region in order to raise public awareness on a new idea of citizenship, and advocate for institutional reforms towards a Mediterranean integration process. We talked about an institute for Mediterranean activism, a radio-TV regional grassroots channel, a festival that forges ideas and proposals around the Mediterranean citizenship.
Before all that, however, we need to gather together, to consolidate a group of personalities and organizations who intend to work together to put in motion a process made by many stages and steps, in order to affirm the historical necessity of building a common house in this region, what the navigator Simone Perotti has named “the Sixth continent.”
And we need to put our vision in writing: we could call this exercise a “Manifesto.” I do not speak (for now) of a Constituent Charter, but of a political manifesto that defines what we mean by “Mediterranean citizenship” and what we mean by “common house”, drawing the guidelines of a Mediterranean model, articulated in its social and economic, cultural and political dimensions. This Manifesto should be the result of an extensive consultation and the participation of numerous personalities and activists who believe in this challenge, and not a declarative text imposed from above by heads of state or authorities.
In the bag I travelled with to Tunis, I brought the “Manifesto for a free and united Europe”, drafted on the island of Ventotene during the Second World War by a group of exiled anti-fascist intellectuals.The analysis offered that document seems made on purpose for the times in which we live: “Today is the time when we must be able to throw away old and yet cumbersome burdens. It is the time to be ready for the future that comes, so different from everything we had imagined; we must discard those incepts among the old people and generate new energy among the young people. Today, those who have identified the causes of the current crisis of European civilization can gather and meet. They can begin to weave the threads of the future, and therefore collect the inheritance of all the movements of elevation of humanity who have lost their momentum for the lack of understanding of the aims, or of the means how to achieve them. The way ahead is not easy nor safe. But it must be accomplished, and it will be so.”
The Charter of Ventotene was written when the bombs were falling on European capitals. Even now, we live moments of deep turbulence, caused by unresolved conflicts, civil wars and acts of terrorism, return of authoritarian powers, weakening of the European dream, economic crisis, contraction of fundamental rights, growing insecurity, and deep corruption of political systems. So, this is the time to envisage the building of a Common House around the so-called Mare Nostrum. Mediterranean Citizenship is the answer to the trade of hate, to the habit of precariousness, and to the atrophy in optimism.
