"No", "no", and again "no" to violence for making one’s voice heard. A serious thinking over the use of violence has to be done, especially by those engaged in development co-operation or international solidarity. For very often, when we find ourselves in smelly slums where millions of human beings rummage in the sewage for something to eat, and children swim and play in the dumps, we become furious at those who generated such an injustice: the powerful who run our world.

The events of July still fill the pages of our daily papers, but we must also reflect on violence beyond Genoa. We must reason on the dynamics of History with a capital "H", to see whether violence has ever brought any medium/long-term benefit to the poor and to the weak.

During the Genoa Summit we heard of and saw only episodes of violence, while the decisions of the powerful of the Earth passed totally unnoticed. Some of them even dared say the problems of that share of mankind - about three billion people living on less than 2 Dollars per day - have started being seriously taken into account. Rubbish! Lies! Nothing serious has been planned:

1. The cancellation of international debt has been one of the issues on the agenda, but no specification over country, time, manners and conditions has been made.
2. A fund with 1,200 billion dollars (to be raised to 2 billion) has been set up for the fight against diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in poor countries.

Well, this is peanuts! Kofi Annan agrees with Ms Brundtland, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General, when she says for a serious fight against AIDS alone, at least 10 billion dollars must be raised.

Another piece of news that is worth knowing, is that the 22 poorest countries in the world (where the above-mentioned diseases are daily business) pay 1 billion dollars per month in debt service. The money goes to the rich countries and comes into their (our) banks. Dear G8 people, don’t pull our legs!

Because of the stupid and useless violence (wherever it was coming from), the mass media highlighted nothing of all this.

The African proverb is right: the falling tree makes more noise than the growing forest!

Us from VIS were seriously worried before the beginning of the Summit. This is why we proposed an alternative and peaceful civil society counter-Summit, to be held in some other Italian town, as it has been reported by Press Agencies and newspapers. The reason was not to fall into the "mortal" trap of violent groups.

An organisation like ours, with a clear Christian character, cannot refrain from reflecting on the deepest causes of injustice, as on the absolute uselessness of violence: "You have heard it was said,’ Eye for Eye, and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also". Jesus, in this passage of the Gospel, is so revolutionary to question the system of the "just revenge", in use for thousand years.

What is happening there where "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" is still practised in a literary way (with the religious pretext)? I refer to that strip of land called Israel/Palestine: deaths, wounded, bombs, violence from both sides and no hope for a light at the end of the tunnel.

Violence only generates violence. Little or nothing at all can be built upon the physical and spiritual ruins left over by violence, often because hate is handed down from a generation to the other.

All this must be seen against the extraordinary results achieved, instead, by the major pacifists in History, those who managed to break the chains of injustice: Jesus of Nazareth, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others. Of course, these people (all linked to transcendence) paid with their own lives the price of tolerance, mutual respect, humility, the gift of peace they hold in their hearts.

In one of the most beautiful passages of the Gospel, the speech on the Mountain or "the Beatitudes" as it is known, Jesus says: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth". The earth, the promised land, is the elementary subsistence means for oneself, ones’ family and one’s own people. Still today, how many millions human beings lack the right to the "land", to the basic opportunities for a decent living? An easy way out seems to be the "grabbing of the land", but careful, in this way God will not grant it to us.

Jesus carries on this famous speech by saying: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled". And again: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God"

We are hungry and thirsty for justice, we trust God (who warns us, however, to properly use our Talents for the making of his Kingdom) and we want to be his sons and daughters. With this strong hope in our hearts we will eventually be able to see the words of the Magnificat come true: "He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty".