Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Palermo (Agenzia Fides) – Sicily. Palermo. I’ve been here for two days. Formal meetings. Talking. Listening. Understanding and then listening some more.
The questions are about as useless as the answers.
Whoever wants, says what he wants. Immigration is like a mafia. History repeats itself. Sentences and hearings all you want, but real information for my study - very little. The one in hiding, more here in Europe than in other parts of the world, doesn’t say a word unless you can guarantee him that he will remain anonymous, invisible. In other words, camouflaging yourself can be easier here than in other places, even where there are more job opportunities.
All that I learn here I really don’t know, because as they say “all that is said is as if it were never said.” This is the rule when listening to the stories of hunger and pain, of violence living off of violence to make a few cents to survive on. Then there’s the question as to what it means to be a missionary today, in a world where everything blends into one and the ends of the earth have reached our doorsteps.
They say that on this island that even the stones on the streets pay to be stepped on. The summer heat forces me to stop in one of these places where everyone else is buying ice creams. I don’t have my camera with me. I’m just another Italian among others. A tourist in a city he doesn’t know.
Knowing where I am, even better now that I am not so young, gives meaning to my life and my freedom. I speak with people I don’t even know. I’m still with the immigration issue.
“Lybia. Everything is Lybia’s fault.” In vain. Commonplace. I accept these commentaries, just to have an excuse to listen to the opinions of people I don’t know.
One stands out from the rest: “It’s all crime and what goes with it.” Crime? A few more steps and I walk into a center started by a unique religious brother with a magnanimous heart, who welcomes these poor nameless people with illusions of a future that will surely never come to pass. I greet them, speak with them, and I’m glad I decided not to bring the camera. They would have hidden their faces. They’ve learned that in order to make it here, they have to continue being a nobody. I look them in the eyes. Are all the people that this Brother takes in, good people? Do those who would make use of these people for labor and trafficking all outside?
Talks? Reality?
I want to understand how much the mafia and organized crime in general enter into the immigration process and control things on a daily basis, for their own advantages.
Patience, time, all the places I have to go, voices and stories reinforce this terrible hypothesis of the trafficking of human beings to make money – a lot of money – more than we can imagine. I am here for this reason and no one will stop me from getting to the bottom of it all.
I am not a sociologist or anthropologist, nor some representative for investigation, prevention, and suppression. No! I am only moved by charity in truth, so that there can be more justice and peace among us, for all people.
May xenophobia and neo-racism never take root in our consciences. Italy is my homeland and now I realize that the changes in recent years have been so rapid that the structures we have created don’t mean anything anymore.
Neighborhoods that I had visited just a few years ago are now populated by Africans and Middle Eastern people. The waves of immigration of recent years have changed everything.
I absolutely love olives. I always try to find them when I am in Palermo, but now, those markets no longer exist. The shouts of the merchants are no longer in Sicilian. They are sounds from other parts of the Mediterranean.
The poverty is an ordered one; everything is shown with an ostentatiously silent force. In this city, public order doesn’t go through the state, but through something much older, with blood ties, with family roots, that blocks everything. Solidarity? From the value of love, we pass to the value of organized crime. I don’t think being a priest, a volunteer, a person of good will... on these streets can be very easy. It’s not easy living where your job is dangerous. The borderlines between what can be done and what cannot be are hard to see and live, with love towards our neighbor.
Biagio Conte, the Brother I had run into, along with a Salesian priest and other volunteers with big hearts, are beacons of love. At the foot of an immense Cross standing on the old industrial road...welcoming all those who know at their door. The first time I visited “the Mission,” which I like to call “of Hope and Charity,” it was nighttime. There were beds all over the place, even under the doors, in the passageways, wherever there was a free space. Offering a bed to someone who lives in a cardboard box is not a simple act, but a strong sign of hope that the world is not lost, that life and the human person are values that go beyond crime and those who wish to run from the world’s problems. When entire nations are in flight, controlling immigration is like trying to stop a tsunami. Is it possible? What does it mean to be a missionary? Today? We’ll talk about this next time, with Brother Biagio Conte. (Luca de Mata, writing from Cuenca) (Part 5 – to be continued) (Agenzia Fides 10/9/2008)
