Cover image: the Mayor of Riace, Domenico (Mimmo) Lucano, among the children of the community where immigrants have become not only welcome, but even the salvation of a community that was dying and a village that risked becoming a ghost town (source : www.molfettalive.it)
The problem of immigration and the most appropriate political solutions to tackle it are complex subjects that involve listening, calmly and without prejudice, to every opinion and proposal, trying to understand both pros and cons. The important thing is to arrive at the right solution, the most shared and the less damaging the parts, all the parts. It is clear that Europe and in particular the countries, like Italy, that are in the front row, must find a way to manage the whole thing, so that the phenomenon does not get out of control and does not become a source of real trouble, as in part happened.
At the same time, it is good that Italy and today’s Italians remember that their grandparents and great-grandparents were among the emigrants of the previous two centuries; just as it is undeniable that since 2009, due to the deep economic crisis that more than other countries has put Italy into a heavy deadlock, the flow of Italians emigrated abroad has begun again to find opportunities and consideration for their own spirit of initiative. Therefore, given these historic characteristics of Italy and its inhabitants, the impression is that all of Europe expects a solution from those who, like Italians, are familiar with the phenomenon from both points of view.
by Guido De Simone
Riace has returned to the headlines, even this time with worldwide resonance, due to the fact that its mayor, Domenico (Mimmo) Lucano, was arrested for having favored or even instigated (this is the accusation) illegal immigration . To this was added the rather sharp comment by the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, who has severely dismissed the fact as, in essence, a “necessary cleaning”, further attracting international attention in what seems to have become a struggle between the little “Davide” and the powerful “Goliath”. It should be noted that then Salvini also affirmed “I hope they absolve him, but we do not make him a martyr“.
It is not our intention to underestimate the reasons of the Minister and the guardians of the law, which the Law applied and must apply, nor the reasons of those who took the defense of the Mayor of Riace, for having the courage to seek alternative solutions. to those, evidently on his part criticizable, imposed by the law.
Please note that the mayor of Riace has been arrested as he is being investigated for “incitement to illegal immigration”. It is even assumed that he organized “weddings of convenience” between citizens of Riace and immigrant women, perhaps to speed up the bureaucratic process of granting Italian citizenship … The truth will be established by the investigation and by the court’s ruling.
But the fact remains that in politics we rarely see people who, with a consistency that is at least appreciable, at the cost of losing their freedom, makes decisions that they considers more just than what the law requires, evidently considering those rules and directives inadequate to the solution of the problem, like the one that the simple mayor of that village has found and had to face in person, taking all the responsibilities.
Someone pointed out that this is the typical case in which the difference between LAW and JUSTICE is highlighted. In essence, those who have a true sense of justice could face an “unjust law” and decide not only not to apply it, but even to do what that law considers a punishable crime.
To contribute to the debate, we publish below the open letter written and made public by the mayor of Riace, the small town on the hills of Aspromonte, in the province of Reggio Calabria, known so far only to be the place where in its marine waters were found the two Greek bronze statues that have become so famous in the world and exhibited in Reggio Calabria’s Museum.
From his house arrest, these are his words, sent to the many citizens and migrants who participated in the demonstration of solidarity in the square of the village of Riace.
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“Have the courage to stay alone”
It is useless to tell you that I wanted to be present among you not only for formal greetings but for something more, to talk without need and obligation to write, to feel that feeling of spontaneity, to feel the emotion that words produce from the soul, finally to thank you one by one, everyone, for a strong collective embrace, with all the affection that human beings are capable of.
To all of you who are a people traveling to a dream of humanity, to an imaginary place of justice, putting aside each one’s daily commitments and even challenge the inclemency of time. I say thank you.
The sky is crossed by so many dark clouds, the same colors, the same black wave that crosses the skies of Europe, that no longer glimpse the indescribable horizons of peaks and abysses, of lands, of pains and crosses, of cruelty of new fascist barbarities.
Here, in that horizon, the peoples are there. And with their sufferings, struggles and conquests. Among the great little things of the everyday, the facts intersect with the political events, the crucial problems of the renewed threats of expulsion, the attacks, death and repression.
Today, in this border place, in this small Italian southern country, land of suffering, hope and resistance, we will live a day that will be destined to go down in history.
We are history. With our choices, our convictions, our mistakes, our ideals, our hopes for justice that no one can ever suppress.
There will come a day when there will be more respect for human rights, more peace than war, more equality, more freedom than barbarism. Where there will be no more people traveling in business class and others amassed like human goods coming from colonial ports with their hands clinging to the waves in the hate seas.
On my personal situation and on my judicial affairs I do not have much to add with respect to what has been widely told. I have no grievances or claims against anyone.
