Dawn after the massacres

Those images of the places of the horrors of Ukraine will not be forgotten by anyone. They arrive in homes in the atmosphere of Easter and plunge us back into the Middle Ages of the massacres. They are the bestial fruit of hatred. They spell the end of all values. They will enter the history books of our children and grandchildren. They are an unacceptable watershed that ruins us at a very special time after two years of pandemic. But perhaps we can transform those horrors and that torment into a "new beginning", a complete and true return to life. It is not easy, but it can be done by starting over with the simplest gestures.

So, here, let's start again from the "hello" and the joy of the embrace after the dawn of Easter mixing our rebirth with that of the world after the war because there will be an "after". Yes, after the impressive surge of solidarity and welcome, we return to the greeting of pilgrims: at home, on the street, on the tram, on the subway. Let the accumulated vessels of pain and anxiety settle; the incredibly brutal aggression of a dictator; the massacres of child soldiers, summary executions, mass graves. They are tragedies and dramas that, for days, have been mixed with our disappointments, the melancholy loneliness of returning to normalcy, the sadness of debilitating and ferocious diseases. The greeting can be the first gesture to resume the journey of a community that will be more and more colored by races, ethnic groups, religions. “Hello” is a signal that comes from the heart. It is that extra twist that helps to live. He can introduce us to the gift of welcome, of love, of charity. Let's use it for Ukrainians and everyone else, immigrants and non-immigrants.

We have reached the end of the Covid emergency by decree (of course), perhaps peace will come as we all want. Of course we leave, next to us, the rubble of a blow to the heart that killed thousands of families, destroyed serenity, sowed discord, but we are here to resume a path that is a gift from God. The days we lived, have marked our effort: to live and believe with many ifs and many buts, but it is Easter. In the cross, the vertical wood leads us to God, the horizontal one embraces our little world, the sky now still illuminated by bombs and missiles. How many times do we walk along the avenues, the streets, the mountains, along the promenades. We cross with the faces of a thousand lives, we see (at times) the dark regurgitation of divisions, of loves transformed into hatred or that indefinite something that blocks and prevents any communication that makes sense, we see misery and material and moral poverty, bombs and innocent blood, but we don't have the strength to fight back. We have seen the fruits of hatred not only but above all in Ukraine: they are the result of incommunicability but also the lessons of history! Our boys greet each other when they meet. We often don't. And afterwards, maybe, we feel bad too, but we remain silent. Shut up in the face of blatant injustices, shut up in the face of abuses, shut up in the face of hate barricades that someone else has built and we often feed.

There has been an avalanche of muddy mud, unfair and sometimes even boorish, on those who in recent years have tried to transform the Mediterranean sea, the sea of ​​ghosts, into a safe haven for so many desperate people; there has been a crescendo of controversy towards those who welcome; There was a deafening silence in the face of the tragedies of Africa, the tragedies of Latin America, of those in India who continue to die alone on the street twenty years after the farewell of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

That's enough: let's build the end of this unjust and cruel world. It doesn't take much. The ideal city does not exist, but a small gesture can be the beginning of a real sharing. If we want to find the liberating smile, if we try to walk following that cross that rises vertically and crosses horizontally with our emotions, we resume the old, unsurpassed habit of travelers who greeted at dawn, at night, at sunset when they met "another" . Of course this does not solve the problems, but it is the first step. Solidarity is born in this way and humanity grows: in the courtyards of condominiums as on the war front, in ports as at the borders, in the reciprocity of an embrace: of refugees, of desperate people, of family members, of the unemployed, of people looking for hope. , like us. People who sow serenity, not poisons, bombs and death.


Gian Mario Ricciardi
NP May 2022