di Stefan Wallisch (ANSA) - BOLZANO, JUN 28 - "Alex Langer remains a reference point for all those who aspire to a more just, equitable, peaceful, intercultural society and who care about environmental protection." Giorgio Mezzalira, co-curator of the Alex Langer Archive, thus remembers his friend 30 years after his death. The 'builder of bridges and wrecker of walls' departed on July 3, 1995 in an olive grove near Florence, leaving a moving invitation to those left behind: "Continue in what was right." Alex Langer was born on February 22, 1946, in Sterzing. His political commitment started from South Tyrol itself. Mezzalira is convinced that "the strong local roots and the reflection he initiated from a young age on the issues of interethnicity, coexistence and dialogue were then fundamental to the development of his thinking." According to the fellow traveler, Alex understood before others that "South Tyrol could be a European laboratory." Until the end, Langer fought to stop the war in the former Yugoslavia. According to Mezzalira, "if we think about his legacy and his mature reflection on the issues of interethnic culture and dialogue, which are the 'Ten Points for Coexistence,' we realize that it is a kind of compass for the great issues of today, both for the issues of migration and conflict. An attitude that there must be in considering pacifism as a possible and important tool for conflict management." Langer, however, did not call himself a pacifist, but a "peacemaker," that is, one who "entered into the logic of conflict resolution by proposing alternatives." What would Langer do today in the face of proliferating conflicts, from Ukraine to Gaza to Iran? It is difficult for his friend to bring Alex to today's times: "In these 30 years the world has changed. But there is an attitude, which I would call Alex's way of being in the world, from which we can derive an idea of responsibility that each of us must have for what we do and what we should do and what we don't do." For the co-curator of the archive of the founder of the green movement in Italy, "Alex leaves all of us with a toolkit to be able to deal with the big issues of today without giving in to ideologies or absolutism, but by putting our bodies and minds into the issues, thus understanding their complexity." The Langer Archive will soon be deposited at the Archives of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, thanks to an agreement, signed by the Alex Langer Foundation with the provincial archives and the Trentino Historical Museum Foundation, which aims to enhance the documentary heritage of the politician. "The Superintendency of Cultural Heritage of the Province of Bolzano itself has defined our archive as a heritage of considerable historical interest," Mezzalira explains. Langer always paid much attention to the collection of documentary material, to the relationship with his interlocutors, and to the live account of what he personally explored and experienced. (ANSA).