Let us propose a larger Mediterranean community.
A space and a frame of mind which gives voice and recognition to people who are diverse, but also similar.
A place which honours memory and imagines a brighterfuture, prosperous and equitable.
A sea returning us to a being at the center of an infinite curiosity for humanity and the human heart, instead of an insurmountable wall.
The node of an interconnected and complex universe, a momentum beyond the banality of the mere other, which perhaps has never belonged to us.
The Mediterranean as vital conduit and union, as constant flow between different modes of life, as the rebirth and redemption of the meridian concept: a spirit that recovers the true values of limit, slowness, community, complexity, exchange.
The Mediterranean as liberation.
Liberation from an Atlantic thinking where the Atlantic represents a space of conquest and exploitation.
To cross the Atlantic, it was necessary to reach beyond limits, to rely on oneself and the technical prowess of the boat: of individualism, technique, hubris. Three elements that combine to give that dark coloration that is western society today.
That Atlantic idea for which everything is ultimately a resource to consume until it is exhausted, until it becomes its own negation – an absence.
That cold and hostile Atlantic, that represses emotions, that presupposes a closure of oneself, the uncritical obedience to its momentum, the need for domination, for efficiency … because crossing the Atlantic has always been a business.
The Atlantic horizon is a simplification of ideas, the rationalization of experience, contriving a meaning for emptiness; being at the centre of the world presupposes complexity, connectivity, accuracy.
Confronted with the prospect of return, of the ‘nostos’ as Ulysses taught us, the Mediterranean calls forth reason against rationalism, a means for ending atomism and reductionism.
The Atlantic embodies in all and for all the sense of the present society’s obsession with technical innovation and development; because it is only with these two elements that it may dominate, and wishes to dominate – because it is a non-place, an unknowable and alien space.
The Mediterranean however, can define the meaning of a future society: one of adaptation and evolution, which are the twin foundations of an ecological society. And if the Atlantic teaches us ‘privacy’, the Mediterranean teaches us sharing, community, life in the streets, in the public squares, and in relationship.
Mediterranean time is calm, a space where stillness may transform into wisdom – a slow and present time. Atlantic time is fast and future driven – dedicated to labour and accumulation, to the efficient organization of production and little to contemplation, where critical thinking is born.
A meridian thought goes beyond the geographic place of the Mediterranean itself to become a vision of the world and of itself – a prerequisite, a condition to be achieved, a pure form of resistance.
THE MEDITERRANEAN FREEDOM COMMITTEES
CLMs are born with the idea of creating a strong, free, and federated community that shares some common principles:
No to neoliberalism Yes to community
No to globalization Yes to local production
No to privatization Yes to common goods
No to efficiency Yes to slowness
No to environmentalism Yes to ecology
No to technocracy Yes to ethical values
No to development Yes to limits
No to productivity Yes to conviviality
No to classism Yes to solidarity
No to aneasthesis Yes to aesthetics
No to patriarchy Yes to matriarchy
No to statism Yes to municipalism
