January, month of peace and memory, among hypocrisy and inhumanity
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, instituted to remember the extermination carried out by the Nazis and Fascists during the Second World War, and, once again, we will be forced to assist to the parades of politicians weeping over the past with their hands stained with the bloodshed in the present. Hands that today, in our time, sign agreements to build refugee camps, to let people die at sea, to put up walls and deport human beings, to spread hatred and violence.
It is a memory muddied and trampled on by those who hypocritically repeat history and its horrors. And we – distracted and indifferent – continue to celebrate the Memorial Day or the month of peace by pretending that there are no more wars, because we are not directly involved. We don’t care if people die under our bombs, guided by our radar, in faraway places like in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya.
And whoever manages to escape from the disasters caused by our imperialism and arrive in Europe alive, is then subject to more violence and segregation, to constant and total dehumanisation.
Last Christmas, Paul, a farmhand in the countryside of Campobello, left a stove burning to heat his shack while he went to take a “hot” outdoor shower, and when he returned, he found everything on fire. Paul was then welcomed to another tent and got some clothes as a gift from his companions, forced to live in the same conditions as him: “It was the most beautiful Christmas of my life, believe me. No one has ever given me anything without asking for something in return. It came so spontaneously to them, they saw me distressed and desperate, and they gave me a beautiful gift”.
Unfortunately, this won’t be part of the news because Paul didn’t burn to death, didn’t deal drugs, didn’t rape any woman, in short it doesn’t make news because Paul is alive but remains invisible.
And that’s the way it has to be so that we can make money off them. The news at the beginning of the year was not comforting: everywhere in the countryside we continue to humiliate, exploit, and kill.
As a sign of the inhumanity that distinguishes us, the leaders of Frontex were able to celebrate a fantastic Christmas, since the agency has officially been named the European border police with 10 thousand officers at its disposal and an estimated budget until 2025 of 1,871 million euros. This comes with the blessing of weapons factories, surveillance systems, military equipment, while rescue at sea is banned and criminalized.
In the meantime, inside Fortress Europe, the reception system is in increasingly disrupted conditions. For Jimmy and his friends in an extraordinary reception center (CAS*) in the Palermo area, New Year’s Eve was marked by mouldy and cold food and a total absence of CAS operators. “On New Year’s Eve we were alone not only at night, but also during the day. We are alone and closed in this isolated place, we are abandoned to the cold and frost, since the heaters are never turned on and the water is always cold”. Many of the workers of the centres did not spend a nice Christmas either and they were not in the mood to celebrate New Year’s Eve, since the cooperatives drastically cut hours and those who were not fired were forced to accept short-hours contracts. Many have not received a payment in about a year, which causes bad moods and fuels a system in which few people speculate and earn, while migrants and workers suffer exploitation and discrimination.
Many centres have emptied out during the Christmas holidays, because of the increasing difficulties during this time. Many minors have also resumed their journey, hoping to find a better future, but this is often just a road that leads to more exploitation. In the case of women this risk is even higher given the lack of measures to identify and protect the victims of trafficking who are inside the centres, left in the hands of tormentors who can easily lure them into the network of forced prostitution.
Evidence that things are going from bad to worse can be seen in the news that the large humanitarian organizations have abandoned Sicily and Italy, indeed that they have abandoned migrants. Organizations such as UNHCR and IOM have no more projects, no more monitoring in the centres and they have dismissed personnel. There will be no more operators in the CPR or in other places where every now and then you could see a man or a woman with a blue bib. Isolation will increase as well as the violation of the rights and bodies of people detained. They will become even more isolated and left to rot in the centres, with the only hope that they will meet workers who thirst for justice and who, in spite of everything, try to do their job by restoring dignity to the people.
As always, redemption comes from ordinary people who are still able to make beautiful gestures that fill their recipients with joy, like the one made by a family from Palermo who welcomed Samba for New Year’s Eve. Samba is a parking attendant of one of the many supermarkets in Palermo and lives between Biagio Conte and the dormitories of the city, when he is lucky. He asked us for a tie because he wanted to honour that family by looking good for the party.
Samir and Claudio, two homeless friends, tell us that on New Year’s Eve “luckily” so much food was thrown in the garbage that they were able to have a lunch “as God commands”. “He found the first course still intact in a plastic container, while I took care of the side dish and the second course. The dessert was given to us by Mrs. Maria, who always thinks about us. Unfortunately, the wine was scarce otherwise it would have been…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. They look each other in the face, one white as paper, the other black as coal, and they hug each other laughing and wishing each other good wishes, those special wishes that people who have been pushed to the margins – and beyond – of this society make.
After all, this world will not be saved by the intellectuals or the politicians, but by the simplicity of those who, despite everything, can find beauty in every single gesture, in every single moment of their “beautiful and unjust life”.
Alberto Biondo
*CAS: Centro di accoglienza straordinaria – Extraordinary reception center
Translated by Francesca Cavallo