Here is the piece Fernanda Pivano has dedicated to Rovereto:
“Ah, what joy, what emotion, to see that a blameless town like Rovereto could come up with an idea that would result in a peace movement, a collective dream of peace that transcends geographical ties or – worse – political affinities, a dream for children and old people, inspired by artists and touching, perhaps, those who have lost loved ones to war, those who demand nothing, who only want people to stop killing each other like wild animals.
My dream is that this peace movement should grow and spread so that city after city, nation after nation can share and experience my dream.
Maybe dreams are doomed to failure, but I can’t believe that the dream of peace can die.
A human being’s best and brightest attribute is love... is respect. A human being’s best and brightest attribute is non-violence
That’s what protects our hearts, our affections, it’s as if eternity were filling us with light: only through non-violence can we be inspired in life. It is in these words, which the warmongers want us to forget, that the people who prefer a stroll in the woods to a deadly gun battle find hope.
Our love makes us return to a dream of towns where we can live together in mutual trust, where a man and a woman can meet and dream of the future and perhaps – why not – make love, at least not killing anyone.
(…) war is the most brutal of all the crimes against peace. It’s a crime based sometimes on feelings of nationhood, sometimes on ordinary feelings like wanting to win medals, but always on an illusion that those who are most naïve believe to be one of peace, not of ambition.
Perhaps it is part of the dream of peace that makes our dignity remind us of the eyes of a dying boy. Death is man’s greatest enemy and indolence’s greatest friend. Artists will always make a peace apart because that’s how they will see that their spirits shine forth. Because an artist cannot be evil: it’s evil people who prefer violence to peace.
Dear friends in Rovereto,
It’s because the word love is in your hearts, because your hearts turn towards the world, because you welcome art from east and west, that I am entrusting you with my secret dream, the dream of many friends united to spread peace.”
Marco Nereo Rotelli,
Fernanda Pivano, William Willinghto
|
|
I’VE MADE A PEACE APART
Since the end of the 1960s, the author Fernanda Pivano, along with important friends such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac or Gregory Corso, has always been active in the cause of peace and she has devoted many meetings to the subject, especially with young people.
Ms Pivano decided to write a book dedicated to peace. The title is Ho fatto una pace separata [“I’ve made a peace apart”] (published by Dream Creek). In the book, this great fan of America describes the most important occasions in recent years when she spoke about peace as, for example, in connection with the 9/11 attack on New York or the conversations about peace she has had with Hemingway or Ginsberg, as well as many other unforgettable experiences. The book ends with a marvellous “postscript” in which Fernanda Pivano talks about Rovereto, the “peace town”, and the importance that Rovereto has achieved over the years so that now it has become a universal touchstone for peace.
Foto: William Willinghton
“Every night when I turn out the light, my last thought is of the children, my last hope is that their sweetness, their dream of truth and love, will make them the ones who put an end to violence forever.” |
