Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - On Rai Uno, from Monday 29 June and four Mondays running, in the second half of the evening, “ The suitcase with a string ” opens a different window on the universe of migrants, giving voice to the experience of hopes dashed to suffering and pain. With four episodes, “ The suitcase with a string ”, takes us around the world to Argentina, Moldavia, Slovakia, France, Britain, Spain, Italy, United States, Canada, Thailand, where the drama of migrants may differ, yet it is profoundly and humanly the same, and where our duty as citizens, television spectators, Christians, is to recognise, consider and embrace, just as we are embraced in that encounter with faith which determines our life.
We are taken to America, where the American dream is no more, yet every year, thousands still try to cross the desert between Mexico and United States most of them, only to find death. Like Lucrezia, who saved the lives of her children Jesus and Nora, giving them the little water left and then died of thirst herself. The dream has vanished: only illegal immigrants, in a country to which they give much, where immigration and violence are seen too close up.
In Moldavia the main problem is the number of children, about 900,000, abandoned every year by fortune seeking parents who go abroad and never come back, either because they are too ashamed or because they are trapped by crime. Women especially, from every country, young and pretty, branded with the mark of the foul play of human trafficking, mainly for sexual purposes. “ The suitcase with a string ” removes certain convictions which common mentality has rendered so cumbersome, in our minds, for example those false myths about Rom people: we meet, among other 'Actors' in the programme, a young Rom woman fleeing her family, who tells of a drama few can understand: “None of us are born thieves or prostitutes, they force us into it with violence ”. Violence even within the family, delinquency is not a matter of structure, it is a question of education.
In a world of sufferings and difficulties, Christian hope and charity spreads many rays of hope: Brother Biagio Conte on mission in Palermo, Father Josaphat a missionary to gypsy people, Caritas in Cuenca, Spain; proof that diversity is not necessarily an incurable ill, instead it reveals itself to be enrichment through reciprocal exchange, charity, gratuitousness, sharing. We must stop being blind and become co-workers for peace, justice, solidarity and equality. We should see in every migrant the face of Jesus, he too a migrant, forced with his family to take flight to Egypt; his whole life revealed and proclaimed human dignity.
This is the profound reason for “ The suitcase with a string”; and through this adventure we are guided by words of Benedict XVI, then still a Cardinal: “ To show understanding for persons on the margins of society, on the margins of the Church, for the losers, the sufferers, for those who ask questions, for the discouraged, the abandoned, in order to instil confidence and the will to help one another, this is the core of Christian morality.” “ The suitcase with a string ” script and direction, Luca De Mata… sound track “ The suitcase with a string ” very young Italian composer Aurelio Canonici. (Agenzia Fides 26/6/2009; righe 40, parole 588)
