How will you cure?
“… All can, in one way or another, each in his own sphere and within his own limitations, do something to help the good work”, our founding father Henry Dunant wrote in the text that led to what would eventually be defined as modern humanitarianism, the famous ‘good work’ that has been carried out for almost two centuries and is today going through a new transformation. All this was born of a great crisis, of a dark moment in history, the slaughter that was the battle of Solferino: from the hollowness of death to the warmth of hope.
That tragic context revealed the best of the human being, its highest potential, an emblematic moment that produced a new humanity, leading from a divided and juxtaposed you and I to an us, in the most noble sense of the term. This new humanity has been identified, depicted and promoted by maestro Pistoletto and Cittadellarte, and it’s very close to the volunteer contribution of the Red Cross. Situations of crisis or war seal its inspiring principles and trigger an international mobilization for the support and care of any vulnerability, free of any discrimination. This is how we have cured and we are curing, guided by a beacon that will never go out, ignited by the same values animating the search for the Third Paradise, the ultimate dream, as Subsonica sing.
But how will we cure tomorrow, after this new turning point, after suffering the aggression of a terrible virus that has marked a before and after in history and in our collective and individual conscience? The Red Cross has been dealing with circumstances similar to those of its origins, facing what I’ve defined a ‘contemporary Solferino’, in which the responders have acted at their own risk, hit in first person by what was happening, yet bound to be themselves, operational, always lucid.
Each of us has had to overcome the initial shock and the incredulity of finding themselves in the middle of a global pandemic, and knows in their heart that this phase will be studied by future generations, who will wonder about the anguish we experienced and what sense of precariousness and fragility dominated this 2020. We are conscious of the fact that we are embarking on a new chapter in human history: in this ‘contemporary Solferino”, each of us has had to look at themselves in the mirror and decide to make a difference.
This is how our new revolution started, a ‘time of kindness’ made of collective actions closely connected to civil society, laying the foundations for a network of new humanity that considers all aspects of our present vulnerability. We just have to think about the thousands of people who have joined our organisation as temporary volunteers… the ‘us’ made action. Once again, I think about our founding father, who, in his last will, asked to be buried in common grave. And here is the reason behind his request: he claimed that the human being was irrelevant and insignificant compared to its ideas. That’s it, the future of cure and culture is in this ‘us’.
