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Our intention is for the Manifesto to be a charter expressing principles and values that define a new concept of citizenship and belonging to the region. It is also intended as a generative project, inspiring actions that facilitate dialogue and debate around the Mediterranean and build a space characterised by integration, social justice, environmental justice, participatory democracy, social and economic solidarity, peace and mutual understanding.
The Manifesto should be completed through a broad process of citizen consultation. That is why we present what we call a “pre-Manifesto”: a short, accessible text focusing on the fundamental principles we want to defend and develop during the consultation.
The pre-Manifesto will be discussed within the SABIRMAYDAN community and then presented to the public at SABIRFEST 2017. After the event, a public regional consultation will be launched to produce a more developed policy document aimed at political advocacy, which we will then call the “Manifesto of Mediterranean Citizenship”.
The editorial committee comprises Fatima AL-IDRISSI, Said BAKKALY, Debora DEL PISTOIA, Mohamed LEGHTAS, Lidia LO SCHIAVO, Gianluca SOLERA, Igor STIKS, Nagwan AL-ASHWAL and Kais ZRIBA.
The pre-Manifesto
What we believe in
With this document, we want to launch a citizen-driven debate on the future of the Mediterranean, starting from the following considerations:
1. The crossroads of humanity. The Mediterranean has given birth to languages, religions, philosophical systems and scientific disciplines that have nourished the civilisations emerging in the region throughout history. It has provided a privileged space where the cultures of the peoples of the Near East, North Africa and southern Europe could meet, mix and merge. It is the cradle of the first urban societies in the East, of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian and Muslim civilisations, of enlightened periods such as the Renaissance, and the birthplace of cosmopolitan cities such as Alexandria, Tangier, Constantinople/Istanbul, Thessaloniki and Dubrovnik. The Mediterranean is a crossroads where, for millennia, everything has come together and enriched it: people, animals, goods, ships, ideas, religions, ways of life and even plants. Its distinctive character lies in balance — neither too hot nor too cold — in tempering and remixing, transforming opposing poles into meeting points, producing beauty by combining different forms of dwelling, social interaction and creativity, and resisting disasters by finding ways around them. Narratives based on irreconcilability and incompatibility between nations and cultures can readily be challenged if schools teach the Mediterranean’s true history as a crossroads of encounters rather than clashes, the cultural world explores it, and political institutions choose to support and protect it.
2. A space of exchange. The Mediterranean is also the foremost interface for economic and financial exchanges between the nations of Africa, Europe and Asia. Here, empires, kingdoms and republics built extraordinarily dynamic transnational trading networks, contributing to the circulation of goods and ideas. These exchanges enabled material and intangible resources to move between the Mediterranean’s shores and contributed enormously to the economic, social and cultural development not only of coastal populations and their continental neighbours, but of humanity as a whole.
