Stories and News

Stories and News No. 1309 I remember that the movie The Corporation , identifying the corporations as if they were human beings, obtained through a personality test a diagnosis of psychopathy. Well in a similar way, based on the behavior so far by italian Government with migrants, I would like to draw up a psychological profile. To do this, I use a simple but fairly reliable Sociopathy short test devised by Dr. John M. Grohol , contributor to the mental health site Psych Central . Thus, imagining that we are addressing the questions to an ideal personification of the Italy’s Government, let's start the test which includes 10 questions. First: I use charm and wit to manipulate others for my own benefit. Since we are dealing with long-standing political figures, I can only choose "definitely me". And to be honest, it would have been the same even if there had been a majority of a different colour. Second question: Compared to most people I know, I seem lacking in remors...

Stories and News No. 1241 Here I am. It’s me, her or him. Regardless us, which must be taken literally. My name is… well, I am… but no, what matter now, on this page? What time does it deserve in your eyes or mind too? Anyway, for what it's worth in most people's lives, I don't exist. Maybe there was a time, there once was, you know? Nowadays the weight of the past depends only on who can really demonstrate their present, here and now. In any case, according to the International Organization for Migration, the number of people who died at sea trying to reach Europe more than doubled in 2021. We are talking about one thousand and one hundred forty-six deaths. Which means eleven times a hundred plus forty plus six. You can read as one hundred and fourteen times ten plus six times one. One dead. One life that ended prematurely. Nonetheless, I am not here to arouse compassion or instill sadness. It has been a year, or rather two, particularly difficult for many in the wo...

Stories and News No. 1228 For me today will be a kind of remembrance day , but with a lowercase initial letter. Without detracting from the most famous one , don’t be wrong. Because remembering the stains of human history is an invaluable value in any case. Therefore, today is the day remembrance the day after . Hoping that the attention of the most celebrated recurrence, inviting us all to not repeat the horrors of the past, may share some of its precious light of warning and thoughts about every infamy carried out by our overrated species. So, to be more precise, today is the remembrance day eight years later, but also the day before yesterday , when my country was found guilty: Italy has failed in its duty to protect human life by delaying a rescue mission for a boat that sank in the Mediterranean on 11 October 2013 . This was the indisputable judgment of the United Nations Human Rights Committee . To help us think with total silence, it is sufficient to listen to this: if th...

Stories and News No. 1220 My name is Joseph, I’m from Guinea, I’m only coming but I don’t arrive, it will never happen, and this too was written. But not by me, never from me. I died , yet I am here, at six months. Six months from the shore that I left and from the one I only imagined. My last breath, the only consolation, left me while I rested in the arms of someone who has sought and found me, in spite of those who have in vain forgotten and erased me. Between Open Arms everything has gone, figuratively in the English meaning, and much more in the only interpretation that really matters, when the lights go out and you are alone inside you: humanly, an adverb now obsolete in the virtual vocabulary where the most clicked word is indifference. Nevertheless, the unspoken phrases at the moment that mattered, that is before, and the necessary and never performed actions when they would have really saved the rest of the story, they find space the same, six months after a dream called ...

Stories and News No. 1199   Hello, planet earth. We call you from the Limbo, but you may also think about it as a seemingly far away place. So, we are here, but also there, among the invisible cracks within human decency; over there, down there, or if you prefer sideways to the more convenient horizons - and we are still alive. We are, despite everything and everyone. Although over time the perception of existence has deteriorated so much that the detestable meaning of a mere survival is now only a memory. That is why we rely on the only certainties that remain: the beating heart, although at each toll it wonders whether it is appropriate to continue knocking on the world’s doors; the air that invades our lungs, although - conscious of how little clean oxygen it contains – it feels compassion for the rest of us; and our torn but indomitable imagination that persists in scrutinizing the surrounding universe in search of that phantom star called humanity. Marveled by thi...

