Thank you, the founder and president of the Soft Power Club, Francesco Rutelli. Thank you, Naples, for having invited me back. Thank you [for] the wonderful contribution of Mayor Manfredi who has invited us to participate in the future of the two thousand five hundred years, that is to say in Naples being prepared, as I quote him or paraphrase him, “to be the capital of culture and humanity in the years to come”. I want to thank also Prime Minister Bayrou who emphasized in in his video message that soft power is the idea that influence does not lie solely in force but in how we develop societies based on shared values, in how we grow societies not to subjugate others but to collaborate with them”, unquote. Ian Bremmer, in rather an interesting piece in foreign affairs called The Technopolar Paradox, wrote about the technopolar age: a new geopolitical era where major tech companies and figures rival and increasingly shape the power of governments. The world, as he said, in this hybrid global order – I think we have to dwell on the word hybrid to see how soft power can become a part of this hybrid global order, as he describes it – is no longer purely state-driven. Instead, it is bifurcating: a technopolar United States where private tech giants dominate digital infrastructure, policy and national power, and a statist China where tech firms are fully controlled by the state. Most countries are caught in between, with Europe weakened by its lack of homegrown tech and global south gravitating towards China’s model. I would just like to say that, for me, mediterra is terra media. How can we develop the centrism of terra media, in a world where the rise of techno authoritarianism has been exacerbated, not least for those who of us who have read Anthony Loewenstein’s The Palestine Laboratory? Today the settlements in the occupied territories represent at least number two, if not number one, in the international sale of arms and spyware. And the demography of course has shifted from the original Ashkenazi migration to more of an Anglo-Saxon reality on the ground. And I just wanted to suggest that, in the not-so-distant past for me, when I speak of the Mediterranean, Shimon Peres and I travelled to Casablanca, to the Middle East/North Africa Summit. And jointly we proposed… This was before the boat people, and before the Mediterranean became a sea of death. That is to say, in trying to prevent these disasters, we proposed the following: 35 billion dollars to be invested across 24 countries, from Morocco to Turkey or further afield, over the course of a decade. 35 billion dollars for 24 countries is not… 35 billion is not such a large figure, I would have thought. The goal was to create the conditions of what we then called “the will to stay”. So these migrants would not come to the point of the end of the road, literally. And I remember going to Siracusa and thanking the local authorities for doing what was above and beyond the call of duty, which is the big heart of the Romans and indeed of the Italians in receiving and facilitating their passage.
So what do we have today? We have ethnocide, memorycide, domicide, homicide and other references. But I hope that we don’t come to the point of having cogitocide, the inability to think for ourselves. After all, if the Mediterranean is witness to the root of… the spice route, the silk route. Let me remind you that the spice route is from Gaza to Pozzuoli and from Pozzuoli to the north, to Scandinavia. This is the incense route. Isn’t it time that we spoke of the root of ideas, of the great ideas? Listening to my friend on my right, I was struck by his reference to Jonah and the whale. And I just wanted to say that as far as Kenneth Craig, Archbishop Kenneth Craig, who wrote a commentary on [ARABO] – the Excellencies of Jerusalem –, he made the point very clearly that in terms of Abraham we should ask ourselves: is it Abraham of the Chaldees, of Ur? Is it Abraham of Jerusalem and Mount Moriah? Is it Abraham of Mecca? Abraham brings together all of these questions, but at the same time does not answer these questions as much as, let us say, Noah. Noah, and the Noah Heed Creed, is possibly more of an interaction. I’m always surprised that if I criticize anything that is happening west of us, and I mean immediately west of us, I run the risk – although I am not aware of having incurred in this word – of being called antisemite. How can I, a descendant of Ishmael? Let us remember that Ishmael and Jacob were two brothers, and brothers in history have a way of disagreeing and bifurcating. So let us try to put the context in the context and remind ourselves of our common roots.
And, in that sense, I just wanted to say that today what is happening in our region is that we are not simply making economic proposals to have the largesse of Europe. Shimon Peres and I travelled to Brussels together to speak to Manuel Marin, who was then the commissioner responsible for the Mediterranean, and he said “first come first served”. So I said, “I’m not coming here with a begging bowl. I’m coming here to ask you for a concept of how to keep all of these thousands of boat people from dying, literally dying in the Mare Nostrum” – Mare della Morte, as it has become. Unfortunately, they were not even ready to appoint a team to study, to develop a concept of how this could be done. You mentioned citizenship. Cardinal Pizzaballa referred to citizenship. We will not become citizens until we stop being followers. We are not sheep. And the time has come to recognize that human dignity is a common denominator between all of us. And to invest in that human dignity – to empower and enable people to feel that they are partners of generations to come – is the great strength of soft power. So I would like remind you that Naples reminds us that the Mediterranean is not a border to be defended, but a shared space of encounter, exchange, and coexistence. Its legacy is a testament to the power of cities as beacons of civilization, resilience, and human dignity.
