Riace, what is going to happen now?

Our generation is the one, which is encouraged to travel. Many Europeans are pushed to leave their own countries to go and get new experiences abroad, to enlarge their own knowledge and to improve their conditions.

This seems not to be valid for people coming from some parts of the world, coming to Europe to “improve” their conditions.

Normally, there two trends of opinion. Simplifying it: the ones who want to do something to help people escaping bad conditions and the ones who say we have no enough means to help them.

In southern Italy a city shows that the first ones could be right.

Riace is a small village in Calabria. In 1998 a boat full of immigrants arrived on the coasts of southern Italy. Many people, including the man, who is today the mayor of Riace, Domenico Lucano (or Mimmo Lucano), run to help them and they started to be active on this side, building new opportunities.

The village, that was going to die, because people from there were going somewhere else, started to live again: many international craftsmanship workshops started to save an art that was going to die.

What is special in Riace is that people work properly, legally, economically. They are paid. It can be weird reading what I write here, but it is, unfortunately, too common that people coming from “the south of the world” work for few money, because they need it. People know that and they benefit from it.

What happened in Riace, few days ago, is that the mayor got house arrest. He was charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

What happened in Riace seems to be clear for many people who are protesting because he was accused.

Media say that what happened is that a “humanity sin” has been committed by him.

Authorities started to investigate about one year ago, but every accusation seems to be wrong. He says that he has nothing to hide and he seems to be collaborating.

The situation is quite new, so we are waiting to see what is going to happen.