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A manifesto, because something has to be said, and because we’ve spent too long listening to the wrong things. This is for those who are tired of that noise. For those who refuse to accept the false choices we’re offered—between right and left, up or down, forward or back. Because „Onwards!“ is not a direction, and neither is backwards. 

This is for those who believe in accepting people, not ideas handed down like commandments. Those who know that headlines are written to be consumed, not understood. Those who can sit in silence while someone speaks their truth, and who can still listen, knowing that not all truths fit into their own belief system. It’s time to acknowledge that we can hold conflicting opinions, and that not every disagreement is a call to arms.

 

What I’m saying is simple: acceptance does not mean surrender. We are not called to agree  with anyone blindly just because they’ve put their message in a well-edited video, pushed their agenda through the megaphone of modern media. To accept difficult truths — truths about ourselves, about the world — is to allow ourselves to grow. It is to walk in the unknown, knowing that the map we carry is incomplete, and always will be. 

 

And let the youth speak. Let them speak for themselves, about their future. We’ve spent too long deciding for them, shaping a world that obviously no longer makes sense to them, ignoring their voices because they’re small. Their voices must matter now, and we must listen. Not to correct, but to learn. To let go of the arrogance that comes from thinking our experience is a roadmap for theirs. 

 

This is a manifesto for the ones who believe in the quiet revolution of conversation over shouting, for those who see that the loudest voices aren’t always the wisest. It’s a manifesto for not marching at all, but instead walking beside one another, at our own pace, in our own rhythm. Because no drumbeat, no matter how loud, should force our steps.

 

There are those who want to build autocracies where no one can be who they are. And we must stop them. Not with weapons or anger, but with the belief that freedom is non-negotiable. But freedom also means letting people be who they are, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it challenges what we think we know. 

 

This manifesto is a call to abandon the old roads paved with the slogans of the right or left, with the promises of return to some imagined (national) greatness or prosperity. It’s neither. We are not marching to anyone’s drums anymore.

Let us not march, but move with intention. Let us accept without blindly agreeing. Let us hear without trying to silence the voices of others. Let us build a world where being yourself is not a crime, and where the urge to control others is the only thing we refuse to accept.

 

 

 (The line “Onwards is not a direction” is stolen and translated from a song by Spaceman Spiff.)