Stories and News No. 1190   They said that the pen kill more than the sword. It is probably true, even if today we have slightly lost its use. In our time we simply type keys, paying more or less attention to what we write, often forgetting what we said a second later. However, this epochal change does not diminish the power of words at all. Indeed, paradoxically it has led us to underestimate its weight and consequences, in the short and long term. But the accountability, or the guilt, remains and someone will have to give us an answer about them, sooner or later. Because words may kill. Literally. They translate crazy thoughts and terrifying intentions. Like when Tobias Rathien, the man who murdered eleven people and seriously injuring four others in Hanau, Germany, declared that some people we are unable to expel must be exterminated. But words are like the grains of sand on which we run in the summer. We unfortunately share them as every atom of the earth that ho...

Stories and News No. 1179   Kone Yossodjo is nineteen years old and today he runs. He runs for his country, the new one, Spain. Which is also new, at least faster, if not better, also thanks to him. Five years ago, Kone was forced to run not for something, but from. From his own country, the old one, the Ivory Coast. Which, past or present, will also be his land forever, perhaps poorer and less fast, but that’t not his fault. And when surviving involves running away from something, of which one is completely innocent, what will come out from that will be good, and so for everyone. Today he is a future star of athletics, in the largest and most populous nation of the Iberian peninsula. In the last year he has won 5 races out of 11 and is currently the absolute champion of the 5000 meters in Andalusia. The most surprisingly thing, not even a year after arriving in Spain, after being arrested and then transferred to a center for minors, he began to show all his talent, pr...

Stories and News No. 1178   The 39 people found dead on a truck in England on Wednesday, whose origin was unknown, were Chinese. Yes, now we know they are Chinese. Thirty-nine. Thirty-nine is a news, because numbers matter. The numbers are facts and no one can discuss or manipulate them. But it depends, it is obvious and, every now and then, it must be remembered. First of all, thirty-nine football players. All champions, all outstanding athletes. It is the ranking of the best ones. Indeed, no, it is the whole favorite team, with all the new arrivals, especially the last one, the future star, who will take the place of the old captain in the dreams of the fans. On the other hand, when you are thirty-nine years old you can't expect to run from door to door without blinking, that's it. Next, the thirty-nine girlfriends of the stars on the field. The inevitable beauties that sparkle in the stadium’s chairs or that suddenly appear among the Instagram profiles of th...

Stories and News No. 1162   In Italy a 13 years old boy save himself and the other students on a school bus hijacked from the driver calling help with his cell phone. We invaded you. Yes, it's true, I mean it. It’s useless to deny it: we invaded you . In countless ways, we did it. Like "the attacker" and "the hero", the former armed with petrol cans and the latter with a phone, with which to call the police, if necessary. And sheltered by such popular masks, made so by the rumor of newspapers, here are the only features that serve the intended storytelling: "the bad immigrant" and "the good one". But also the "Islamic terrorist" and the "brave citizen", despite according to the law the latter is still nothing more than a foreigner . It matters something to know that for the man Islamic terrorism is excluded . But, if this "something" becomes little for the majority of people, why ask further ques...

Stories and News No. 1143 A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died a few hours after being arrested on the US border. She was dehydrated and in a state of shock... Once upon a time there was a border and a girl child . Read her also as a precious glow traveling to the new world , which is a wonderful planet, cruel, and fascinating, after all. But it should be cursed, where it proves capable of dividing people on an imaginary line engraved on paper moved by fear of what matters most, for all of us, undeservedly called humans . Look at her now, then, the young martyr portrayed on a horizon’s portion. At the same time, watch the sacred edge on the other. Do you understand what I mean? This is what defines the sense of the common journey, now, at this precise moment. Among those who, for the survival of their children, throw behind the little that is all. And who, to defend a tangle of barbed wire and pusillanimity, sacrifice all of that little love for the next one left in the...

Stories and News No. 1140 To you. To you, who are out there, or even here, next to me. Above all to you, while you are still living the age of justified fragility and candor nurtured by heart. Nonetheless, to all of you who have somehow been lucky enough to keep all that, regardless of the illusion called flowing time. Forgive us. Really, forgive us all. We, the adults. We, the older ones. We, and among us, more than ever those who often make choices for themselves, stating them as popular desire. We apologize if we have grown up and aged by cultivating fear more than anything else. We are afraid, yes. We are incalculably afraid of everything. Even of you, especially you. We are afraid, that is, often the certainty, that you were much more courageous than us, rather than hope, as it would be our moral and generational obligation. We are afraid of what we see as different, when instead your eyes have already cataloged as human. We are much afraid of what we ignore, th...

