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time to time, in the everyday routine that tends to dim the lights inside
to give space to the Electricity Board's bills, a small light suddenly
goes on and, by lighting a part outside induces, pushes, forces you to
make the same electrical operation inside yourself. It happened to me with
the Budapest Club. I'll soon tell you what it is.
To begin with, some news. This mysterious club showed up in our country with press conferences and roundtables (that I moderated as the honorary member of Club Budapest Italia) in the second half of May, first in Rome and then in Cagliari. I bet that most of the Italian readers of this editorial have not heard anything about it. Maybe I could try and amaze them a little by mentioning the names of some of the club's affiliates in the world. Actor and writer Peter Ustinov, world-wide renowned violinist Yehudi Menhiun, Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut who headed the Apollo 11's lunar mission, Mikhail Gorbachev who does need to be introduced... But this top personalities did not show up, didn't they?, my readers will object...  Well
they actually did. I mentioned some of the Italian double meeting's participants:
just some of them, as I did not mention an Indian gentleman of world-wide
renown and likely to become his country's future president, Karan Singh,
some Nobel prize winners for peace, a former president of the Island Republic
and so on. And I did not mention Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo either.
Yet, the effect on the press, the interest on the mass media about these meetings was rather negligible. Maybe, readers will muse, it was because it was a little demanding meeting among friends, colleagues, “partners” of a Pickwick Circle of a nicely international level. Not exactly: the happening's purpose was the presentation of the 1st Report of the Budapest Club in Italy by the club's president, philosopher of science Ervin Laszlo, printed in a book for “I tipi” by Corbaccio with the title “Terzo Millennio: la Sfida e la Visione” ('third millennium: challenge and vision'). Interesting? And what were the roundtables' titles? In Rome, for example, “The new must for enterprises, politics, culture, society” and it was presided over by industrialist Piero Bassetti, president of the Italian Chambers of Commerce abroad; whereas in Cagliari the title was “From theory to practice”. Even more interesting? |
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is this residual echo, this “Carbonaro” follow-up possible then? Furthermore,
just think that the most important event between April and May was the
launch the Western Europe single currency, the Euro.
And that the strongest as well as emotionally moving critic towards the new monetary union was that it lacked a soul (social, cultural, political). Isn't the Club very close to discuss Euro-related topics? Well let's put it this way then: is it true or not that the world economic time we are living in this late millennium is that of the globalisation of the markets, a single huge market on the planet, of the planet? Let's add this banal and disquieting remark: the economic globalisation did not lead to a greater awareness of all the things it entails, starting from the risks connected with the new relationship among resources, environment and population (if it is true that there will soon be six million people on earth and that the living standards that we know can only, and not effortlessly and without waste, be guaranteed to about one third of them, it is clear for all those who want to know about it that we turned into a dead-end). Wouldn't a “globalisation of awareness” - so that “unsustainable” development is not just a car without a driver or a chassis without an engine - be then necessary too?  This
is the point: this is what the Budapest Club is doing and increasingly
intends to pursue. The Club was founded in 1993 by Laszlo and is already
widespread in Europe, America and Asia. It originated from the famous Club
di Roma founded by Aurelio Peccei in the seventies. It boasts the above
mentioned personalities among its members (it also includes the Dalai Lama)
and is looking for proselytes among the world creative people, giving creativity
a leading role (in terms of policy and control) to develop an unavoidable
planetary awareness. It aims at arising questions without imposing shackles
of any kind, and looking for answers that might be “compatible” with human
beings. It is mainly directed towards the young (clearly) who will have
to take on a terrible responsibility of the “Third Millennium challenge”:
plain survival on the planet.
P.S.
I don't think it is necessary for me to explain my initial introduction,
my personal “brainwave”. And for those who object by saying “well I knew
this myself, it's just words...”, I can only remark that it is impossible
to get off a wild bus when it is moving, not even if you want, so you'd
better try and drive it in a different way (cf. Einstein: “It is unthinkable
to look for solutions with the same way of reasoning that created the problem”).
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