The name of a place, because it refers to a gathering, in that place, of a group of people of any origin, religion, social and cultural opinion, united by the wish, but I would say almost by the urgency, to emerge from their individualism either accommodated or suffered and usually irrelevant.

It means a collaboration during a cultural week, while not being overwhelmed by the perceived threat of the facts of life and by the danger of annihilation of humankind, but rather refinds and experiences the links that unite people; a fraternity that often when placed at the heart of humankind is called “Agape”.

It is a project centred on thought, creativity, research, including social, educational and political aspects and addressing material and spiritual needs from diverse close and distant latitudes.

Each year Tonalestate addresses a particular theme to which its guests contribute, a contribution which hopefully provokes questions, reflections, debates and encounters sometimes with extreme Human experiences, which in turn might result in even more decisive and mature actions and where everyone feels involved as main actor instead of spectator and where everyone can get a glimpse of a new humanity.

It is the work of personalities (and here I must thank our friends present, Prof. Marcello Buiatti, the historian Aldo Giobbio and the journalist Raniero La Valle) who within a certain timeframe and with a certain amount of unforeseen docility have discovered, participated and made of Tonalestate, together with many young people each year, the surprising enterprise that in these 13 years, it has become.

The gathering of people also from many remote locations together with all those who wish to share its spirit, local people as well as tourists, is a small seed which will grow, in time and in different areas, if each of them becomes a protagonist and supporter.

This was the case: from Tonalestate, created in 2001 as an association for cultural initiatives, relentless and full of love for young people, by Professor Giovanni Riva, were born several cultural centres in El Salvador, in Mexico, Honduras, Japan, France and Italy. We have never been blocked by material poverty nor by the need to search for funds to continue this experience.

All those who attended, several hundred in these 13 years, you can find them back on the website of Tonalestate that I invite you to visit: there you will find, better than my humble words, the eco and the emotion of the history of Tonalestate.

The theme of the 2014 edition: this year at Tonalestate that lasts from 4 to 7 August, we will speak about History; an important issue, huge in its breadth and depth, but according to our spirit, especially full of questions, of provocations, of involvement. In short a week in which we can leave aside our individualism and indifference.

First of all we would like to ask many questions to History; questions related to time and space, to the beginning and end, to the pain and humiliation that all living beings, generation after generation, had to suffer. Then we would like to ask her the reason of death and unjust death. And we would like to ask whether the fear and terror shall continue to accompany mothers, fathers and children. We would like to ask her if indeed there is good and evil, from where they originate and how life was really born, as well as men and our beloved and suffering world.

Finally, we would like to ask her if there is a happy future to which to aim for or instead do we walk on a vicious circle without exit or on straight line with an ending?

To us mortal and weak women and men these questions seem to be full of exceptions in front of a History that appears to be eternally present. Is it nevertheless an area worth investigating where any person of goodwill will be able to make a difference? Or in front of History, its evolution, human beings are impotent spectators, weak and fragile, up to asking the question: “why should I have to cooperate in order for the world to progress if there is never anything positive under the sun, nothing for which existence is worthwhile? “

History does not seem to be affected in front of the call of humankind as confirmed by the poem of Montale taken over by the pamflet of Tonalestate. It is short of news. But there is Humankind who again interrogates himself in silence in front of History, “Bruta Facta”, about nude and raw facts that do not concern either the sky or the earth. But the indignant man reflects and from this reflection may emerge something new, or perhaps it may happen that despair is countered by yearning hope and that a question posed to History may perhaps happen to all mankind? Also to those who are today the victims of evil, of an apocalyptic evil like wars, invasions, shelling, massacres, torture?

And if indeed it does not concern either the sky or the earth, what then is concerned? Perhaps it concerns this fundamental quest for good that everybody of us carries along? For sure a reply even if we fail to respond, must exist. A simple but not easy reply like simple and not easy is every need that humankind encounters internally as well as externally. It is as if we had the thirst but no water to fulfil it.

Faced with this conundrum of evil, and the absolute evil of and within History, “conundrum” of the irreducible suffering wrote Paul Ricoeur, we are neither in a state of optimism nor of absolute despair but rather of a realism that raises the question of the mystery of this nostalgia of the good which originates from our heart, this nostalgia of the Other.

Our friends here today, will help us, here and at Ponte di Legno and at Passo del Tonale to deepen and further develop this brief introduction. Thank you.