The endless Maditerranean tragedy
Michele Manocchi, PhD
20+years Social Researcher, Scholar, Author | Consultant and Science Communicator | ISO-30415 HR Management - Diversity&Inclusion | Created the EDI Implementation Cycle | UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate
Someone is asking me to explain, to say something on the European situation, as I am Italian and “expert”. I am speechless.
I am a father, and I can barely imagine the pain of that father that was not able to hug sufficiently tight his kids to not let them go. His pain is my pain any time I watch at that photo.
But, everybody who works with refugees could tell hundreds of those stories and show hundreds of those photos.
The point is not the pain sharing, the point is the historical, political, cultural amnesia in which we fell down. The point is that we do not want to know, do not want to understand the reasons, the causes, we are afraid of our complete, deep co-responsibility to what is happening around the world. Through what we buy, what we (do not) think, what we (do not) say.
I do not think that this umpteenth tragic event will result in real changes among the European countries policies. It is just a temporary news that politicians, journalists and NGOs managers will use to increase their businesses. Too many unreported, unrecognized tragedies have occurred in the Mediterranean Sea to hope that this one will change something. How many kids are dying around the world from hunger, wars, environmental disasters, as I write these sentences? So please, do not tell me that this picture will change the fate of humanity, because to make sure that we will continue to enjoy our privileges, it must be somewhere else slaves and poor people that pay for us.
What I think is that, maybe, this time someone among us will have the honesty to open the eyes as citizen, starting to say 'enough' to the racists present in any political movement, party, organization.
To recognize a racist is easy: if you hear somebody to say something in which the subject is not treated as a person, as a human being, then you are listening to a racist, someone that thinks his/her own humanity is something special, something more valuable, noble, worthy than the one of someone else.
We cannot hope that the tragedies will end. We can certainly be sure, instead, that our fight will continue for a long time. We have to speak up, we have to find the words to explain our children what does it mean that photo and work to strengthen our kids’ awareness.
High school program coordinator at WEP Italia
10yAgreed. I'd just add one thing- I don't have children, but I have grandparents who are used to believing everything they hear. They're good people, but they're naive and for example the other day I heard them stating that "it's a shame that those people from the boats receive €35 per day without doing anything while Italians starve". It was evident to me that they were just repeating someone else's words: I took the time to have a serious dialogue with them and, through some Q&As I was honestly impressed by, we spent about an hour talking about the topic of Mediterranean crossings, vulnerable migrant and refugee issues, the false news that are circulating on that, and so on. I'm not sure they'll remember all that, or that my message really got through. But my point, related to yours, is that WE MUST TRY. I believe we all have the moral responsibility to at least ensure that the truth is told about all this, and that people of all kinds -not only experts!- know what's really happening, and why, and how. We need to tell children, parents, grandparents, teenagers, neighbours, friends, colleagues, even people on the street. So, thank you Michele for this post: as an Italian and an "expert" myself, I really appreciate it. Now let's go and continue to speak up, with realistic expectations but without losing the hope that our words may, in fact, change something :)