But I would like to tell the whole world that I have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide. I would always do the same things, which gave meaning to my life. I will not forget this overwhelming river of solidarity.
I will take you in my heart for a long time. We must not shrink back, if we are united and we remain human, we will be able to caress the dream of social utopia.
I wish you the courage to remain alone and the courage to stay together under the same ideals.
To be disobedient whenever orders are received that humiliate our conscience.
To deserve that they call us rebels, like those who refuse to forget in the time of compulsory amnesia.
To be so stubborn to continue to believe, even against all evidence, that it is worth being men and women.
To keep walking despite the falls, the betrayals and the defeats, because the story continues, even after us, and when she says goodbye, she is saying a “see you again”.
We must hope to keep alive the certainty that it is possible to be contemporaries of all those who live animated by the will of justice and beauty, wherever we are and wherever we live, because the maps of the soul and time have no borders.
Mimmo Lucano.
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Mimmo Lucano, to explain the philosophy that inspired the “Riace model”, said:” There are those who divide the world in Italians and foreigners. I divide it into privileged and fortunate on one side and disinherited and oppressed on the other“.
His idea of welcoming and integrating thousands of migrants who have repopulated his village of the Locride has become a model celebrated by the film director Wim Wenders in the short film “Il Volo”, by Fortune magazine that has included Lucano in the ranking of the 50 most influential people, along with Bergoglio, Bono Vox and Merkel.
In this regard, Lucano said: “The story of this classification gives me some discomfort, I did not know anything about it. I do not do these things for a political career. I feel I belong to the last ones and not to the first ones“. A model that has attracted over the years in Calabria hundreds of activists, politicians, artists, from Father Zanotelli to Saviano.
The Nobel Prize to Mimmo Lucano was hypothesised
From the peace march Perugia-Assisi, the organizer, Flavio Lotti, has asked for the Nobel Peace Prize to the mayor of Riace, Mimmo Lucano. “If there is a reason why we are here today” Lotti says “it is because what is happening around us is unbearable: just violence, malice, and attack on the fundamental rights of people, just attack those who save lives at sea, who welcome “.
Lotti then announced “We ask that the mayor of Riace be given the Nobel Peace Prize, we are committed to the Nobel Peace Prize being given to the Riace model“.
We would like to suggest, not to cool such an enthusiasm, but for simple realism, that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to those who, with their actions, favored peace in national and international contexts at risk and subject to tragic or highly tragic situations. Moreover, the candidatures can be proposed only by a few subjects: previous Nobel Peace Prize, the Court of Justice of the Hague, representatives of national institutions (parliamentarians, members of the government, etc.), academics in the juridical studies, and a few others. The suggested candidature could be collected by some of these subjects, but it is good to remember that the candidacies are kept secret and only the winner’s name is publicly shown. Therefore, this is not a process based on “people’s acclamation”.
Final considerations
We would like to underline, suggesting calm in those who in these days tears their clothes scandalized by the words of Minister Salvini (and often they are the same that the laws to solve the problem have not done, underestimating the problem), that the police have only done their duty, applying the law, and that the minister, even if in his own way (perhaps exceeding a little), only stressed that it was the right thing to do. This does not exclude that the applied law can be inadequate or perhaps unjust or not applicable without unacceptable side effects in certain contexts, as could be the case of Riace.
Civil disobedience is not a new thing. Showing their dissent, even at the risk of being arrested, is what happened to people like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, the English workers who fought for the vote to women, Aung San Suu Kyi for not having bowed to the impositions of the Burmese military regime, the many Italians who did not accept to adapt to the dictates of fascism and ended up in prison or in confinement or in Nazi death camps, … the list, fortunately, is very long.
Therefore, what happened between those few Riace houses is an opportunity, it is an opportunity to tackle the problem with more wisdom, taking into consideration also an alternative proposal to that established by the Law, the formula now renamed “RIACE MODEL” , which apparently could be an alternative solution, more suited to certain territorial contexts that, obviously, have not been assessed with sufficient attention by those who wrote the rules of the game in due course.
Nothing dramatic: writing a rule that applies to everyone and is perfect for everyone is not easy; there is always the risk of underestimating some specific cases. It is the citizens and the police forces themselves or the courts that, when applying a law, report cases in which that rule, instead of solving a problem, makes it worse. And it is then that the legislator, the Parliament, must evaluate the facts wisely, as citizens expect from those to whom they have conferred their delegation to legislate in the name of the Sovereign People.
It is enough to get to work, reasoning with wisdom and civility, not with the blows of political proclamations of one side, neither of the one on the other side. This is what Italians expect. And this is what European citizens expect, who do not forget at all that Western civilization has its birthplace also and above all in Italy, and therefore they hope that Italy will once again give a contribution to CIVILIZATION.
