(ANSA) - ROME, NOVEMBER 17 - "It is important to insist on the issue of training: Italy is a great country which boasts an immeasurably heritage and cultural baggage that everyone would like to have", and "we have a duty to pass on this knowledge, because may be a heritage for our compatriots abroad. Six million Italians abroad cannot be forgotten, they represent our know-how".
This was stated by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking at the closing event of the Days of Italian Education in the World at the Farnesina.
"If it hadn't been for the miners of Marcinelle, Belgium would not have grown like this. And the doubling of the Panama Canal, the largest infrastructural work in the world, was carried out by an Italian company. All this is culture", which is not only Latin, music, art, architecture, but also science and technology.
"It is right that our fellow citizens should not lose this heritage, like the heritage of our language", underlined the minister.
"We have so much to give, a baggage that we must not consider something of the past, but something alive. Not an exclusive heritage of Italy, but to be given to the world because it enriches, makes intelligence grow" all over the world.
"I believe - added Tajani - that our schools abroad must be increasingly open to non-Italian young people, to make our identity better known".
Studying together with Italian girls and boys means "strengthening a spirit of peace", because "culture, by its nature, leads to dialogue, discussion and peace" and "schools must be forges of culture".
We must be "proud to be Italian. Love for one's homeland is not aggressive nationalism, but love for an identity to be given to others and also willing to receive" from other countries, "increasing our knowledge by getting to know others", stated the owner of the Farnesina.
(HANDLE).
