A few days before the start of United World Week 2021, an interview with Mario Bruno, President of the International Center of the Politics for Unity Movement, one of the promoters of the #Daretocare campaign and in this special week, on May 2 celebrates 25 years since its foundation.

The calendar is getting fuller every day, the United World Week is approaching: actions, events, appointments for 9 very special days. We will also celebrate a birthday, that of the Politics for Unity Movement (MppU), founded on May 2, 25 years ago, in Naples. With Mario Bruno, the current president of the International Center of the MppU, we talk about a very special initiative, which wants to celebrate an anniversary, this yes, but also much, much more…

On May 2, the Politics for Unity Movement will turn 25: an important date not only to celebrate an anniversary but, as far as we know, also to launch a challenge…

“To launch a challenge that this “network” in the world already feels. We have learned, with the pandemic but also in these 25 years, that politics is above all “taking care”, not only of those who are close to us, but taking care of a community: of our cities, of the places where we live, but also at a universal level. And so the challenge that we will be launching is for a better quality of politics, which has many implications, especially in the crisis we are going through: think of the economic, social, environmental and health crises, and how to deal with all of these issues from a global perspective, starting precisely from caring, beginning with the people closest to us right up to the care of creation.

All of these on a path where politics primarily addresses growing inequalities even in this pandemic. How do we get through these wounds? How do we get through these conflicts, these inequalities? How to ensure that the crisis that we are experiencing, which is social, economic and health, but also political, can find precisely in politics the place where quality is expressed, the quality of those who must then bring the problems to synthesis and find solutions? That’s our job.”

So, concretely, what’s going to happen on May 2?

“On May 2 we will launch an appeal addressed to all the politicians of the world and it is an appeal based precisely on a politics with quality, with a horizon that guides us that is that of fraternity, but also saying in a very strong way that the politics we are passionate about is a “meek” politics: there are some values that come first, that accompany and then also come as a consequence of political and institutional action.

Chiara Lubich said that politics has a “background” function, in the sense that it must bring out all the human disciplines: economics, health, the beauty that is expressed in architecture, in psychology, in all the human disciplines: politics has this duty to bring them to synthesis, to govern them and to express them. But in order to do this, it also needs a unity of disciplines that precisely through the Politics for Unity Movement come to light and find a home”.

From what I’ve been able to understand so far, one of the interesting things about this appeal is precisely its development, because it takes off from a worldwide network: how important is this network in arriving at the result that we will see on Sunday?

“There are politicians from at least twenty countries around the world who have collaborated on this document, so the “network” is important because it also allows us, in dialogue, to understand different sensibilities, different cultures, and to harmonize them into an appeal that must fit all countries around the world, to be truly universal. Certainly, we belong to a nation, to a homeland, but we have a vision which is that of a common human family, and this is another of the characteristics of the politicians of the Politics for Unity Movement: to have this vision of “women and men of the world”.

This helps us because the different countries of the world have different perceptions of values and rights, but above all it helps us to consider, as we see with this pandemic, that every action we take, even at the local level, has an influence in the other part of the world and vice versa: so the decisions we make are always global decisions, but they are also simultaneously local decisions. It is this being concrete in the places of politics such as our cities, our neighborhoods and at the same time being in the world knowing that we can influence the culture and political action; this is a fascinating reality and makes us protagonists of a new world. In this dimension, politics makes choices, listens to people, enters into dialogue with everyone, especially with those who have problems, and then brings them to a synthesis.

We will find all this in the appeal, which has its concreteness in the request that we will make to measure ourselves on universal commons starting from an accessible vaccine for all, and from this addressing common evils (even the virus is a common evil) through concrete practices of common good. The Politics for Unity Movement expresses itself in concrete actions and new political thought, and this network around the world really helps us to have a thought that looks at today’s world with a focus on tomorrow.”

May 2 is a point of arrival but also as a moment of re-departure in order for politics to regain its centrality: it seems, in fact, that the world is dominated only by finance, by economics, and that politics is a bit on the sidelines…

“In taking care of everyone we must also take care of politicians. Doing politics is probably the noblest endeavour because the government represents the ability to love citizens in a stronger, broader, more universal way; so what is the highest dignity of this? To serve one’s fellow citizens, to find the common good, to do all this together, this is the dignity of politics.

As I mentioned, this politics brings out all the disciplines that collaborate to arrive at the common good, each from their own point of view, angle, and professionalism. And so even economics and finance can have their own function that assists communion, so that there is an equal distribution of resources among everyone in the world, and we have many concrete experiences in this sense; sometimes there is a predominance of economics and other sciences that in their practical application, sometimes degenerate, act as masters even over decisions that instead belong to the sphere of politics”.

Practically, what will happen on May 2…

“May 2 will be a feast because it’s our 25^th anniversary, but it won’t be a celebration because we see this date precisely as a point of re-departure for a quality politics that looks at the needs of citizens, that looks at the world with the pandemic we are experiencing, trying to find solutions together; It will be a moment of listening to experiences of a worldwide network that is connected and that finds in the appeal not only the inspiration but also the way to concretize in the reality of each country those values that are contained in the appeal itself. It will also be a moment in which the origins of the Movement for Unity will be remembered, in the story of what happened in Naples 25 years ago; we will find in today’s concreteness the strength to go forward and to strengthen this network of politicians in the world that are so many and make us believe that we are on the road that Chiara Lubich indicated and that sees the world, in spite of everything, towards unity”.