A lecture hall at the University of Pavia.
First-year political science students.
Italy. Eastern Europe. Africa. The Middle East.
When I started speaking about the United Nations, the room became very quiet.
So quiet you could hear a pin drop.
I did not celebrate the UN.
I reflected on it.
Not as a perfect institution.
But as a political arena — shaped by the values and interests of its member states.
When I finished, the questions came quickly.
Big questions.
Why keep an institution that so often fails?
Why defend something that seems outdated?
Why not start over?
You could feel their frustration.
They see the contradictions of global politics.
They see institutions struggling to keep up with the world.
Some of them would rather see the UN disappear.
But when I asked what should replace it — the room became quiet again.
There is no ready-made alternative.
Democracy is like that, I told them.
It does not deliver perfect answers.
It is an ongoing conversation.
A negotiation.
A lived back and forth.
Messy. Imperfect.
But still better than tyranny or autocracy.
What stayed with me after the talk was something else.
These students were searching for orientation.
And it reminded me that this is partly on us — the older generation.
Not only to speak about values.
But to try to live by them.
Which, as the democratic process shows every day,
is often the hardest part.
This is why I love meeting young people.
These conversations matter to me.
They remind me why I try — imperfectly — to live according to my own values.
And if I can make even one person pause, think, and reflect,
that is already something.
Here you can download my talk and here is a link to more.
During my days in Pavia I had the privilege to stay at Collegio Fratelli Cairolii. It is one of the historic residential colleges of the University of Pavia. The college was originally founded in 1781 by Emperor Joseph II of Austria (opening in 1782) and was reopened in 1948 under its current name. It is part of Pavia’s distinctive college system of about twenty residential colleges, where students from different disciplines live and study alongside their university education.
