Trieste – The arrival of migrants is nothing new, as a teacher I noticed it a long time ago, entering the classrooms, where I found new arrivals, few at first, then more and more. The inclusion was easy, everything was normal for our kids, then the numbers became high and a systematic refusal developed, who wanted to know nothing about the causes of that large presence.
For us Italians, the Balkan route has been added to the Mediterranean route, which has Trieste as its arrival and sorting point, where a possible reception system should have been formed, designed with a sense of justice and humanity, something that happened thanks above all to the many people and communities that didn’t think it was right to look the other way and pretend nothing had happened.
Public institutions, however, appeared unprepared and often immobile, except for the legal obligation to welcome unaccompanied minors.
Nobody thinks it is easy to face this epochal change, so the embarrassment and fear of both the institutions and other citizens is understandable. Yet it could have been avoided that for almost two years, many migrants went to live, so to speak, in a dilapidated, miserable, dirty building, infested with mice and insects, by giving up the construction of an adjacent building, formerly a supermarket, which with maintenance work that was not impossible, would have alleviated the pain of these migrants.
After a long hesitation, the Mayor of Trieste now orders the emptying of the Silos, which, due to the widespread communication of the various media, has been a terrible business card for the city. A choice that should have been made some time ago, aiming to reorganize other buildings, such as abandoned barracks.
We are now thinking of setting up a hostel on the Carso, used by scout groups, in a hurry and then increasing the transfers, but without a prudent plan for those who will still arrive and to give serious and humanitarian responses, truly supporting the intense reception work done so far by volunteers.
Unfortunately the city presents large areas of indifference, if not hostility, so that only the critical issues are seen, and the commitment of those who try to make the condition of these subjects, who come from unimaginable suffering, who have who have walked for years amidst dangers, and who often have signs of violence suffered or untreated pathologies on their bodies.
Those who have dealt with it through the system of widespread or charitable reception can instead testify to the change of mentality that has occurred in their life thanks to such contacts, the intertwining of positive relationships, the solution of health problems, the discovery of paths of education dedicated to them, in short the joy of living together and resolving hardships and suffering with a new life of study and work.
Some critical issues remain, but they cannot be resolved by closing themselves in an ivory tower, ever less populated, nor by closing their minds and eyes on the knowledge of the tragedies that are the cause of their sometimes desperate journeys.
Even more so because entrepreneurs, economists, scholars attentive to the times and many common-sense citizens know that we will need it more and more, convinced that neither indifference nor fear nor hostility are winning cards in this game.
Silvano Magnelli
