words are important but often not
we give weight to the words because we think
that basically they are made of area that
lasting a few fractions of a second the
time to pronounce them but the words are
important
I remember when I was a child maybe
like all children
I wondered why the palio yes
call stake for which reason the
sidewalk was called sidewalk
certain sidewalk a compound word
rotten to walk foot repeats that there
walk over
besides, my mother is still me today
he repeats that when I was a child, I was
nice and unbearable with mine
questions
I always asked the reason for everything
question and the incessant that perhaps has me
brought here where I am today
for me words were important and they are
still important
however, already years ago I learned to
accept the names of physical things that
the sidewalk surrounds me
of the needle the hand and so on but continues
to reflect on the names instead
those things express abstract concepts
that do not touch but that populate the
our reality woman citizen man
migrant refugee rights borders
war violence
all short and concise words that last
even less than the word pavement
yet I can not accept it
ease with which often and is yes
pronunciation
she was a child when you heard about the
first time the word war
it was 1991 and then president saddam
Iraqi hussein had invaded Kuwait
I remember my parents stayed in
feet all night glued to the front
on TV to understand if Italy would be
entered the war or not
I was neither said nor with them I had
fear I trembled even though I did not know well
what a war it was but in 2003
when the united states declared
my own curiosity
do not reveal mistakes with the time of the news
war people who kill others
people who arm people for
kill people of other states decided
to start studying the Arabic language i
our news was not enough anymore I knew
that the words we used were not
not exhaustive did not tell everything
I wanted to read listen to people
on the other side of the world or of the
barricade told a lot of war
trips and lots of study in Syria Palestine
Lebanon Turkey but my first time in
a country at war as a journalist was
in 2011 riot revolution war
popular
me and my crew left with a
contact a man from the brigade in his pocket
tripoli
the brigade that had been told
from the international press of the
mainstream like the jihadist brigade
fundamentalist remember that when there
poma tripoli
I was waiting for my fearful contact
do not be dressed appropriately
i was going to meet one both list myself
woman I looked around and looked for one
bearded man who would have told me sooner or later
with an expression of contemptuous voice if you nancy
the journalist did not go so mohammed
he introduced himself with a welcoming smile
and after some initial embarrassment yes
he showed up for the sweet boy and a bit
lost what was revolution violence
even muhammad I think he did not understand
to the full the meaning of these
words he only asked about a future
in his country he was certainly lost by
Mariana who smoked with her friends did not
he helped him find himself smoking so much and
I thought I finished it in a non
place one of those places that up to
then they did not exist in my map
conceptual Libyan Arab armed director
but still nice heavy like the
feeling of life and what less
they told me about the war
against the Nazifascists
my grandmother never tired of
tell me the story of the militia where
the Nazis shot a hundred
civilians to avenge the killing of 10
of their men
the militia yes that’s the entrance
of the hollow stone that rises
at the entrance of one of the two stones
my grandmother used to tell it to me in
continuation perhaps because he feared that
words were not enough to describe
the fear then
and now I was with one of those guys that
he had dared to fight the despot like i
partisans against the Nazifascists
but the Nazi – Fascists here were not scary
It was beautiful when it is told by mine
grandma a summer day in her balcony
on the pebbles with muhammad crossing the
libya far and wide and together
we also ended up in prison for prisoners
politicians in the neighborhood of abu slim in the
capital tripoli
here the guardian uses violence
against the inmates violated their rights
but he did not hide as it did from
in Italy in 2011 I fell in love with
that no-man’s land
that land where words and concepts
they were trapped
so much so that in 2013 I decided to move
there are many of mine in permanent plan
friends were part of the so-called
other militias had instead preferred
return to their civil life
muhammad what he had come to
take me the first time in libya parts
he did not recognize his country anymore
too much violence
but I stayed down there had gone
on purpose
months passed and then years and I was in
libya to tell the post revolution o
the war or what was the war
civilian instead of producing people who
he stayed at home to not see people
who preferred to be on the front line for
prevent a hateful fundamentalist
could take advantage of the political vote
left by the revolution
however my words were what I had
available to tell the war
militia seemed to be enough for me
brigades civil civil society for
I also met many refugees in the streets
Africans and Syrians who are slowly going
massed in libya to try theirs
crossing to the coveted europe
I met many Syrians in Tripoli but for
the international press these do not
so they started mine
pilgrimage among the houses of the
Syrian community in Libya
stories of death fear and escape yours
children I met in the city of
measured at the end of September 2013
they went missing at sea in the
shipwreck of a boat on October 10th
following
my father called me with the voice broken by
Malta begged me for help asking me to
contact the Italian authorities e
ask them if they had recovered i
His sons but of Muhammad Ahmad do not
they had more news
I and standards decided to overcome mine
fears and put me on the trail of the
men who had sent to die
muhammad mag
I started asking all of mine
