»Peace Congress »Meeting the World audacity«
with Proclamation of Doctors Honoris Causa
for New Hope, Jürgen Grässlin and Bernard Tirtiaux
in Utopia, October 14th and 15th, 2016 in Verona«



Peace Congress »Meeting the World audacity«
with Proclamation of Doctors Honoris Causa
in Utopia, October 14th and 15th, 2016 in Verona

Co-promoters:
Altrapagina (Città di Castello), Altramente (Roma), Centro Pace Bolzano, Cercasi Un Fine (Puglia), Cicma (Milano), Cipsi (Roma), Combonifem (Verona), Coordinamento Campano Acqua Pubblica, Comitato Acqua Bene Comune Puglia, Nigrizia (Verona), No Tav (Susa), Pressenza (Firenze), Rete Radié Resch (Quarrata), Transform Italia (Roma), Università Invisibile (Reggio Emilia)

Why the audacity/courage?
The beauty, the good, the right, friendship, love, peace, solidarity, joy, celebration, are »political« and »social« fundamental values. Every human society must be able to keep a large capacity of utopia and utopian projects, especially in the sense of EU-topos, »good place.« Pragmatism, cynicism never have helped to advance in beauty, justice, love, solidarity... People must have the desire to dream. It 'important to be bold.

Since the 70s, Neoliberalism has managed to impose once again a new way to tell the life, the society and the world, where the citizen, the community, democratic participation, solidarity between generations are not there but there is environment and human predation and the theft of life.

The new neoliberal narratives imposes consumption, individualism, competition, financialization, privatization, the stakeholders, the technological imperative (»everything that is technically possible must be done«). At the center there's the utopian economical globalization.

Utopia is the capacity to image good place to live in that aren't existing yet but have to be realized. Today, we need a new era of utopian capability based on the awareness of the globality of the human condition, on the responsibility of humanity, on the equality of rights, on work and on the planetary institutionalization policy. This utopias have to be based on the promotion of »glocal community”, concrete expressions of the well living-together in the context of local history and the continuously transformation of the world.

In the XXI century, it's up to humanity, global by definition, translate the utopian capacity of the world. The future is the humanity, subject and bearer of the universal plural citizenship.

Hence the centrality of the audacity, to change the world, revolutionizing the financial system now dominant, outlawing war and eradicating the structural factors of impoverishment and exclusion in the world.

Program

FIRST PART Friday, October 14 (6:00 to 10:30 p.m.) and Saturday, October 15 Rethinking Utopia: from the imagination of the impossible to the realization of a change project
This is centered on the analysis and on the discussion of the contents and topics by the book »The fierce utopia. Changing the becoming«. The majority of twenty-nine contributors to the book will be at the convention.

Friday, October 14
17:00 Opening of the exhibition of writtings about UTOPIA (books, magazines ...)
18:00 Start: General introduction to the action
  »Why we have to rethink Utopia?« Riccardo Petrella
18:15 Stories of impossible stories made possible.
  Animation: Nicola Perrone
  Interventions and discussion with Achille Rossi, Cristina Bertelli, Lucia Bertell
20:45 Theme dinner prepared by Fulvio De Santa
19:30 Stories of impossible stories made possible (continued)
  Interventions and debate with Curzio Maltese, Antonia Romano, Roberto Musacchio, Consiglia Salvio, Carla Maria Ruffini, Jean Pierre Wauquier,

Saturday, October 15
9.15 Introduction to the laboratories.
9:30 Three Laboratories
  LAB1 Culture and utopian practices today according
  to the negative definition of utopia: »nonexistent place«

  Coordinated by Francesco Comina
  LAB2 Cultures and utopian practices in the era of globalization
  of the human condition.

  Coordinated by Roberto Mancini
  LAB 3 How to promote and make stronger utopian cultures
  and practices according to the
  positive definition of utopia: »proposed places to be realized«

  Coordinated by Patrizia Sentinelli
11.30 Laboratories results »Going to the Life Charter« after the UN-Charter 1948 and the »Earth Charter« (1990)
1:00 p.m. Lunch

Saturday, October 15 (2:30 to 7:30 p.m.)
Proclamation of Doctors Honoris Causa in Utopia 2016

  • La cooparativa New Hope
  • Jürgen Grässlin (pacifist)
  • Bernard Tirtiaux (sculptor, master glassmaker, writer)
• Silvano Nicoletto, Laudatio for the cooperative New Hope
 Intervention by the representative of New Hope / Musical interlude
• Francesco Comina, Laudatio for Jürgen Grässlin
 Intervention by Jürgen Grässlin / Musical interlude
• Riccardo Petrella, Laudatio for Bernard Tirtiaux.
 Intervention by Bernard Tirtiaux / Musical interlude
7:30 p.m. Dinner and convivial evening.