Memory. The new Righteous in the world marked by Covid
They are Dag Hammarskjöld, Carlo Urbani, Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. On March 6th the celebrations of the Day of the Righteous of Humanity
Milan, 10 December 2020 – The Committee of Guarantors of the Association for the Garden of the Righteous of Milan, composed of the Municipality, Gariwo and UCEI, ratified the choices expressed by the Assembly on 5 November regarding the theme for the celebrations of 6 March 2021 at the Garden of the Righteous of Monte Stella in Milan: "For a new humanity. The example of the Righteous in the world marked by Covid".
The approved figures are: the Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, who made history for his humanitarian commitment as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1953 to 1961; the Italian doctor of the World Health Organization (WHO) Carlo Urbani, who paid with his life for the battle against SARS; the writer and literary critic Liu Xiaobo, human rights activist in China together with his wife Liu Xia, poet, painter and photographer; US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, combative supporter of gender equality and female emancipation in the United States, icon of feminism.
The choice derives from the consideration that in this historical moment it is useful to highlight figures who indicate the path to follow so that humanity can choose the best solutions to collective problems, such as the pandemic. This is why we want to present the stories of those who fight for international collaboration and the defense of democracy against every form of barbarism and authoritarian control of people and to give knowledge and science back a role of guidance and orientation.
"Examples of an unconditional commitment to the great themes and problems of our time: from humanitarianism to gender equality, from scientific research to civil and political rights - comments the President of the City Council Lamberto Bertolé -. The figures we honor are certainly very well known in the world, their registration among the Righteous is our community's recognition of the work they have done and the life they have dedicated to humanity. The hope is that their testimony will be a guide for the new generations, because what these people have done represents a fundamental contribution in the long journey towards a more equal global society from the point of view of rights, respect for all, access to research, care and fundamental goods".
“With the proposal of the new Righteous we wanted to indicate the four great battles that arise on a global level - declares the president of Gariwo Gabriele Nissim -. The battle for democracy, fundamental in the face of autocracies and illiberal regimes, which can threaten the world; the battle for the strengthening of international institutions which, supported by Western democracies, can be important today for the prevention of new genocides and mass crimes; the battle for the defense of women's rights in every part of the planet, from the United States, to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, since today women are perhaps the most important subject of possible change and finally the battle for a international cooperation to defeat pandemics, so that the vaccine can be distributed in all countries and medical research can be made available to all people. The five Righteous, which we have indicated, best represent these instances and can be an example for the whole world and for the new generations. The Righteous, as the Hebrew word “Tiqqun 'olam” reminds us, teach us to “straighten the world” and the time in which we happened to be born”.
“The figures of the Righteous, approved by the Committee of Guarantors on the proposal of the Association – declares Giorgio Mortara, vice-president of UCEI -, can be an example and stimulus to young people, but not only that, and well represent the ideals that today are remembered in everything the world on the occasion of the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which emphasizes 'freedom and equal rights for all human beings and their commitment to brotherhood'”.
Their stories in brief, available in full on Gariwo site:
Dag Hammarskjöld
Born in Sweden, Secretary General of the United Nations from 10 April 1953 to 18 September 1961, when his plane crashed - in an accident whose causes will never be fully clarified - in Ndola (in present-day Zambia), during a mission to resolve the political crisis in Congo following the proclamation of independence. He was the only United Nations Secretary General to die while in office. In 1961 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in memory, "in gratitude for all he did, for what he achieved, for the ideal for which he fought: to create peace and magnanimity among nations and men."
Carlo Urbani
Engaged in humanitarian operations since he was young, he joined Doctors Without Borders and worked in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime to control endemic diseases among the local population. In 2003 he was contacted by the hospital in Hanoi to visit a businessman suffering from atypical pneumonia and he was the first and only one to realize that it was a new disease. He raises the alarm to the government and the WHO, convincing them to adopt quarantine measures. Struck by the disease, he dies two weeks later, after requesting that his lung tissue be used for research. According to the WHO, its anti-pandemic method still represents an international protocol to fight these diseases.
Liu Xiaobo
Writer, literary critic and teacher, he was the first Chinese to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. In the spring of 1989 he participated in the Tiananmen Square protests and was arrested and imprisoned for 20 months. Promoter of "Carta 08", the manifesto inspired by Vaclav Havel's Carta '77 with which he calls for the establishment of an authentic democracy in China, characterized by the separation of powers, the end of the single-party dictatorship and the creation of a federation to protect the rights of minorities. In 2009 he was arrested again and sentenced to 12 years in prison, he fell ill with liver cancer and died in July 2017.
Liu Xia
Poet, painter and photographer, she married Xiaobo while he was detained in a re-education camp in the period 1996-1999, constantly giving voice to his ideas and sharing his commitment to human rights. In 2010 she was subjected to house arrest to prevent her from continuing to spread her husband's thoughts. She is also forbidden to support herself financially and for this reason she finds herself in a serious state of poverty, but she never renounces her husband and his commitment to her. In 2018, after a series of appeals from intellectuals and activists to support her, she left China and moved to Germany to start a new life.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Judge of the United States Supreme Court from 1993 to 2020 (when she died, aged 87), the second woman in American history and the first female member of the Jewish community to hold that position. Deeply convinced, as a woman and magistrate, of the equality between human beings, she was a combative supporter of gender equality and made a great contribution to the emancipation of women. Born in Brooklyn in 1933 to Jewish parents who immigrated from Ukraine, she said that her Jewish identity and the education she received as a teenager had inspired empathy for other minorities.
THE RIGHTEOUS OF THE VIRTUAL GARDEN OF MONTE STELLA
The Committee also approved the applications received by the Association for the virtual Garden of Monte Stella, the digital space created in 2017 on the Gariwo website to welcome reports and testimonies from citizens on forgotten or unknown figures worthy of being remembered.
They are: Eugenio Damiani, Alessandro Cofini, Giorgio Paglia and Maria Lucia Vandone, Maria Mascaretti, the Sopianac Family, Erich Eder, Maurizio Lazzaro de' Castiglioni and Susanna Aimo.
Their biographies are available on the Gariwo website.
On Gariwo's proposal, in 2012, the European Parliament proclaimed March 6 as the "European Day of the Righteous" to commemorate those who opposed crimes against humanity and totalitarianism with individual responsibility. Since 2018, the Day of the Righteous of Humanity has become a civil solemnity in Italy and is celebrated with dozens of initiatives in schools and in the Gardens of the Righteous that have sprung up throughout the country.
Virtual Garden of the Righteous - New Righteous chosen for Monte Stella
Updated: 11/12/2020