by Elena Coatti
A large and enthusiastic audience once again welcomed Mimmo Lucano to the Sala Estense after eight years. A guest who “needs no introduction” as he represents a link between Riace and Ferrara, between two different ways of welcoming migrants.
“The Riace model is a point of reference for us”, reiterate Carola Peverati of Cittadini del Mondo and Francesca Rinaldi of Viale K. It was 2016 when “with the barricades our deputy mayor made his political career by rejecting twelve women, of whom a pregnant one”, recalls Peverati, and Mimmo Lucano called the headquarters of Cittadini del Mondo: “we’ll take them”.
The former mayor of Riace is now a candidate for the European elections with the Alleanza Verdi Sinistra, also in the north-east constituency. “I hope that he is elected – adds Peverati – because we need humanity so much”. Francesca Rinaldi has been working in Viale K for about twenty years and she does not forget the accusations of embezzlement against the associations or cooperatives that have hosted in the area. When “the current administration pointed the finger at us during the judicial investigations and accused us of having made ‘guts of gold’, but they did not express themselves when we were finally dismissed”. It is then Don Domenico Bedin who remembers who was at the picket against the reception in front of the parish of Krasnodar, Senator Balboni.
“The right is sad” replies Mimmo Lucano. A right that with the “psychology of fear” continues to spread hatred and contempt towards everything that does not reflect the Western world, from a “different” that is instead enrichment. Like Kulsum and her daughter, a student at Dosso Dossi, who arrived from Pakistan and were welcomed by Mimmo in Riace and now in Ferrara, where they have undertaken their profession as artists.
“We must not always send demeaning messages to citizens about migrants – says Lucano, still moved by their story -. They also bring beauty, art, their unfortunately dramatic stories or simply themselves. This shouldn’t be a problem, but a special opportunity to see the world more closely.”
“A world without borders, Pino’s dream. A daily commitment starting from the small, from one’s own communities […]. You have to do it, because utopia will save us”. It is the message that Mimmo Lucano received from Silvia Pinelli, daughter of the anarchist and partisan Giuseppe, and which she read in front of the audience. “Pino was killed for his ideas of freedom because he too had the dream of utopia, of a world without barriers and without borders”. And this is how Mimmo Lucano imagines Europe: “neoliberalism cannot be Christian, because it is based on the exploitation of man by man, on the logic of selfishness. Socialism, on the other hand, can be.”
After thunderous applause, the microphone was passed to Anna Zonari who specified how European border policies have been carried out by governments of all colours. “If we manage to change the administration – declares the mayoral candidate -, the first thing to do is work on narrative and language. A few months ago Alan Fabbri insulted our bishop, using the usual litanies such as ‘take them to your home’, when it is the administration that should have an important political role of coordination and support for reception associations”. And she concludes: “if I become mayor, I undertake to bring the Riace model to Ferrara, at the risk of going to prison”.
