The Country of the Rainbow
We are young people from all over the earth and we want to change the world. We do not like it as it is. It is full of beautiful things, but too many people suffer because of hunger, war, because their skin is of a different color, because the strong want to crush the weak. Our planet is full of beautiful things, but it is becoming full of rubbish and the air is increasingly polluted and the water grows dirtier and dirtier.
We want a more human and more just world, with no divisions between people, between white, black, yellow and brown, between the rich and the poor, between the young and the elderly. We want to build a cleaner world, where pollution does not make the forests yellow or the water brown, where there is enough room for all colors and all people.
We want to live in peace. We do not like growing up in a world with war, because it is stupid, and even the ones who win end up suffering and being afraid. We want to tell everyone that it is more important to save the planet than to have lots of money. It is better to have one less T-shirt and pair of shoes, than to let children work as slaves in so many parts of the world.
We are friends of everyone, even of people whom nobody wants to be close to. We are friends of the elderly, because it is not right for them to always be alone. We are friends of those children people call "different", because they are really just like us, even though they may not be able to run or to speak. We are friends of foreigners, the ones people want to send back home, even though sometimes they do not have a home. We are friends of nature, real friends, not the ones who burn down woods or make the sea dirty.
We are many, but we are not all the same. We are of many colors and all ages, but we do not make war on one another because of this. We commit ourselves to grow up together and not to let violent people steal childhood away from children.
It sounds difficult, but it is actually easy. We can do many colorful things. With white we clean up the world. Red is for friendship and solidarity. Yellow is the sun that joins us all together. Green is the grass we play on. Blue is the color of night, that must no longer frighten anyone. These are the colors of the future. They are the colors of God.
It is the land of the rainbow.
Rome, 4th October 1998
