To put it simply, secularism is not another religion. Secularism is a method; an approach; a pre-condition that leaves people free to believe or not to believe, to practice one faith or another, and could even make it possible for religions themselves to compare themselves with each other and dialogue instead of battling (“Deus vult”) for supremacy.A free Church in a free State, in other words. Many secular people, but also many “enlightened” believers, identify with this interpretation of secularism – people such as Enzo Bianchi, founder and prior of the ecumenical Community of Bose and author of two books that go against current trends: La differenza cristiana (Einaudi) and Ero straniero e mi avete accolto (Rizzoli). Bianchi intervenes in the Dossier on the value of secularism,which we publish in this issue of east with the collaboration of the Corrieredella Sera Foundation, together with Khaled Fuad Allam, Monika Bulaj, Giulio Giorello, Adriano Pessina, Magdi Allam, Paolo Branca and AlbertoMelloni. The second theme that this issue of the magazine examines in depth is migration. The articles by Aldo Bonomi, Donato Speroni and Danilo Taino make it possible to view the phenomenon in a very different way to the usual approach, first of all because they clearly emphasise the dimensions and international character of migration and secondly because they juxtapos it with development in poor as well as rich countries. Economies such as those of America, Japan and Italy would have no future if it were not for the quantitative and qualitative contribution of migrations. Finally, the editorial bears the signature of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russianjournalist who was on the front line of investigation into the Russian Mafia and its relations with the establishment, and was murdered in Moscow in October for this reason. Ms Politkovskaya has obviously neverwritten an editorial for east. The magazine decided to publish a paragraph form her book Putin’s Russia, published in Italy by Adelphi, thus giving itthe dignity and weight of an editorial. For as Pasolini said about the Italy of the economic boom: there can be no development without corresponding.
civil, cultural and moral growth.
