Stories and News No. 1117
Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has recently declared that she wants to send staff to Italy to evaluate the reported strong increase in acts of violence and racism against migrants, African descent’s and Roma people".
Italian government has rejected accusations, threatening also a punitive cut of funds at the United Nations.
I think this is a global problem. So, regardless of where you live, Italian or not, I offer you a sort of guided meditation text.
First of all, find someone who can read, able to give the right volume, tone and intensity to the voice.
It is not essential to be a professional.
Someone you like to listen to might be perfect.
Maybe the person you love and the magic will be complete.
Done? Well, let her or him read the following words.
Let’s start, just like that.
We will take a journey inside ourselves, since it's there that the best answers are hidden and some of them are closer to the truth.
This is why we're so afraid even to touch them.
Close your eyes, now, and imagine with me.
Imagine the nation you live in.
Today, at this precise moment.
Imagine what you figure when you think of it.
Focus on discounted details, common places, but also personal interpretations.
Something appears on the mental screen, right?
The shape of the land, maybe.
The borders, the mountains and the rivers, the towns and all the map.
The North and the South.
East and West.
The middle zones and the North, West and the South again.
Cities and provinces, residential neighborhoods, suburbs, and new settlements, countries and districts, all the ways we use to divide us.
Anyway, you may read the word ‘against’, instead of the conjunction ‘and’, I will certainly not contradict you.
I live in today world, just like you.
But let's move on, let's complete the drawing together.
Let’s privilege, optimistically, the already full side of the latter, as if it were the classic glass, but made of paper, ready to be colored.
Let’s remember the typical food and the drinking.
Popular music, dialects, gestures, the unique folklore and traditions.
Let's move on to the artistic and historical riches, the monuments and the museums, as well as natural beauties and landscapes, which – we should put on record, you and I have only inherited.
As inhabitants of this fascinating planet, after our first cry, we found these gifts without any merit other than birth. Which, if you carefully think about it, is not at all a merit, but quite the opposite.
Let’s now focus our unconscious observation on us.
The people, the ones we know or we just meet in everyday life.
At school, on the street, at work, on the subway or the bus, in traffic and shops, in offices and yes, even on internet, hidden by avatars and more or less truthful names.
But let's not forget the politicians of the last thirty, forty years, even more, the leaders more or less worth of the name, those who spread ideas or who merely dramatize them with every popular ways granted to them.
We're almost there, my friend.
Just a small but fundamental clarification: what is racism? Among the various definitions, I suggest you this: active attitude of intolerance (which can result in threats, discrimination, violence) towards groups of people identifiable through their culture, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, physical appearance or other characteristics.
In particular, I invite you to dwell on mere discrimination, or inequality of judgment and arbitrary distinction.
Done?
Now, always keeping your eyes closed, imagine walking and meeting two people in your path.
One is the typical, classical citizen according to your country, with a recognizable skin and the equally common hair, as well as clothes and speech.
The other is identifiable as the average immigrant, maybe dark-skinned, with strange clothes and speaking a foreign language.
Now, whoever you are, indeed, of any region or city, age, social class or political orientation.
Literally whoever you are.
Look with the utmost honesty among the most uncomfortable folds of your conscience, culture you have assimilated up to now, and education given to you or only imposed.
Sincerely, tell me if to you, apart from the outward appearance, there is no difference between the two.
I repeat, no difference.
Yes, I know…
As I supposed.
That is racism, that is the essence of the virus, that is the real enemy.
As I hope now you will agree, it is everywhere, here, today. And pretending it doesn’t exist, it won’t go away, believe me.
Read more racism stories
Buy my English Italian, dual language books
Listen my music band
Watch my last storytelling show with English and Italian subtitles Sunset
Storytelling videos with subtitles
Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has recently declared that she wants to send staff to Italy to evaluate the reported strong increase in acts of violence and racism against migrants, African descent’s and Roma people".
Italian government has rejected accusations, threatening also a punitive cut of funds at the United Nations.
I think this is a global problem. So, regardless of where you live, Italian or not, I offer you a sort of guided meditation text.
First of all, find someone who can read, able to give the right volume, tone and intensity to the voice.
It is not essential to be a professional.
Someone you like to listen to might be perfect.
Maybe the person you love and the magic will be complete.
Done? Well, let her or him read the following words.
Let’s start, just like that.
We will take a journey inside ourselves, since it's there that the best answers are hidden and some of them are closer to the truth.
Close your eyes, now, and imagine with me.
Imagine the nation you live in.
Today, at this precise moment.
Imagine what you figure when you think of it.
Focus on discounted details, common places, but also personal interpretations.
Something appears on the mental screen, right?
The shape of the land, maybe.
The borders, the mountains and the rivers, the towns and all the map.
The North and the South.
East and West.
The middle zones and the North, West and the South again.
Cities and provinces, residential neighborhoods, suburbs, and new settlements, countries and districts, all the ways we use to divide us.
Anyway, you may read the word ‘against’, instead of the conjunction ‘and’, I will certainly not contradict you.
I live in today world, just like you.
But let's move on, let's complete the drawing together.
Let’s privilege, optimistically, the already full side of the latter, as if it were the classic glass, but made of paper, ready to be colored.
Let’s remember the typical food and the drinking.
Popular music, dialects, gestures, the unique folklore and traditions.
Let's move on to the artistic and historical riches, the monuments and the museums, as well as natural beauties and landscapes, which – we should put on record, you and I have only inherited.
As inhabitants of this fascinating planet, after our first cry, we found these gifts without any merit other than birth. Which, if you carefully think about it, is not at all a merit, but quite the opposite.
Let’s now focus our unconscious observation on us.
The people, the ones we know or we just meet in everyday life.
At school, on the street, at work, on the subway or the bus, in traffic and shops, in offices and yes, even on internet, hidden by avatars and more or less truthful names.
But let's not forget the politicians of the last thirty, forty years, even more, the leaders more or less worth of the name, those who spread ideas or who merely dramatize them with every popular ways granted to them.
We're almost there, my friend.
Just a small but fundamental clarification: what is racism? Among the various definitions, I suggest you this: active attitude of intolerance (which can result in threats, discrimination, violence) towards groups of people identifiable through their culture, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, physical appearance or other characteristics.
In particular, I invite you to dwell on mere discrimination, or inequality of judgment and arbitrary distinction.
Done?
Now, always keeping your eyes closed, imagine walking and meeting two people in your path.
One is the typical, classical citizen according to your country, with a recognizable skin and the equally common hair, as well as clothes and speech.
The other is identifiable as the average immigrant, maybe dark-skinned, with strange clothes and speaking a foreign language.
Now, whoever you are, indeed, of any region or city, age, social class or political orientation.
Literally whoever you are.
Look with the utmost honesty among the most uncomfortable folds of your conscience, culture you have assimilated up to now, and education given to you or only imposed.
Sincerely, tell me if to you, apart from the outward appearance, there is no difference between the two.
I repeat, no difference.
Yes, I know…
As I supposed.
That is racism, that is the essence of the virus, that is the real enemy.
As I hope now you will agree, it is everywhere, here, today. And pretending it doesn’t exist, it won’t go away, believe me.
On the same topic:
Read more racism stories
Buy my English Italian, dual language books
Listen my music band
Watch my last storytelling show with English and Italian subtitles Sunset
Storytelling videos with subtitles