{"id":328122,"date":"2016-03-29T03:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T01:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/manufacturing-weapons-a-matter-of-conscience\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:03:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:03:32","slug":"manufacturing-weapons-a-matter-of-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/manufacturing-weapons-a-matter-of-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"Manufacturing weapons, a matter of conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cAt the age of 19 I left my home in Abruzzi, <\/strong>Italy<\/a>, to study aerospace engineering in Pisa. <\/strong>It was an exhausting but satisfying journey. In 5 years I finished the specialisation with honours and an internship in Germany that enriched my skill set even more. All of it thanks to the sacrifice and support of my family. After graduation I was anxious to find my place in the work world. <\/strong>But I had to deal with youth unemployment, which is 40% in our country, and with companies that at best offer only fixed-term contracts or consulting positions with quarterly or even semi-annual salaries. After a few months spent sending my resume in vain, I started thinking that maybe I had to apply to other areas of the industry. Or emigrate. But quite unexpectedly I received an offer from a company that represents Italy in the major European Consortium manufacturer of missiles and defence technologies. <\/strong>The idea of a real job in a major company like that was very tempting. After a successful telephone call I was invited to an interview with the technical staff. The environment was youthful and stimulating, serious and quite professional. Designing missiles didn\u2019t really reflect my principles, but inside me I cradled the hope that I would be offered a job that wouldn\u2019t involve me in the manufacturing of weapons. The interview went well. Just a week later, I was asked to sign a contract, it being understood that this was a job directly related to the production of missiles. I felt like my back was against the wall. On one side was a steady job with a permanent contract, a very good salary and possibility of a career. On the other side was my belief as a citizen, but first of all as a man committed to building a non-violent society based on respect for human rights, social justice, a correct balance amongst human needs, the natural environment and the use of resources. I\u2019ve always believed in a society where the ambitions of a few don\u2019t trample on the dignity and economic success of others, that they don\u2019t make me forget that I am a human being. Things were further complicated by my colleagues from school who were pushing me to accept regardless of my moralizing, reaffirming their indisputable thesis that a 25 year old graduate cannot afford these days to refuse such a job with so many benefits. With a thousand arguments they were trying to put me in front of reality telling me how lucky I was and … irresponsible! Not least of all with this work I could relieve my family of their commitment and be able to support myself. Something else besides my conscience played a decisive role: the people who are closest to me, <\/strong>the family, my girlfriend and the Youth For A United World that I grew up with. They helped to mature in me the idea \u2013 which became clearer and clearer \u2013 that in order to build a supportive and non-violent society, you need to act concretely, paying personally and giving witness. <\/strong>This was my opportunity to do that. I told the company that I couldn\u2019t accept their offer, clearly explaining my reasons. Naturally, it wasn\u2019t an easy decision, especially since I didn\u2019t have any other offers. But I didn\u2019t let that stop me. I continued with my job search and in a few weeks I received other offers that led me to where I am now happily satisfied with my job as a civil aerospace engineer.\u201d Source:<\/strong>\u00a0Citt\u00e0 Nuova<\/a> See also<\/strong>: Arms? No, thank you<\/a>.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can you give up a good paying job because it goes against your principles? Young aerospace engineer Federico Di Iorio did, and told his story at the conference on Universal Brotherhood and disarmament which took place at the Italian Parliament in memory of Chiara Lubich.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893,894],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2","category-senza-categoria-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}