The Levant as a continuum is what you have also touched on. I come from the Provincia Arabia Romana. That’s how it used to be known. This Mediterranean’s waters have long been the carriers of goods and ideas. From Phoenician scripts to Roman law, from Hellenistic philosophy to Arab science and Andalucian poetry. Years ago, the director of the Hebrew Museum, Mr. Sassoon, came to see me. And he said, “I thank you very much for what you did for us in the 11th century.” I said, “Well, it’s a little bit before my time, but if you’re telling me now that you owe me, what are you going to do for us?” He still hasn’t answered the question, unfortunately. Today, I think that we must re-imagine the sea not as a theatre of migration or conflict but that but as a continuum of conscience or consciousness, a region bound by a shared moral responsibility. Just yesterday here in Herculaneum we signed the twinning of the cities of Ercolano and ancient Gadara based on the common denominator, our great hero Marcello Gigante of the Marcello Gigante initiative. He wrote to me and he said, “We are brought together by Philodemus”. And I thought to myself, who is Philodemus? And then I discovered the great epicurean, the contemporary of Zeno of Sidon, the pupil of the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, Piso, who lived here in Naples. And I thought to myself, isn’t it time that we address the priorities that we share by asking ourselves the four following questions? What unites us in our fragility? What unites us in our fragility? Is it not the rising temperatures that threaten our agriculture, the water scarcity that compromises our sovereignty, the erosion of cultural heritage and the widening gap of inequality? My friends, I think these are not isolated national concerns, but they are regional imperatives. The Levant region needs you. People talk about the Middle East, and then they talk about oil and hydrocarbons, and now they talk about solar power. All of which are basic materials to be found in our part to the world, as it happens. But the people who have the oil and have the solar power are jumping over us into Europe and creating new industries, not only for this aspect but also arms industries. We are creating jobs in the rearmament of the West and the East. So I want to suggest that maybe addressing our regions, the Levant region… Oh, by the way, I must tell you a story. When they referred to Jordan as geopolitically Mediterranean, they wanted to be very polite to us. I said, “How can we be geopolitically Mediterranean? We don’t have our feet on the Mediterranean Sea. Or does that make us like Portugal?”, I said. “No, no, no. Portugal is European.” I said: “Well, forgive me for asking, you know, but I didn’t realize that this was a caste system or a hierarchy”.
Anyway, I do want to remind you that tiny Jordan proposed a new international humanitarian order to the United Nations, and at the request of the United Nations, in the 1980s. This vision is not utopian but a moral and strategic imperative. Our interconnected crisis, displacement, ecological degradation, water scarcity, and polarization require a Mediterranean charter of human responsibilities. My dear Francesco, a Mediterranean charter of human responsibilities, which may include, if I may suggest, preventative policies and not politics. Preventative policies and not politics. Protection of human dignity, promotion of inclusive citizenship and good governance – not government, governance. It is only through sharing responsibility that we can cultivate a culture of prevention and thereby transform soft power into a durable ethic of care, and moving towards a coalition of the caring. The coalition of the caring must not be confined to states alone. It must embrace civil society, faith-based organizations, academic institutions, humanitarian actors, and engaged citizens. When I say faith-based organizations, let me remind you of the huge financially endowed foundations –certainly in the religions in our part of the world – and the importance of effective altruism. Effective altruism. At its core, such a coalition would reorient priorities possibly from state security to human security. The issue of security is too important to be left exclusively to the security agencies. Soft power is not soft when rooted in moral clarity and translated into collective action. It is the most enduring form of power, the power culture of compassion and of common cause. Let us remember that we are not inheritors of separate faiths but co-authors of a shared faith.
Turning to the terra santa, by which I mean all of our Levant region – because unfortunately there have been national attempts to place a national imprimatur on holiness in our immediate region –, I just wanted to suggest that, as Rafael Cohen al-Mago of the Israeli Centre for Advanced Studies proposed a corpus separatum for the Holy basin gathered by an international custodial agreement, such a vision aligns with what I have called a community of communities. A civil compact where sovereignty is tempered by sacred trust and collective stewardship. The religious foundations, the churches, the synagogues, indeed all custodians of heritage, must be protected from politicisation and allowed to serve as pillars of ethical resilience. On effective altruism, we must revive and scale institutional altruism through instruments that appertain to the religious institutions that I have cited. These faith-rooted financial models are not only sustainable but deeply embedded in the region’s ethical and historical fabric. Can we re reconstruct human dignity to a credible political horizon that prioritises good governance? Can we address regional security and humanitarian architecture? Can we launch a broader Eastern Mediterranean security and reconstruction dialogue? You mentioned, Mr. Tottoli, if I may, the importance of the Orientale’s East-West dialogue. And I mentioned that we have a divan at the Centre for Religious Studies and Interfaith Studies which is mediterraneo-iberico-americo latino. So let us try to activate our global south with some of these priorities in mind.
I thank you all very much and I want you to know that in Jordan, tiny Jordan… There was a lady here who spoke to me of the synchrotron collider, which we have now a copy of in Jordan. And this collider is studying as we speak the papyri of Philodemus, and I’m rather delighted that you visited that particular initiative. We have all the usual or unusual suspects of our region participating in science diplomacy. I don’t care whether they take a dim view of each other or are hostile to each other in political stances. But in when it comes to science there is a need and a desire to cooperate which I welcome. So can we balance innovation and connectivity with responsibility in the age of digital transformation and AI? I think that we can. I thank you all for your patience and congratulate you on a great achievement.
