Universities must be free even in
their dissent from power, President Sergio Mattarella said
Friday amid a wave of student anti-Israel protests in Italian
seats of higher education.
"Universities have always been places of free debate, criticism
and even dissent from power," Mattarella said at the University
of Trieste where he was awarded an Honorary Degree in Law.
"Debate, criticism and dissent linked between universities in
all countries, above borders and above contrasts between states.
"If you sever this connection, this valuable exchange of
thought, of collaboration, of experience, you do not help
rights, you do not help freedom nor peace, but you weaken the
power of debate, criticism and dissent.
"You help the power, the worst power, which has always tried to
keep the universities in its own country isolated, to prevent
them from connecting with those beyond its borders".
Mattarella went on to urge the European Union to give "concrete
answers" to the world's need for peace.
"The world needs peace, stability, progress, and the European
Union is called to give concrete answers to the aspirations of
those peoples who look to the most impressive cooperation
project conceived on the rubble of the Second World War", he
said.
The president also said that the project to forge closer ties
between EU countries so as the build a stronger Union was "ever
more urgent and unavoidable."
He said "the European project is more imperative and urgent than
ever, also in light of the Russian Federation's brutal and
unjustifiable aggression against Ukraine.
"This applies not only to Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, but
above all to the countries of the Western Balkans that over
twenty years ago began this demanding path of integration".
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