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Raffaella Bolini Europe is choosing to play the same game of the new superpower, of the new imperialist and colonialist powers, and this is a way to lose. I remember in the 80s, there was a movie against the nuclear war. The movie was a war game. The computer, very clever, tell to the humans, the only way to win this game is not to play. Greetings, Professor Falcon.
Speaker Hello, Joshua. (.)
Sanam The only winning move to play chess was peace activist Raffaella Bollini, vice president of the Italian Recreational Cultural Association, ARCHI, and the driving force behind a new movement called Stop Rearm Europe. And it was a clip from the movie War Games from the 1980s, which many of us probably remember. I am Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini. Welcome to If You're in Charge. I am Kavita Nandini Ramdas. It's great to be with you. So, this week, Raffaella is such a good kind of starting point for what's been happening because sometimes I feel as if the Simpsons are writing our scripts or somebody who's off their meds is writing the scripts of our lives. And I've been imbued in what's been going on with this flotilla that was heading to Gaza.
Kavita Ramdas I mean, an extraordinary testament that flotilla, now the third one, right, Sanam, trying to stand up for exactly what Raffaella was talking about.
Sanam Yeah. Imagine that this time it was the IDF, so the Israeli forces, stopped them hundreds of miles away from Israel, nowhere near the Israeli coast, nowhere near Gaza. It was actually off the coast of Crete in Greece, boarded these boats in international waters and then kidnapped a bunch of them, including one of our colleagues. And we've just heard that they reappeared in Crete, so, you know, borders, piracy, international law, I mean, it's all like just being ripped and flouted.
Kavita Ramdas You know, the Americans torpedoed an Iranian ship off the coast in international waters just off the coast of India and Sri Lanka.
Sanam It's a sort of a similar set of actions which are completely contrary to international law. The double standards, right, that everybody's talking about the Straits of Hormuzan, the blockade of the Straits of Hormuzan, you know, on and on, which the Iranians technically have said they're not blockading because the ceasefire in Lebanon was finally agreed on, but the Americans are blockading. And then they just announced that any flotilla trying to go to Gaza is illegal, right? But the blockade of Gaza by Israeli forces, which is a kilometer from shore, Gazans can't go anywhere, you know, fishermen and stuff can't get out beyond a kilometer. And that's okay.
Kavita Ramdas But humanitarian aid trying to reach Gaza is not okay. Is illegal. It just seems as though everything is on its head. And I feel like Rafaela's words reminding us that we cannot afford to play the game, war itself.
Sanam And it's interesting because she's talking about Europe and how, you know, at the moment you've got Northern Europe, Southern Europe, the dominance of Germany over the European Union. This cannot be understated. And of course, you know, the Ukraine conflict kind of really driving the militarization of Europe as a starting point. But the Mediterranean countries or the southern countries have a different perspective on what's going on. And I find it fascinating that when the war in Iran started, it was the Spanish who came out first and then the Italians and then the French, actually, who were pushing back and are doing their own negotiations to get their oil or resources out from the strait. But there's a sort of a cracking of Europe, which is happening, which I guess the Russians are happy about in the same way that the Israelis are really happy about the sort of cracking of the Gulf state, you know, the Arab Gulf states with UAE pulling out of OPEC and so forth. So there's these crack ups. Yeah. And somebody must be happy about what's happening.
Kavita Ramdas I think again about Rafaela's point that she makes about saying how Europe has sort of manufactured, there's been this shift, both entirely manufactured narratives, first from Islam as the enemy to then Russia as the enemy to justify some 800 billion in militarization. And the fact that we're now at this point where, in fact, every kind of humanitarian support or aid is under attack, you know, it's just extraordinary. Degrees to which Europeans have pulled back. CIPRI's annual report reveals world military expenditure is up 41% over the past decade.
