We have reached a pivotal moment in our year with the Righteous, the rendezvous with GariwoNetwork, involving all those who deal with the Righteous and the creation of the Gardens of the Righteous in Italy and around the world.
This year, the 5th International Meeting of GariwoNetwork, titled Preventing genocide through the example of the Righteous, will be held on 23rd and 24th November 2021 and will focus on genocide prevention, both from a theoretical point of view, through the contributions of experts, and from a practical point of view, through the exchange with Gariwo, which will provide tools and methodologies to work on the theme in schools and in the Gardens of the Righteous.
The current global situation in which various scenarios of potential genocides and mass atrocities are emerging, from Afghanistan to Yemen, from Ethiopia to Myanmar and to Xinjiang in China, makes global debate on how to recognise dangerous mechanisms, languages and dynamics and how to prevent new genocides increasingly urgent. In this framework, a crucial role is played by the stories of the Righteous, who are a powerful barrier to evil and an actual example of responsibility towards the others, by safeguarding human life, the environment and freedom.
The work of Gariwo and its network on genocide prevention, through the dissemination of the Memory of Good and the Gardens of the Righteous around the world, is intended to be a continuation of 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, strongly advocated by Polish Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin and adopted by the United Nations. In this process, two important milestones were the approval of the Day of the Righteous of Humanity, first by the European Parliament in 2012 and then by the Italian Parliament in 2017 and, on the occasion of 2021 Holocaust Remembrance Day, the acceptance by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies of three actual proposals made by Gariwo Foundation to the Italian Parliament on genocide prevention.
2021 edition of GariwoNetwork will take place over two days, in two different stages, the conference and the meeting with Gariwo. The speakers at the online conference will be Gariwo President Gabriele Nissim, writer and Gariwo Editorial Manager Francesco M. Cataluccio, Polish journalist and activist Konstanty Gebert, and the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies Piero Fassino. Senator Liliana Segre will participate in a video. The speeches will be preceded by greetings from Mario Vanni, Head of Cabinet of the Mayor of Milan, Tsovinar Hambardzumyan, Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia in Italy introduced by the Honorary Consul of Armenia in Italy Pietro Kuciukian, Roberto Jarach, President of the Milan’s Shoah Memorial, Andrée Ruth Shammah, Director of the Franco Parenti Theater.