contacts in Libya if they could
introduce a trafficker to me
unscrupulous men who send the
people to die a day my friend me
he said he would introduce me to one
trafficker what he called smuggler o
in Arabic murray and I in Italian
trafficker I met him in a city all
west of tripoli
it was a hot May afternoon
2014
I was nervous also mentioned in the presence
with a criminal
but he had some debut ways to do and
he was also a graduate in sociology he had
a theory of its own on migrants i
traffickers and the migratory flow i
migrants according to him were wrong
think that Europe was the place
perfect to the land of rights
according to him in Europe the migrants
they would continue to suffer
simply different suffering but
always suffering and then he repeated to me but
this is not my problem
they ask me to help them help
cross the sea and I limit myself to
do what they pay me for
the bad man what for me
it represented the trafficking of beings
human beings revealed themselves day after day
a reasonable person and urged me
I am a simple service provider
provider as they say in English
they ask the question and I formulate it
my offer if they do not feel well
they are free to go somewhere else
how many times have I witnessed the
phone calls of migrants who
they implored to organize the crossing
as soon as possible
and he will not stop this
week in the next because the
weather conditions are not good
at that point I was completely lost
I began to think that the trafficker did not
he was then such a bad person
I was afraid that empathy with this
character with whom I lived at home already
I’ve been playing one for two weeks
bad joke
even his girlfriend was nice and
together they were very cute it was not
not even a machoist like the others
Libyans I thought so many I also thought of
Saturdays passed to manifest in the square
for the right of movement of migrants
in Rome to the press releases I had
participated when added to europe
the news of a shipwreck at sea and now
solidarized with a trafficker lo
I also interviewed in one of the boats that
he would potentially have used to send
migrants on the other side of the
Mediterranean
I hoped that at least I would have heard them
stench of violent death but even there
he surprised me by telling me these
boats would arrive and all if there
put a good engine and if you respect the
capacity of the boat compared to the
people that you put it is clear that the
people arrive is just greed that
kill people then one day yes
verification occurred shipwreck to a few
miles from the Libyan coast
Andrea to meet families
recovered from the fishermen and the quarters
Libyan coasts
I tried as an armed European journalist
all the European categories to give
space to the anger of the Syrians against the
trafficker who had betrayed them but for
the umpteenth time the word trafficking
he ended up associating with something
positive
the Syrian families interviewed by me
they reacted with great force and me
they said the fault was not gods
traffickers that indeed the traffickers were
the people who gave them the
possibility of crossing that
blame of the sea resided
instead in the Europe it did not have
created a safe buffer zone for
them in their country
return to Italy to be made to mine
companions of political struggles of a lifetime
I told of a trafficker of beings
human good my teammates were
difficulty in understanding the expression
for them as for me it was a skimmer a
oxymoron I asked myself many times if not
I was Libyan too date I was in full
I was turning into a wet suit
assisting with deconstruction
my identity is that of rhetoric
rights with its European categories
preset
I was scared afraid of emptiness that I fear
My friends did not understand me in
north and south
I felt like a half-breed but I was
looked for sure but maybe I was not ready to
what was happening fruit of the
fieldwork observation
participated is called only after month I have
I understood that that wives were not one
trafficker but a passer
the man who accepted to welcome me
in his house and show me backstage
of this business and as he says a
service provider is not him ad
induce in a state of necessity
multitude of men, women and children
who decide to leave their own
land and face the dangerous
crossing by sea to reach
Europe to reach Europe
no he is not with his business
answers a question on the market that
induces this in a state of necessity
multitude of people who are massing at
doors of Europe are the policies of
migration management of the European Union
that in front of a citizen of Senegal
of the gambia of Syria that would prefer
enter regularly by declaring the
own identity and paying for your own
flight ticket
he closes the door in their face nothing
seen in the embassies and the passer-by
that so many things taught me
he was right, especially when he said
that even in his business
the problem is greed today in Libya
there are always less passers is always
the more traffickers the passer calls them
crazy horses do not know anything about the sea
one of the navigation techniques but
taking advantage of the government void that
it is created in the in the post libya
armed revolution abusing gods
migrants move them against theirs
will in this context of travel
of hope through the
Mediterranean are more and more dangerous
dinghies with over 100 people on board
that do not even have the fuel
enough to travel 20 miles in
sea are loaded towards europe
over 2,000 migrants died at sea
since the start of the year
here is an image taken the week
last night
night we saw before taken
the image last week while
a rescue operation by the
doctors without borders off the
Libyan shores on board these
boats put sea by traffickers
death is touched and so many times in the
course a few miles and on board the
ford prudence of doctors without borders
the many smiles of those who did it
they sound clear like the simple word
thanks and maybe the smile is the only one
word on which I never is
questioned
[Applause]
”
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