Sanam You know, I think about in terms of the fact that 800 billion of future money for future generations is being allocated to predominantly American, some European, private weapons manufacturers. So it's public money into private coffers without any oversight and no discussion about the fact that do you really need 800 billion? Why can't it be 750 for your weapons that really should be useless, you know, for them to be useful because we want them for deterrence and 50 billion for environment and peace building and development both at home and abroad and, you know, social welfare and all these other things. It's just not part of the conversation and it's partly because civil society and social movements are so weakened and so removed from the public, from the political space and private companies have sort of entered and in a way colonized those spaces and I think Palantir is the classic example. they are, they are, they're, they're, they're getting like no, no competition contracts in the UK, in the defense sector, in, in private, in the health sector, all of our data is going to them and, and there's very little space to challenge it.
Kavita Ramdas Well, I will say that I received a little bit of buoying of my hope and inspiration last week, this week rather, when I went to the memorial service of these two long-term activists for peace and justice. And I think if the one thing that gives me hope, Sanam is that there have been so many different moments in our, in our history in which I think we have felt similarly, that there was sort of no hope and that where was civil society and what were we doing? And I think you just gave an example, we began by talking about the flotilla that, you know, despite all of the opposition, despite all of the aggressive military action against them, this incredible group of people keep coming back and doing it again and again. And there we were sitting at the memorial of two people, and your name came up in the memorial, Sanam, as one of the primary architects of the Women, Peace and Security Resolution at the Security Council, 1325. And these people, Cora Weiss, who co-authored that with you, and Peter Weiss, her husband, who was a human rights lawyer, and I just thought about their long, almost 100-year life, fighting these, you know, these very same traditions of militarization and war and weapons.
Sanam And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, Cora was, was truly a mentor and truly an amazing figure because, um, when I met her, I was in my late 20s and she was already in her 60s, you know, she was already the doyen of the UN kind of civil society space. She actually convened the Hague Appeal for Peace, which was the 100th anniversary of the, of the Hague Conference for Peace. And what I loved about her was that she understood that her, her legacy was actually enabling the next generation to come through. So she opened all the doors. She let us lead on what we thought the, the WPS, the Women, Peace and Security Agenda should be. But she just gave us all the access that she had, all her privileges, which is, which is something that you don't often see. So, so, you know, Cora sits in my heart literally every day. And one of the other things that I remember about her was that we, I did an oral history chapter for her for, for, for a book called When We Were Bold. And every decade of her life, she was at the forefront of the most important justice and peace movements in the United States and in the, and in the world. And, and she was known when the Vietnam War happened, she was known in the U.S. press as that Jewish housewife from Queens or something really.
Kavita Ramdas She, she was from Riverdale, actually, just north of where I live in the Bronx.
Sanam They really tried to pull her down and, and she just never rose above it. And, and yeah, and, and this idea that individuals can make a difference is, is really what keeps us going.
Kavita Ramdas Absolutely. And I think that's what also inspired me about this conversation with Rafaela. Because if you remember, she, she calls, when we asked her, you know, she reminded us that there is always this next generation. (.......) We, I just watched the film Israelism this, this week, and was reminded that young people like Simone Zimmerman, who started Not In Our Name, you know, there is a whole group of young Jewish leaders in the United States who are refusing to accept Israel's activities, who are refusing to accept its impunity, who are refusing to accept the idea that the United States' power comes from being the biggest military, you know, being the most aggressive, lethal fighting force in the world. So I do think we have some hope here, Sanam. (..)
Sanam Well, for sure we have hope. And I have to, you know, for me, one of the things that I've been doing this week, I do feel as if literally our lives each week, it's a new chapter or something, some new adventure happens. But one of the things that we've been working on at ICANN is helping our partners document their own peacebuilding strategies and, you know, talking to our Yemeni and our Syrian and our Sri Lankan colleagues. Some of them have been doing it for 30 years, some of them for 10 years. And to hear how they describe themselves and how they present it. And it's, it's just extraordinary because on the one hand, it's very uniquely situated in Indonesia or in, you know, in Syria. And yet when we look at it collectively, it's about that human drive for social justice and fairness, which I think, I mean, it is programmed in all of our heads. It's in our brains, but, but it's there. And, and yeah, generations and globally, it, it, you can't, you can't shut it down.
Kavita Ramdas I mean, I was inspired by the tens of thousands of German students who, who just had a strike in this last month in March or the month before. I guess we're now in May. Happy May Day. It's May Day. Happy May Day. Yeah. And I think they struck with trade union support and they explicitly connected their demands to anti-militarist movements in France and Spain, as you mentioned, and in Italy. And I think that that is something that should give us hope. There's definitely something going on here. I'm always reminding my American friends who say like, May Day, like, why is that such a big deal? And I'm like, well, actually, you know, May Day evolved right here in the United States, which people forget. It was labor activists who were mowed down by policemen in Chicago at the Hay Market. That's why we celebrate May Day. And the International Socialist Association then picked that up and said, let's celebrate that day as a day of workers' rights. That's interesting. But of course, in the United States, you don't celebrate May Day because they have a separate whole day called Labor Day because they don't want to associate it with socialism. And I think there is, as always, and Rafaela reminds us of this, there is generational hope to be had because, as the stories of Peter and Cora remind us, if they were fighting for civil rights in the 60s and against the Vietnam War in the 70s and against nuclear weapons in the 80s, then, as you said, in every decade, we have a generation. And then people sometimes from older generations who never stop fighting for peace and justice.
Sanam Oh, this is, well, and also the ones who kind of get so enraged. So, my mom recently came to one of the anti-war protests because she's just so appalled by the idea of anyone bombing Iran. And she is, she's 89. And for me, it's that sense of justice and what is right and wrong. And when they're trying to tell us that wrong is right and, you know, black is white or dark, dark is light, I'm like, like, no, no, plenty of us can see it.
Kavita Ramdas We can see.
Sanam Thank you very much. No, no, we can see. Thank you. We can see. (.)
Kavita Ramdas Well, I hope people enjoy this because I think it's going to be a very inspiring. I mean, I'm just re-listening to her wonderful, you know, passionate, Italian-accented, you know, articulation of things that we all care about. So, it's exciting to have her here.
Sanam Exactly. You can almost feel her hand movement, hand gestures as she's speaking. You know, the fingers are like, yeah, absolutely. //S03: Yes, you can.// But she is absolutely wonderful. And it's been a joy getting to know her. And I hope we can work with her more. (......) Excellent. We are now recording our podcast with Raffaella Bollini. I think Kavita and I are super excited to have you on because you have been an activist. How long have you been an activist? I mean, when did you start, Raffaella? And what is it that gets you, what keeps you awake at night and wakes you up in the morning to have the energy to do your work? (..)
Raffaella Bolini First of all, I'm very happy to be with you. Really happy. You know, I think that one of the most important challenges we have is to strengthen our relations all over the world in this moment. So, for me, also, this is a very important opportunity. And, yes, I became a social activist when I was in the high school. So, I was 15 then. It was the period of the violent internal terrorism and repression period in Italy. To be in the street was really heavy. Many social movements decided to use violence in order to be in the streets. And for us, which were young and which were not organized, you know, this way to fight was really impossible to accept. But not because of ideological reason at the time. It was mainly, you know, really violent actions prevented us to be in the middle of the fight. And this was the main reason why, when in the 80s, the big peace movement against the Euro missiles grew up in Italy. I really put myself inside, not only because, of course, I am against the war, but also because I really believe that nonviolence, which is not to be not active, because you can use civil disobedience, you can use nonviolent direct actions, to provide the power to the people, to the normal people, and it is a possibility not to delegate the struggle to some vanguards of very courageous men, mainly, (.) and provide the really normal people to be in the street to play the game. So, for me, it was really, you know, a possibility to come back as an activist, in the peace movement, in the anti-racist movement, in the pro-Palestinian movement. And now, again, and for me, it's strange, because if I could think about, you know, the last part of my life, I really didn't think that I had to come back to the old peace movement, and this is something which, for me, it's also frustrating, because I think that we are coming back.
Sanam I was going to say that it's this full circle idea that you start off in the 80s when it was about the nuclear warheads in Europe, right? (..) And we thought we had ticked the box. I mean, I'm a bit younger than you, but we genuinely thought that we had ticked the box on the problems of weapons and arms races and so forth. And here we are again, and we'll talk a little bit more about that. Kevita, you had a question.