Stories and News No. 1118 Once upon a time... no, it’s wrong. There is , now , here . A story? Yes, maybe, but also something else. It's a farce, yes it is. A nightmare. A deception, or worse, a trap. A maze of lies and ignorance that brings you back to the same spot every day. The one where, in turn, however incredulous, you feel the irrepressible need to bring them back to the center of the village, the sea and our understanding of things. The people . In this story, but also something else, there is a guy, him , that I’ve not yet understood who or what it is, what right he has to speak and even vomit madness in the name of the most. Since the majority, thanks to the sacrosanct voice of numbers , they haven’t given him any credit. Then, there are the microphones’ sellers , but the ones with powerful, trendy lungs. Long time ago they used to share the what and the how , sometimes the why too, and now it remains only the mere object: inanimate tools, just like that, so...

Stories and News No. 1079 Once upon a time there was a country. Indeed, there is , here and now. A democratic one, until proven... or rather, killed otherwise. In the democratic country, until murdered otherwise , a news like many says this: in Idy Diene Florence, Roberto Pirrone, a pensioner with economic difficulties, decides to take his life. He leaves home and change his mind, shooting Idy Diene, an immigrant from Nigeria . Above all, most of the press adds: racist motivations are excluded ... Really? At the same time, election day finally arrived in the democratic country. Frankly, all democracy that it has the courage to build around a single word . Jobs ? Nah. Legality ? Let's not joke, come on. Rights and duties , perhaps? Well, stop with bullshits. The word was up until the elections eve, during the vote and also the day after always the same: immigrants . Anyway, as I said, sooner or later the time of the ballot comes in democratic countries. Well...

Stories and News No. 1061 US District Judge William Alsup has decided that the " Dreamers " program strongly supported by Obama, that protects from deportation minors illegally brought into the country by their families, must remain in place, considering Trump’s attempt to end it unfolded. It would be all simpler if - immodestly paraphrasing the philosopher Augustine of Hippo , we all obeyed a very simple motto... Once upon a time there was the law of migrants . One of even greater scope, but it takes time to raise head and prospects. At least, a story, this one. Nevertheless, the statement is short and straightforward: Follow the rules and then what you will, do . You can write it, if you like, but learning it by heart and above all conscience would solve a lot and facilitate our collective journey. Examples? The are many, my dear friend, even more, enough to compose a tale, where a doctor has clean shirts and skilled hands intended for patients whose citizensh...

Stories and News No. 1058 As Lorena Gazzotti said on The Guardian , activists and NGOs that defend migrants rights will be remember 2017 as the year when they were targeted by legal systems in Europe and North Africa, ending up being considered as real criminals . In fact, the authorities on both sides of the Mediterranean want to silence those who are uncomfortable witnesses to the brutality of the border police. Once upon a time there was a world . No, indeed, there is . There was even before, but there was no evidence, or maybe the pages were burned before reaching most of the eyes. Also there was, indeed there is , even before, although there should not be, a world told by History . A planet of many lives and shores, divided by a sea of lies, of thousands of existences and landings, lots of small stories that survived the journey with courage and dedication almost like the children of the late in coming future. In such a place of multiple experiences and divisions, t...

Stories and News No. 1057 Yesterday there was a dramatic rescue operation by the Turkish coast guard in the Aegean Sea of at least 51 people who were stranded on the rocks while trying to cross Greece. When help comes from above... When help comes from above , we get it early, yes it is. Because so we live the moment. With head lifted towards the missing light and an anxious gaze of seeing the clouds of our evil fate broken by miraculous remnants of supporting humanity. When help comes from above , it's a big feeling, in the heart and in the outstretched hands. But even when it comes to the side, or even from the bottom. It happens more often than you can imagine, you know? It doesn’t make news or even history. On the contrary, when from higher levels, living empathy becomes flesh, well, it’s a magical precedent that changes everyone's story. Of the saved and the savior. The first cannot help but rejoice at the idea that there really is someone, up there, in t...