Restiamo umani (Vittorio Arrigoni)

I grew up in a small town in southern Italy as a child of the Erasmus generation. I never knew borders - not in the way past generations did. Thanks to the European Union, I could move freely, study abroad, live, and work in different countries without a passport or visa. I was never a foreigner - only a person among people.

And yet, despite everything we have built together, despite decades of peace, unity, and progress, we are watching it unravel. Since 2008, we have seen the signs: the economic crisis, the rise of far-right movements, Covid-19, nationalism, protectionism, and militarism. Today, governments speak once again of borders, tariffs, and walls. People I meet from day to day are living the wars directly in Palestine, Israel, Ukraine. Some countries are reintroducing compulsory military service. They invest in weapons instead of education, research, and welfare - fueling conflict instead of cooperation. They are dismantling the very foundation of the EU - not just economically, but in spirit.

The consequences will not be measured in GDP or trade deficits alone. They will be counted in human lives, in the erosion of human rights, and in the destruction of the very idea that we, as people, can belong to something more significant than the nation-state. From Putin to Trump, Ursula von der Leyen to Zelensky, Giorgia Meloni to Boris Johnson and Marine Le Pen - world leaders defend borders and power structures, rather than people and progress.

I remember walking through Brussels during FOSDEM, through Brno at DevConf.cz, at the MOCA Hack meetings in Italy, KubeCon in Valencia, strolling through East London with friends at the Queen Mary University, Warsaw during the PhD winter school. I remember meeting people from all over the world - different cultures, languages, races, skin colors, genders - and feeling no divide between us. No barriers, no borders. Just the joy of shared knowledge, shared progress, shared dreams.

Are we truly willing to abandon Alle Menschen werden Brüder, the very ideals sung at the end of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the anthem of the European Union? Are we willing to let fear and division erase the most beautiful experiment in unity the modern world has ever seen?

No fronteras, no banderas, no a la autoridad
No riqueza, no pobreza, no desigualdad
Rompamos la utopía, dejemos de soñar, arriba el mestizaje, convivir en colectividad.

(Mestizaje - Ska-P)

“Mestizaje” is a Latin American term referring to racial and cultural mixing. It has been the foundation of many national identities across the region - Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Trinidad - where hybrid cultures and histories define entire societies. Beyond ethnicity, mestizaje represents a broader idea in the entire American content: a world where people are not divided by artificial lines, but connected by shared humanity.

I am not a nationalist. I do not feel just Italian. I feel Italian. I feel European. I feel like an inhabitant of this planet. I feel like a person among people. I feel mestizo. I feel human.

We must choose: do we build walls, or do we build bridges? Do we regress into the violence of the past, or do we fight for the future promised to us?

Oligarchies and country borders cannot define the world. People should. The future belongs to those who refuse to be strangers.