“Life is already amazing, you don’t need drugs”
by Gianluca Zanella
It was held this morning, at the Auditorium of the Paolo Baffi Institute in Fiumicino, a meeting between the students and Don Antonio Coluccia, the “anti-drug dealing” priest which for years has been fighting against the excessive power of the clans in the suburbs of the capital, from San Basilio to Tor Bella Monaca, passing through the Bronx of Primavalle up to the Quarticciolo. For his front-line activism, Don Coluccia lives under guard, surrounded by his guardian angels who watch over his safety.
In front of an audience of over one hundred boys and girls and in front of civil and military institutions, Don Antonio Coluccia, introduced by the school director Monica Bernard, who strongly wanted this meeting, spoke about drug dealing, school dropouts, suburbs and public housing and the related critical issues. But you spoke above all of alternatives, of choices, of active resistance to organized crime, which especially seduces the younger ones, but which condemns them to a life devoid of happiness.
“Life is already amazing, you don’t need drugs” said Don Coluccia, who repeats the same words throughout his “anti-drug walks”where, armed with a megaphone and a balloon, he occupies the drug dealing squares, trying to bring light where the merchants of death operate in the shadows.
“Organized crime offers you an illusion. It allows you to walk around in designer clothes and shiny cars. But in reality you are just pawns in the hands of the clans and at the first available opportunity you will be dumped and you will also pay for those who put you to drug dealing. There are no friends in this world.”
During the meeting, Don Antonio Coluccia, who recalled his origins and also spoke about his policeman uncle who died during a firefight with a member of the Sacra Corona Unita, the Apulian mafia organisation, spoke about culture as the only real weapon at our disposal, as an instrument of emancipation and rebirth. A concept forcefully underlined several times.
At the end of the meeting, the boys and girls from the hotel sector, guided by their teachers, they offered the guest and the authorities present refreshments they had prepared themselves. Here Don Coluccia interacted with the younger ones, joked and told personal anecdotes, showing again and with simplicity his profound commitment, his true mission, the belief that with his stubbornness he will somehow manage to have an impact where the politics has failed.
This morning’s meeting was the first of a series of appointments related to the theme of Legality, which will still feature guests always on the front line talking to the students.
