It’s long the list of the last for those who think they are the first

We are talking a lot about racism these days, and more authoritative voices than mine are saying very clever things. Shame how nothing ever changes though. Shame how the world seems to be going up and down rather than forward. The good guys on one side, the baddies on the other. Then when the goodies become violent it feels like a sudden stop, but they always say “it is just a very few of us”. But violence itself (dreadful however you look at it and whoever commits it) is not the only problem here: the problem is that there is a part of the world that just can not see. That thinks that having a better life means someone has to have a worse one. That borders are as real as the colour of the skin of a human being. That someone is better than someone else just because they have money, education, or a bigger car. Or a family and a nice house. And racism is not only about skin colour, it is also about religion, wealth, education, geography, gender.

After centuries of struggles, progress, innovation, we are still fighting in the streets, dragging down statues, and those who are supposed to protect you shoot you in the back. Or push his knee on your neck on and on because he feels you are still moving. He can not even see you, blinded by his own prejudices. Being “black”, or drug addict, a woman, a gay, those who consider themselves to be the firsts have a long list of those who are considered the last.

I know I am painting everything with the same brush, but chaos is between people indeed. I find it hard to understand the need to throw down a statue, would it not be better to start a petition, open a discussion, and maybe move the statue into a museum, where the controversial character can be explained?
I have seen statues falling down, like Saddam Hussein’s, and photographs of heroes make the walls seem bigger, like Massoud’s. But history does change depending on how you look at it, Massoud was a hero to many, he helped to send the Russians away from Afghanistan, but he was also a fanatic who treated women in the same way as all the other warlords: but he was “our” ally, therefore one of the good guys.

I do not know whether it is useful to make a trial against statues, or even against History, maybe it would be better to talk about it, and make light to the dark parts. There have been moments when women did not even get mentioned, as they did not exist. Indios are often just those who happened to be in the place when the “carriers of civilization” arrived, those “carriers” whose statues we are bringing down today, like chess pawns. Blessed are the perfect, who can judge history by using a can of paint. We should probably drag down all statues. No one is perfect and power makes humans worse.

It is true that Montanelli (an Italian right wing journalist) held women like objects to buy, because that was the use then, and he never thought of going against the system; but it is also true that the woman who attacked him during a TV interview was not particularly fond of homosexuality. True again that Montanelli, whom I have never liked as a journalist – but this is not relevant – bought an infibulated young girl, which is the reason why there is such a big discussion about him right now, although being dead I doubt he even notices.

My question is: why do not we use all this energy against who is still practicing the abomination of female genital mutilation? Or to circumcise a man – although they never talk about this. There are 200 millions of infibulated women today, in this very moment, and there are men who go with them and even have children with them, when they manage to do so. And there are mothers who want their daughters to suffer this mutilation, because no one would want them otherwise. Why don’t we take the streets to protest against men (black or white) who perpetuate infibulation, and go after ghosts instead? That is most hypocrite.

There are activists, journalists, lawyers, aid workers who fight every day for human rights: how many of those who bring down statues took the streets to fight with and for them? Why do we not protest when a disabled person can not get on a bus or get inside a public office? Failing to approve the Ius Soli, is not it a State racism act? For how many weeks did we see rallies fighting for that? They attack statues, but they do nothing against who is violating people’s rights?

Slavery has always been there, and it is dreadful, but why do not you take a walk through some fields in Italy, where illegal employment rules, why do not you take the streets against that? You would be part of tomorrow’s history. Why do not you tear down the big mafia villas? One must study the past, but the future needs to be built, and you do not build it by trying to delete symbols. A statue will never make a difference, you can take it away, it is useless. You create a better world now, by doing what is needed.

There are moments in a person’s life that define who we are, Montanelli who simply adapts his behavior to the use of those years is one of the many, nearly trivial. Who says no to the unhealthy system represents the future opening up. The German who gives refuge to a Jew, the Afrikaner who protects a local, the Israeli who goes every day and films the abuses against Palestinians at the check-points. The Shia who hides a Sunni. Or the father who recognizes a kamikaze terrorist and jumps on him, deadening the explosion: he was a Lebanese. Does he not deserve a statue?

And thousands of other examples who one often does not even hear of because it is true, we talk less about good things, and we forget them quickly. We can build the world in this way, with blacks or whites whatever color you happen to be, taking the streets. But that is not enough. What we need is for the whole system to change, the system that perpetuates privileges of the ones against the others. Our heads must change. It is in our daily life that we need to protect each other. You need to be a revolutionary even when you go shopping, or manage a big company, when you choose a male employee rather than a woman, because she can get pregnant and that would be a problem. Taking the streets shows there is a disease, but it does not cure it. Insistence, perseverance make the difference. School does.

My goodness, disco clubs and restaurants are opening again after the lockdown, schools are not. School is the first democratic place where children find themselves in a social context, surely that is not the family, when you can even happen to be the Casamonica’s (a mafia family in Rome) child. Or a supremacist’s, or a religious fanatic’s.

School is the most important thing we have, because in 100 years from now, no one of those who are now reading this article will be alive anymore, nor will be any of the ones you know, not your parents, not your friends, not your lovers, not even your enemies, but the children will be there. This is the only real heritage. And even if tit was only for this, they deserve more respect, and the rights, such as the right to study, and have good and satisfied teachers. The right of knowing that there are no differences. We all have the same rights. The same duties. With so many colours, religions, ideas. Women and men or whatever gender. Let us turn the system upside down. Let us take the prejudices down, we are a bit lost by now but the young boys and girls still are not.

Everyone must have the same chances, the same wages, the same assistance, the same opportunity to improve. Let us focus on the problems we have and let us find a solution once for all.

Those of us who have children, how can they do not want them educated, balanced, satisfied, but also engaged to build something different?

I have reported on enough wars to know that we will never have a peaceful world, but I have also learnt that there will be no world at all unless we manage to find a balance, especially between men and women. Between the have and the have-not. Between being the kind of people who tear walls down or the kind of people that build them.

I admit I had a privileged education, with a mother of Caribe descent (her ancestors were brought there by the British to work in plantations). Grown up in the US at the time of civil rights fights; and a father, son of an exiled woman from Istria. I could give you a list of all the movies about Apartheid I had already watched by age 15. And maybe this, between many things, helps you to see clearly.

Or maybe it was the travels, books, or never having anything permanent. But you always get both sides of a coin, and surely I have my prejudices too, although when I realize I have them, I try and get rid of them.

I believe and hope that Radio Bullets’ job is our way to do our but, telling you what is happening, looking for stories, going inside the world’s homes, listening, writing and absorbing. We wish this is but one of the many ways to make a difference. It means being engaged, studying, making mistakes too, and start over again.
You will not see me dirtying a statue, instead maybe I will tell you a story.

È lungo l’elenco degli ultimi per chi si crede primo

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