For a politics of quality

On 2 May, as part of United World Week 2021, a streaming event was held to mark the 25th anniversary of the Politics for Unity Movement (MPPU). A close link between generations to imprint the coefficient of universal fraternity on political relations and institutions. An “Call Towards a Politics of Quality”  launched. At the Angelus, Pope Francis greeted the anniversary.

Experienced politicians together with young people at their first political experience were the promoters of a streaming event on Sunday 2 May. The event, the result of months of shared work and part of the programme of the United World Week 2021, to celebrate 25 years since the founding of the Politics for Unity Movement (MPPU).

Eight simultaneous languages, more than 500 listening points from all over the world and 4000 live views. In addition to the richness of the topics at the centre of the convention, there was also the unexpected and joyfully welcomed encouragement of Pope Francis, who during the Sunday Angelus addressed all the adherents of the MPU “founded by Chiara Lubich”, wishing them “good work in the service of good politics”.

The live programme first of all reviewed some witnesses of the birth of the Political Movement for Unity, the moment when the founder of the Focolare Chiara Lubich founded it on 2 May 1996, meeting in Naples (Italy) with a group of politicians of different affiliations. This was followed by a number of stages in the journey of the MPPs around the world, up to the initiative that has reached its conclusion on this occasion: the Call Towards a Politics of Quality. Citizens, administrators, legislators, officials and diplomats, scholars and members of civil organisations in 25 countries of the world have cooperated in the drafting of this text: an interesting international deliberative process has resulted in a “call for action”, an appeal for action addressed to politicians in cities, parliaments, international organisations and all those involved in political action, to support the irreversible path of peoples towards unity and peace.

A “politics of quality” – for the authors of the appeal – is a policy that is “better every day”, a policy that is “gentle” and “strong” at the same time, entrusted to women and men who know how to look at the deepest and most shared values of humanity, competent politicians who know how to plan for the long term and who are accountable for their mandate, who do not use people for electoral calculations, who activate processes by recognising the self-organising capacity of communities, who are on the side of the victims but do not abandon the guilty.

Of course, there are thousands and thousands of emergencies to deal with,” said Adelard Kananira, from Burundi, also on behalf of the young politicians interviewed on the programme, “but we know that today the emergency that challenges us all is that of the vaccine as a common good. No time was wasted, therefore, and under the direction of the Mppu team and the young promoters of the United World Week, a strong international initiative was launched in the days immediately preceding the event: for universal access to vaccines and their widespread production, also in view of the WTO meeting and the G20 meeting on global health.

“This is the response we want to propose, touching established systems with an action-sign for those in the world who do not have access to health care, because we believe that the good of others, even those we do not know, is our own good,” says Klara Costa, from Brazil, from the Focolare’s Youth for a United World Movement.

“Taking care of each other: this is the concrete sign of a politics of quality. We have tried to witness this in the places where the pandemic is most serious,” said Mario Bruno, president of the International Centre of Mppu. “We met the operators of a hospital ship, the ‘barco papa Francisco’, which is bringing health care to those populations in Parà, Brazil. It is them that we want to reach as soon as possible with the vaccine’.

Closing the appeal – and the streaming – was therefore the drawing of a high politics, anchored to reality and full of ideal strength at the same time, a politics that knows how to act “to love and heal the world”. We start again from here.

Edited by the Mppu International Centre

To review the event in the various languages click here