March 14th 2019, 9.30 a.m.
Garden of the Rigtheous worldwide, Monte Stella hill - Milan
Four new Righteous honoured
Public ceremony
The theme chosen by the Association for the Garden of the Righteous for the ceremony of the Day of the Righteous of the Humanity 2019 is "Humanity at a crossroads. Europe and Africa between indifference and responsibility".
Today the founding values of the European Union seem to have been lost, triggered by the tragedy of World Wars, tending to peacefully settle conflicts and create a European identity sentiment that goes beyond the boundaries of individual Member States, following an idea of democracy as a representation of divergent interests freely expressed and mediated by politics. The sovereign forces have prevailed in many countries, where fear for the future facilitates the return of the ghosts of the past: hatred for the stranger or more generically for the different, the autarchical thrusts stuffed with racism and extreme obstinacy, the words orderly minted to awaken, with the lethal weapon of ideology, devastating irrational reactions. Once again the Righteous give us a great help to intervene effectively on this ridge.
We must recall the most significant characters in the process of European integration, who fought to make democratic demands for dialogue and peaceful conflict regulation prevail. And we must illuminate the renewal processes underway in Africa, honouring personalities involved in the most difficult and risky situations, representative of the new postcolonial reality and projected towards a modernity declined in terms of the reduction of economic inequalities and of democratic growth.
For this reason, on the occasion of the Day of the Righteous, Istvan Bibo, a Hungarian intellectual, a critical conscience of the nation on the country's collusion with Nazism and close to Imre Nagy during the 1956 revolution in Budapest will be honoured at the Garden of Milan; Simone Veil, a French Jew who survived the Shoah, an indomitable champion of human rights, the dignity of women and the role of Europe for peace, the first woman President of the European Parliament and also the first to preside over the directly elected European Parliament; Wangari Maathai, Kenyan activist and environmentalist, the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace; Denis Mukwege, a Congolese doctor, has devoted his life for years to assisting women victims of "rape as a weapon of war", despite the threats suffered by the armed groups of the country. "The Righteous of hospitality. Beyond the boundaries to break down the walls ".
The initiative is part of a series of events, which we list below.
March 6th, 8.45 p.m, Milan Cathedral
Organ concert on the occasion of the Day of the Righteous of Humanity. With the extraordinary participation of Antonella Ruggiero. Free admission while seats last from 8.00 p.m.
March 14th, 15.00 p.m, Palazzo Marino, Sala Alessi - Milan
Delivery of the scrolls to the Righteous honoured at the Virtual Garden
Free entry by reservation
For info and reservations: [email protected]
0236707648