Kavita Ramdas You know, Rafaela, I was growing up in India at the time, and we had this whole discussion about nuclear weapons in India, because, of course, India already had nuclear weapons by 1974, and the agreement was sort of like we had them, but we weren't going to boast about them, right? It was like, it was soto voce. And then the emergence of a nationalist power in the late 90s, sort of 10 years later, and then the insistence on a new nuclear test, and then forcing Pakistan then to also have a test. And I was just thinking Europe was having this moment of thinking about an alternative. But for us as young people growing up in India, there was also a strange way in which nuclear weapons were seen as part of the way to resist Western domination and to resist Western imperialism, and that only countries which had nuclear weapons could be taken seriously because the West was saying that we can have nuclear weapons, but you guys can't.
Raffaella Bolini So, I also want to put that perspective in this is very interesting, and I have to tell you that, for example, for myself, it was so important to be part of the ultra-mondialistic movement at the beginning of this century. For me, it was 2001, and it was so important to be part of the World Social Forum process, because for the first time in my life, because for the first time in my life I found myself really in a global dimension with all these differences, with all these differences and this kind of different perspective. And for me, it was very important because, yes, before in my activism, I was active in many solidarity campaigns and, you know, Europeans giving solidarity to the global South. But this is what, for example, one of the very few things that now give me hopes is the new generation thinking, which is very different from ours, because, for example, they put colonialism, white supremacy, and systemic racism at the core of our way of thinking, this didn't belong to us, I have to tell the truth. We were part of this Western, progressive, leftist, alternative culture, which put colonialism under the carpet. Yes, we were anti-colonial in terms of supporting the anti-colonialist struggle, but we still had this idea that the world belonged to us. And I believe that this new generation thinking, it's really an hope.
Sanam It's interesting, Raffaella, that you say that, because I'm a slightly younger generation. I grew up in the West. Clearly, I was aware of the fact that I was Iranian. I mean, that, you know, we'd had a revolution, and we ended up having to be in Europe and so forth, but never feeling inferior. It didn't even occur to me until much later on that I was being viewed with a different lens sometimes. You know, the occasional, how's your, how come your English is so good, and this kind of thing. But it was, you know, it was growing up and seeing Europe. What I find interesting right now is that it's a moment where the problems that Europe is facing are not dissimilar to the problems elsewhere. So when you say white supremacy, it's not just white supremacy against Muslims and sub-Saharan Africa, which is there, but it's white supremacy within our own societies. The parallels between what the white supremacists do, or what MAGA is doing, or what Mr. Faraj and others in England are doing, and frankly, some of the extremist forces, whether it's in India or elsewhere, it's the same strategies. It's the same strategy. So we're seeing the same kinds of problems emerging within our societies, and it's, I have partners in Syria who can tell you how to do dialogue across political divisions, probably better than anything that, I don't know, an American knows, or in Italy may be happening. So there's a lot of learning to be done.
Raffaella Bolini Yes, of course, we are not in the same storm, in the same boat, because the local situations are very different, and the boats are smaller, bigger, richer, poorer, but we are really in the same storm. And what is important for me, for us Europeans, for our European identity, is to withdraw with this idea that we are the one of the French Revolution, of the human rights, of the welfare, of the democratic constitutions, blah, blah, blah, which is true, which is true. But in the same time, we have to recognize that we have our dark side, which has been a real material base for our welfare, richness, development, democracy, which is done by this idea to be superior of the other, by our imperialistic conquerors, by our capabilities, to destroy even our diversities. We were the one who made more war, also internal war in Europe, along centuries. We are the one who made the Holocaust. The two-word war came from us, Slavism. We invented Slavism. And so, I think that we have to be very conscious that if we go on with this idea that we are the cradle of civilization, we have our dark side. I tell you, in the 90s, I spent 10 years working inside the war in the Balkans. They were Europeans, like us, until two days before the war. We were there for our holidays, for vacations, for travels. And we had always, and we had always the impression that living together was so normal, like in our society. Nationalistic forces took really a short time to convince people that they were enemies among themselves. And there, I really thought, okay, this is not an exception. This could be the normality. And this experience, I believe, provided me with the capability to understand better what's happening now.
Sanam The Sarajevo Olympics happened, right? I mean, as you say, everybody was there. The treatment of Bosnians, when they became refugees, as you say, they were European, but then all of a sudden, they were sitting on the streets.
