Corso Verona, Turin. I'm Ashamed

Publish date 10-11-2024

by Gianfranco Cattai

I happen to pass by at five in the morning, at six, at ten: always people in line. I happen to pass by in the sun, in the rain, in the snow: always people in line. Men, women, young people, old people, children. It is the immigration office that issues residence permits. People who come back and come back because a photocopy is missing or the document is not ready. People who come from all over the world and who perhaps, true, speak little of our language and therefore do not immediately understand what is being said. We know it. Some members of Turin's civil society have offered their services to the heads of the police station to make things easier: nothing doing. This public, certainly not easy, remains at the mercy of agents who are not always - and not all - frustrated with their role and who do not exercise it exactly as a public service should be.

Why am I ashamed? Because being a citizen among many I suffer from not being able to do or say anything. I know for sure that this experience is a bad investment of our country: have the reactions of the French suburbs taught us nothing? The reactions in time and distance of the lack of welcome. As I pass by I feel the expectations, the anxieties, the apprehensions of those who are in line and know that their future is tied to that piece of paper. I think of the fatigue, especially for the elderly and for women who are expecting and with children, without even being able to sit down. Surely the manager of the van that is a very useful refreshment and service point (they also make photocopies!) is not authorized to rent chairs otherwise he would have already done so.

Those people that we so harshly – and uselessly – humiliate are destined to be our fellow citizens, parents of the children who will go to school with our children and grandchildren, voters and maybe even administrators – see the example of other cities in Europe – of our community. Maybe being ashamed is not enough and that is precisely why I am writing: to share the absurdity of the case. In addition to humanitarian corridors, work corridors are now also being tested: excellent. But those citizens will not be able to escape these bureaucracies that those of us who have followed them have admitted not having fully understood. So it will also be the task of entrepreneurs who have decided to hire foreigners for their company to apologize for not being able to overcome these Caudine Forks.


Gianfranco Cattai
NP August / September 2024

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