He is undoubtedly handsome, the photo is beautiful and the first feeling you feel is (healthy) envy. A capital flaw for Judeo-Christian culture, an excess of lust for Buddhism and also for a secular feeling that is inadequate given the aura of religiosity that breathes over everything. Yet it is like this, seeing Ghali post on Instagram about his pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam and a precept for Muslims to perform at least once in their lives. And fulfilled in these days of Ramadan in the holy city for Islam by the Milanese rapper, born to Tunisian parents who arrived in Italy in the 1980s. Snapshot of his adherence to religion and perhaps also to the month of ritual fasting which will end tomorrow. And so here comes envy. Because while we exhaust ourselves in endless debates that split hairs (and not only) over deciding whether it is appropriate to grant a school attended largely by Muslims a day closed for the end of Ramadan celebration, he with a single and very powerful image conveys all the energy and sacredness of adhering to a religion and its precepts. An even more disruptive example because it was embodied not by a religious person, a teacher or a parent, but by a young man, idol of young people, frequenter and indeed star of the spectacular world of entertainment, as demonstrated by the explosion in Sanremo. And so what better testimonial for a product as disused as religion, perhaps also because it is entrusted to dusty communicators. Above all, it must be said, the Christian one, never so in crisis and abandoned to parish priests with limping sermons, to the decay of the oratories and to too many bad examples between curiae and curiae. Hence the envy and desire to see a rapper on a pilgrimage, perhaps walking along the Via Francigena to kneel before the Pope and bear witness to the Christian faith. Let’s not forget, that of the roots of Europe. Perhaps a less choreographic gesture than the Islamic faithful who walk around the Kaaba in the great mosque, the sacred place of Islam. It is difficult for us who have replaced the aesthetic sacredness of the rite with the 1968 guitars to achieve the sober elegance of the seamless white towel that makes all the pilgrims to Mecca equal before God. There isn’t much time, let’s wake up before the wish «Ramadan mubarak» (Ramadan be blessed) becomes the best (or only) way to bring young people closer to God.
Whoever, blessed be He.