Kavita Ramdas But also the denial of their rapes. I mean, for, it took years before those 50,000 rapes were even recognized as happening, right? I mean, it was, they were othered by virtue of being Muslims, quickly.
Sanam So you have all of that happening. And then, as you say, meanwhile, we have, in Europe, this question of the European Union. I mean, to me, again, as an outsider, I look at the map of the world, and I look at Europe, and I'm thinking, you're just a little spit of land. And you've caused so much chaos across the world. But in the last 80 years, you got it together. The European Union is a success. It's diversity and unity. It's pluralism. It's all these things. And yet, we take it for granted. And it's now under attack. I mean, you know, read the US national strategy. They don't want the European Union to exist. So as an Italian, looking at that history, looking at where Italy sits, because it could have easily gone east at, you know, post-World War II, do you feel an urgency about sustaining the idea of the EU? What is it that you are telling young people?
Raffaella Bolini Well, you know, Europe, you know, Europe, Europe, since a long time, long, long time, we consider ourselves as pro-Europeans, because we fight for another Europe. Because the Europe they built up is not the one we need. It has been built by the unity of the market and not of the rights, by the unity of the government and not of the people, by an idea that Europe is a super nation state. And the super nation state put risk to put ourselves as Europeans inside a lot of problems, because the nation state ideology is based on the idea that you have one religion, one identity, one culture, one flag, one, one, one. And then, yes, if you are democratic, you accept minorities. (.) But this idea is not enough to let very different people to put together. Our richness as Europeans is to be different. (.) I feel myself as Italians much more Mediterranean than Europeans in general. I live here in my window in front of me. There is a sea and I am closer to Tunisia than to Scandinavia. I'm happy to be together with Scandinavia, but I don't want to lose my relation with the Mediterranean. Look at the war in Ukraine. (.) I think that apart from the responsibility, blah, blah, blah. The problem is that we have considered this part of Europe as a field on which we have to put the border. (..) The border. (.) Where is the border? border, but this region, it's an intersectional region. In the histories like this, the mixture between Russia and Europe in that region is so strong that it's impossible to split them and to put the barrier in the middle. You will produce war in any case, whoever will, whoever will win in the future, you will come again. In principle, that regions, these intersectional regions could have been and still, I believe, could be the richest region of Europe.
Kavita Ramdas Rafaela, can I ask for a second? Rafaela, can I ask for a second, I love the idea of intersectional regions. I think as feminists, that has been something we've been learning, no, that intersectionality is so, and that's such a beautiful description of this other world that we know is possible. This other Europe that we know is possible would actually welcome that intersectionality. (..) I think that's the notion that the nation state is sufficient in this moment to address the challenges we have, no matter how super national it becomes, no matter if it's the European Union, but it's still based on the notion of a nation state. And you're saying, no, we actually need a much more holistic, a much more intersectional understanding of our cultures, of our traditions, of the places where we have mixed up, of the seas where there are no boundaries.
Raffaella Bolini Rafaela, this is really my dream, if you think about Europe, for example, but it can work for other regions of the world, Europe, we have not defined border in the east and in the south. And if you think about a Mediterranean project, or Eastern project, and this intersectionality of people, culture, history, this could be really richness. Can you imagine, according to my dream, but it's not a dream, it's a political plan, I would create the biggest and better universities, where people can go in the university together from different countries, and in the Mediterranean one, Arabic, you know, and other languages will be the prominent one. And in the Eastern, you can have Ukraine and Polish and Russia as prominent, you know, this is a way by which you can imagine another kind of development of this region, which cannot be no more peripheries or armed border, they can be centers of a multipolar Europe. This is what I think we need, you know, you know, a multipolar Europe with different centers and not a center and a lot of peripheries.
