(Marco Emanuele)
At this point in history, the democratic experience is paying the highest price. While each of us should hope and work for conflicts and wars to be resolved and give way to a ceasefire for peace, the voice of established democracies is becoming increasingly faint.
Realism dictates that any attempt, by anyone, to put a stop to the fighting should be supported: it is another thing to talk about peace, a very demanding word and a much broader process.
Our approach is complex, and therefore critical: we must not give in to the siren calls of antagonism, but we must be clear and intellectually honest. More than democratic experience, what is dictating the global agenda is the spirit of autocracy: we are not necessarily referring to institutional systems but, first and foremost, to the great transformation taking place in the vision and government of the world.
This view is confirmed by the gradual abandonment of the multilateral approach, based on mediation (which is not a compromise based on mutual interests) and on the vision of an interconnected and inter-in-dependent world (in which each national sovereignty can only be enhanced in conjunction with every other).
If we look at reality, the exact opposite is happening: instead of reforming and strengthening multilateralism, the autocratic spirit, which is not self-critical (the same, it must be said, has happened in democratic systems in recent decades, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall), is playing everything on competition in every field, forgetting all liberal teachings.
We are critical and not antagonistic because, by prioritising honesty over propaganda, what we see is also (if not above all) the result of the failures that a misunderstanding of the democratic experience has brought about: from the degenerative crisis of representation to the export of democracy, the space for debate has been occupied by propaganda that mirrors autocratic one.
The time has come, thanks in part to the unstoppable technological revolution, to work with new paradigms: if multilateralism is to be saved, as we believe, this is no longer possible with a strategic gaze turned backwards.
We are in the midst of a great transformation, and the transition from one order to another is certainly the most delicate phase: we have a responsibility not to let history slide towards unsustainable prospects. We have to follow and help strengthen the UN Pact for the Future. Mistakes made can be corrected with new visions: the protection of human rights, care for the planet, effective governance of AI and emerging technologies, peace, justice, and security are the elements of a single historical project that cannot be separated and that can only be rethought in a complex logic. The road is open.
