Hello everyone, today I have the hard task to entertain you by talking to you about what the values of ethics and personal responsibility mean to me.
Whenever I read about young partisans who were my age and were fighting and dying on the battle field to liberate my country and defend their ideals, I am not impressed by their ideals, but by the lives they chose to lead. I realize that ideals may go beyond pain, sufferance and even death. Whenever I see and read about Syrian children being tortured by Bashar Al Assad, whenever I see entire countries, such as Libya, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia fighting against despotic dictators and their armies, whenever I see young monks setting themselves on fire and dying in silence, I ask myself: “To what extent do my ideals shape me? To what extent would I push myself to apply and defend them?” Because, as Ezra Pound used to say: “ If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he is no good”.
Although I am lucky, I was born and raised in a free society, in the so called “first world”, and never had to take on huge responsibilities; I always felt my words and thoughts had to correspond to my actions, I always felt the need to behave according to my values and ideals. This is true even for the small choices I make in my life, like not buying food from corporations as McDonalds and not because I’m Italian ( and therefore used to the best food in the world…) I do so because I don’t want to finance institutions who’s only aim is profit and don’t have social responsibilty, institutions that are above the law, institutions that have no respect of ecosystems, animals and especially of us, us, seen only as consumers, institutions that don’t allow competition, fundamental in a democratic and capitalistic society. In the same way, though I sometimes buy the Globe and Mail or The New York Times, I try to support independent sources of information such as newspapers, websites and blogs that don’t have any kind of preference and interest when they choose what to report, sources of information that aren’t financed by political parties or sponsored by corporations. Also, in the last couple of years I passed more time listening to the radio than watching television because of the overwhelming influence of advertisement in tv. I really want to preserve my independent way of thinking, my individuality, I really don’t want to be affected by this wave of standardization.
So, as you can see ethics and morality shape and affect every single aspect of my life. They are a constant; they are part of our history, part of our present and future. Now that I am seventeen, I can firmly state that freedom and rights are as important as laws, ethics and responsibility and a country without laws and rules is just like a child without a mother, who will have a hard time distinguishing what’s good from what’s bad. Ethics and responsibility should be the foundations of our political systems.
But is politics something remote and impossible to understand?
Should we simply disregard and stigmatize it?
Should we dismiss it as something, which is always associated with power, corruption, ego, selfishness, greed and unethical behavior?
We have to look back, at the origin of the word “politics” in order to assess what politics is about. Politics comes from the Greek word politikos which means “of, for, or relating to citizens. Politics in fact was born to serve society, provide education and services to the community, fight with diplomatic means for our status quo and guarantee dignity to all social classes. Politics has nothing to do with war and violence because politics accepts and promotes the diversity of thought and the diversity of humanity. The meaning of politcs has been tragically distorted and this has led to the painful and profound crisis that we are witnessing these days especially in the part of the world I come from.
To conclude, I wanted to leave you with a reflection about today’s dynamics and this new widespread attitude of addressing all responsibilities to others, such as the political class. Today, if we look at societies as a whole, we realize that pillars of society such as moral values, ethics and meritocracy struggle throughout all social classes.
I think that we have a duty to try changing things and finding new sustainable solutions to the problems that are afflicting many parts of the world today . As Albert Einstein correctly said:
Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep on doing the same things. For all crises bring progress. Creativity is born from anguish, just like day is born from night.
Let’s reconsider the roles and responsibilities that we can all play in our society, let’s reconsider the power of the individual.
Il cacciatore 