Sanam Fascinating. Okay, so I'm going to unpack this. And I was, in my head, I was thinking, we're looking at kind of three Ms of Mediterranean migration, which is another problem that, or issue that we have talked about. And, of course, militarism, which is coming from the center. But at the core of it is the question of racism, right? Because, I mean, in Italian, when you're worried, I mean, having dealt with in Italian for many years, it was mamma i turki, it's as if all the Turks are coming, right? Like, this idea of the Muslims coming has been so ingrained as something to fear across Europe. And, again, when we think about your Turkish ascendants to try and become a member of the European Union, they were never going to let Turkey become a member because it's a Muslim-majority country. So that rethinking that you're talking about of seeing it as, I call it quantum identity. I'm like, the similarities that you have across the Mediterranean and that region are more dominant than the differences. You can find more commonality than differences. (.) But at this moment of heightened fear kind of infused across Europe, you work on disarmament issues. How are you addressing the problem of European, you know, investment or, I should say…
Kavita Ramdas Reinvestment, I mean…
Sanam It's not even… it's borrowing because it's not money today. It's 800 billion euros of debt.
Raffaella Bolini They were very capable to build up the idea of the enemy to influence public opinion. Because, yes, until some years ago, the main problem was Islam. (.) You remember the fight to terrorism and so the connection with migrants issue and Islamophobia. (.) Now the main danger has changed in Europe. Now the real danger is Russia. (.) The narrative has changed. (.) This is working a lot in the Eastern countries. (..) Because of their history, not only because of geography. Because, of course, I can understand my friends and comrades and colleagues in Poland or in Hungary or in other countries which are so close to the war. And also because in their memory, recent memory, the Soviet tanks in their own countries, which is not our experience, for example, in Italy. In our experience, you know, the Italian communism, which was very different from the Soviet one, is one of the good routes we bring with us. So, Europe is not the same, like we said before. We are all together, but we are very different. And so, these differences really count a lot. For example, in my country, 84% of people which will not go to war in any case. They will not go to war, not only against Russia, because for us, people don't trust so much that Russia is so willing to invade us. In any case, they don't want to war. Will you accept that your daughter or your son have to die for a cause? For one cause? The majority of people say no. The value of life, the value of life now, in many societies, has an important role. And I think that this is an element on which we can work on.
Kavita Ramdas I love that idea. The idea that we can, in a way, it's like taking back from the right wing in the context of the U.S., the value of life. You know, the right wing in the U.S. uses the pro-life movement to deny women rights. But actually, in a way, I think we are talking about creating a global movement in which we celebrate life. And if we celebrate life, we have to also celebrate diversity. Because all of life has always depended on diversity. We don't have, like, a garden in which only one seed grows. So, I think that's a very interesting idea.
Raffaella Bolini Yeah, and for example, to go on on this discourse, at the time of COVID in Italy, the first big social coalition we created during the COVID time. So, when we were close at home, to resist and to provide some hope to people, it was called the society of care. (.) Care means care of life, all forms of life. If you think about a society which is based on this value, you have to change everything. (..) Because, for example, salaries. (.) A person working in a hospital should earn a lot of money because they care a lot. And, you know, the teachers should earn a lot of money because they care a lot. We use this idea, which, in a sense, it's a sort of ideology. It's the contrary of the war. It's the contrary of rearmament. It's the contrary of racism. It's the contrary of exploitation. It's the contrary of idea that they protect life. We protect life.
Sanam Correct. Correct. It's, Rafaela, I wanted to just come back to this concept of care and the militarism and also security. Like, how we understand security. Because I was talking to a colleague yesterday and he was saying that in Lithuania, right, which is obviously one of the countries that cares a little bit about what's going on with Russia and wants to rearm and believes, 50% of the young men are not fit enough to actually serve in the army. You know, we think about hard security or state security. But if you're trying to build that on the back of young men who we have not provided good health care to, then what does security actually mean, right? I mean, again, it comes back to COVID. We didn't have masks, but we were testing out nuclear warheaded drones. I mean, so this reopening of what is security, what is wellness, and reclaiming those words or redefining them. In our work, I call it humanizing security because the forces that we're dealing with are securitizing humanity. But just the simple example that you want to build up an army and half of your population isn't fit enough because you haven't given them the sports, you haven't given them the food, you haven't given them the health care, you haven't actually, right? Because of this information, I will use it. (.)
