‘Fraternity’: Carlo Petrini at the Sydney Opera House

SYDNEY [18 Oct 2009]: Slow Food international president and founder Carlo Petrini told a Sydney Opera House audience today that producers and eaters should work to build a fraternity of food. ‘You will know the three great values of the French Revolution – liberty, equality and fraternity,’ Petrini said. ‘Fraternity (brotherhood) is like the poor sister, just like Cinderella. We in the world over generations have said a lot of words about liberty. Great battles have been fought and many people have died for equality. But we have never really considered fraternity, which is the most important of them all. Because fraternity allows us to respect people who have different ideas from ours, people of a different culture, skin, or religion. With fraternity we can respect them. And fraternity helps us to listen to other people. Then with fraternity we also have equality and liberty. That is why Slow Food has called (its movement) Terra Madre, because if the earth is our mother then we are all brothers and sisters. And even if we speak different languages we can still understand each other.’ Full transcript.