Deciding to live in “common houses” means operating a true cultural leap. It means choosing intentionally respect instead of contrast, sharing goals rather than single interests, cooperation to antagonism, personal and social responsibility instead of predestined planes.
It means choosing a specific vision of the world.
The Mediterranean has always been “a common house”, where goods, books, ideas and visions have circulated. This small sea is depository of knowledge and practices that come from the most amazing civilizations of the world, from the Egyptians to the Phoenicians, from the Greeks to the Romans, and then the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, the Italian maritime republics, the great European empires and then the national states, and so on. In these millenniums of history, an immense scientific, philosophical, educational, religious and spiritual, legal and political environment of incomparable prosperity has been established, which has to be reclaimed, harmonized and adapted to modernity to offer extraordinary foundation for a new civilization.
Hence the idea of re-thinking a new Mediterranean civilization, based on the deep understanding of our own system of values and principles that we call “Mediterranean Awareness”.
The first step is therefore to establish a community of women and men looking for a new vision of the world, founding a “MEDITERRANEAN COMMON HOUSE.”
Intellectuals, designers, scientists, politicians, business leaders, local government officials, professionals, men and women committed in social issues: a community that can communicate and know each other, that can share experiences and researches, reshaping scenarios and values system. Men and women who, as Mediterranean citizens, can recognize themselves in the “Manifesto of the Mediterranean Civilization”.
PROJECT’S OBJECTIVES (or output)
The project aims to promote concrete spaces for dialogue and reflection throughout the Mediterranean, with the goal of stimulating a common sensibility to establish a climate of peace, respect and mutual understanding, fruitful exchanges, stability in relations and mutual cooperation.
A community of women and men who share the same values.
It aims to involve in the process of “building” a common house both civil society and the authorities of the countries involved, in order to create a space for discussion at multiple levels, for giving continuously life to new ideas and for sharing intellectual and human experiences.
Up against the many conflicts and crises that the Mediterranean countries live, it is necessary to work with a constant and organized effort, in the direction of raising a new global vision, where the conflict resolution pass through diplomacy and civil comparison and where the old reasons of the opposition are replaced by those of development of new ideas and visions.
Manifesto of Mediterranean Civilization –Download PDF
MCH charter -Download PDF