Raffaella Bolini I didn't know about it. It's impressive. And yes, I think that, yes, this work on security, it's very important. And on this different idea of security, I think that in this case, yes, we can use the good side of Europe. We are trying to recover and to work a lot on the concept of common security, which if you think about that period, it was 75, you know, still the Berlin Wall, still the Soviet Union, still Brezhnev, and the European leaders, you know, the democratic one, because they were, yes, Berlinguer, but in Italy, Aldomoro, so belonging to different families, not only the leftist, so very different political families, but democratic ones, they were able to develop this idea of common security, which really, it's the same lesson COVID gave to humanity, that you can do what you want to protect yourself. But if the ones which are around you are not safe... (.)
Kavita Ramdas Are not safe, exactly.
Raffaella Bolini So, the idea is that common security is the idea that even to your adversary to feel safe, because if your potential adversary feel safe, he will not be aggressive toward you. (.) And they were able, at that time, not only to think about it, but to put it in practice. There were agreements. At the end, it worked, because at the end of this process, we had the collapse of the Berlin Wall. So, at the end, they arrived to a good success for them. (.) Why, why, why, why Europe now is choosing the opposite way? Yeah. We are again in a situation in which we are the weakest among big powers, and we decide to play the same game. I remember in the 80s, I don't know if you were too much young. Not me. I remember. No, not you, but yes. There was a movie during this incredible period of the peace movement all over the world against the nuclear war. The movie was a war game, and the last sentence became a major slogan of the movement, because the computer, very clever, tells to the humans, the only way to win this game is not to play this game. And I think that Europe is choosing to play the same game of the new superpower, of the new imperialist and colonialist powers. And this is the way to lose.
Sanam The irony is that Europe did win by playing a different game by creating the European Union, and now they're being sucked into it. The other point that you made about COVID being the moment, I think that that previous generation, they had all experienced the world war. So whether you were a communist sitting in Russia, or whether you were in Germany, or you just knew the hell of war, and you were saying, we have to prevent it. Whereas three generations later, the war is movies, and we don't really understand it. But COVID was that moment of global experience, and instead of talking about human security and the politics of care, as you said, we're going down this other route. We have to wrap up, but there are a few questions we always ask, and you've answered them in many ways. But the first question is, what's a radical idea that shouldn't be radical?
Raffaella Bolini I think that everything we propose now is not radical at all, because we are simply asking to implement what is written in the existing legislation, international and national. We are not the radical. The radical, they are the radical. (.) They are the reactionary, the nationalistic forces, they are doing their own revolution.
Kavita Ramdas And Raffaella, if we, the people, were in charge, what would we be doing? What would be the first three things that we would be doing if we were in charge? (.) And we make you our leader. We make you our leader. //S02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (..)//
Raffaella Bolini First of all, no more money for armaments. No more money for armaments. We will have an enormous amount of money to spend for social expenditure, for climate, for preventing climate change. And if you think that in the next 10 years, the European Union wants to spend 6.8 trillion euro in armaments, you know, it's enough to make the revolution.
Sanam One last question, Raffaella. What gives you hope? (..) The young generation. (.)
Raffaella Bolini I trust them. I really trust them. Because I like very much that, mainly on the Palestinian issue, they put the defense of the international right together with the fight to colonialism and to systemic racism. And so I think that the combination among these two elements can provide them with a lot of possibility to, to resist, to resist because it will be a long fight. I don't think that this period will end in a short time, but, you know, we have to resist in order to win later.
Kavita Ramdas Ah, thank you, Raffaella.
Sanam Oh, thank you to you. And, and, uh, the more the merrier and the more the mightier. So, so let's, let's, let's make this the year that counts. (.)
Kavita Ramdas I think we have to plan, Sonam, a lunch in Italy, a very long lunch with a lot of wine. And we have to, we have to go to Raffaella's home and have like a very nice long afternoon.
Raffaella Bolini Absolutely. (...)
Sanam This was If You Were In Charge, a podcast brought to you by ICANN, the International Civil Society Action Network. Get in touch and tell us what you think at info at icanpeacework.org and follow our newsletter. Like and subscribe and please tell everybody else who might like the show. My thanks to ADA Productions for making the show possible, to Little Monster Media for our music, and, of course, to my amazing co-host, Kavita Nandini Ramdas. And finally, to all of you for listening. We'll be back soon. Thank you. Bye.