Emilia Fiorini, Senior student at UPTER, Rome

Accept or receive? When one has a honorary work, this means, that he already achived something in his life, and when he got old in a “normal” way, this means that he should keep this position. And when he then laboriously achieves something, which he could not until then, it is then good that he had kept the position. This presupposes, here is my view: the position itself does not mean anything to me. I am satisfield with the recognition from those that I love and value. My experiences? These do not mean anything to others, but for me they have a somewhat melancholy touch. I did not study music although I come from a musical family. I love music and am familiar with it, but as a child I could not sit still through a singing lesson. And later I did not study, because my family was poor and I was not good enough to get a grant to cover the study fees.
And so when I was 13 I started to work, and when I became a white-collar worker (they called me “the child”), the war broke out and disrupted everything. When the war finished, I worked for the Partito d’Azione. I could not vote yet, but the people that I have learned there to value and to admire have, I believe, showed me (and also my parents) a way to a moral honesty. And (perhaps) helped me also to be able to recognise values. This helps me now not to expect more from life than what I have, namely 2 daughters and 4 grandchildren, who keep together very much, and also many friends. That is much, but perhaps I have gone off the subject.

How am I engaged? In politics and union work; of course also after the PdA to PSI (Socialist Party of Italy) till the Craxi affair, than with the PdUP (peoples’ party). After that I finished with the parties. I was still active at some of the organisations – left wing of course – but follow now politics from a rather independent point of view. The participation in the partner meetings that are made possible by the European projects, is for me also a political action, even though I am aware that the enlargement of the European Union is in no way sure.