Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) is today
largely remembered as the chief inspirer and leading political agitator of the
Italian risorgimento. Yet Mazzini was not merely an Italian patriot, and his
influence reached far beyond his native country and his century. In his time,
he ranked among the leading European intellectual figures, competing for public
attention with Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville.
According to his friend Alexander Herzen, the russian political activist and
writer, Mazzini was the “shining star” of the democratic revolutions of 1848.[…]Mazzini
was an original, if not very systematic, political thinker. He put forward
principled arguments in support of various progressive causes, from universal
suffrage and social justice to women’s enfranchisement. Perhaps most
fundamentally, he argued for a reshaping of the European political order on the
basis of two seminal principles: democracy and national self-determination.
these claims were extremely radical in his time, when most of continental
Europe was still under the rule of hereditary kingships and multinational
empires such as the Habsburgs and the ottomans.[…]Mazzini’s ideas had an
extraordinary appeal for generations of progressive nationalists and
revolutionary leaders from his day until well into the twentieth century: his
life and writings inspired several patriotic and anticolonial movements in
Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, as well as the early Zionists, Gandhi, Nehru,
and Sun YatSen.[…] It was Mazzini’s conviction that under the historical
circumstances of his time, only the nation state could allow for genuine
democratic participation and the civic education of individuals. to him, the
nation was a necessary intermediary step in the progressive association of
mankind, the means toward a future international “brotherhood” among all
peoples. (Stefano Recchia, A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini's
Writings on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations, 2009, Princeton,
p. 1)
From The Duties of Man, Chapter Four
– Duties Toward Humanity
Humanity alone, continuous in existence through the passing Generations, continuous
in intellect through the contributions of all its members, is capable of
gradually evolving, applying, and glorifying the Divine Idea.
Life therefore, was given to you by
God in order that you might employ that life for the benefit of Humanity, that
you might direct your individual faculties to aid the development of the
faculties of your brother men, and contribute by your labour another element to
the collective work of Progress, and the discovery of the Truth, which the
generations are destined slowly but unceasingly to promote.
Your duty is to educate yourselves,
and to educate others; to strive to perfect yourselves, and to perfect others.
It is true that God lives within
you, but God lives in all the men by whom this earth is peopled. God is in the
life of all the generations that have been, are, and are to be.
Passed generations have
progressively improved and coming generations will continue to improve the
conception which Humanity forms of Him, of His Law, and of our Duties. You are
bound to adore Him and to glorify Him wheresoever He manifests his presence.
The Universe is His Temple, and the sin of every unresisted or unexpiated
profanation of the Temple weighs on the head of each and all of the Believers. […]
The only lasting hope for you is in
the general amelioration, improvement, and fraternity of all the peoples of
Europe, and through Europe of humanity.
Therefore, my brothers, in the name
of your duty, and for the sake of your interest, never forget that your first
duties — duties without fulfilling
which, you cannot rightly fulfil those towards your country and family — are
towards Humanity.
Let your words and your actions be
for all men, as God is for all men in His Law and Love. In whatsoever land you
live, wheresoever there arises a man to combat- for the right, the just, and
the true, that man is your brother. Wheresoever a man is tortured through
error, injustice, or tyranny, that man is your brother. Free men or slaves, you
are all brothers.
You are one in origin, one is the
Law that governs you, and one in the Goal you are destined to attain. Your
faith must be one, your actions one, and one the banner under which you combat.
Say not : the language we speak is different, Acts, tears, and martyrdom, are a
language common to all men, and which all understand. Say not : Humanity is too
vast, and we are too weak. God does not judge the power but the intention. Love
Humanity. Ask yourselves, as to every act you commit within the circle of
family or country : If what I now do were done by and for all men, would it be
beneficial or injurious to Humanity, and if your conscience tell you it would
be injurious, desist: desist, even though it seem that an immediate advantage
to your country or family would be the result.
Be you the Apostles of this faith :
Apostles of jthe fraternity of Nations, and of that Unity of the human race which,
though it be admitted in principle, is denied in practice at the present day.
Be such, wheresoever and howsoever you are able. Neither God nor man can
require more of you than this. But I tell you that by becoming such, and even —
should more be impossible — by becoming such to yourselves alone, you will yet
serve Humanity. God measures the stages of education lie permits the human race
to ascend, by the number and the purity of the Believers. When the pure among
you are many, God, who numbers you, will disclose to you the way to action.
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