It took us a few days before we found the strength to write about what we are seeing.
Because it is so horrific that words fail us.
We have no words for the indifference and the apparent normality with which we react to dehumanised news, blaming a cyclone – the same one that, in recent weeks, has devastated our territories – is blamed for returning, through the Mediterranean Sea, bodies that speak of shattered lives.
We forget that behind those bodies being washed ashore there are political choices. Because before Cutro or Lampedusa there were no weather alerts to hide behind, but the deliberate choice to reject the idea that human history is made of people on the move, and that these movements create wealth.
We will never stop suffering in front of the images that a short-sighted politics would like us to become numb to, but we want our suffering to turn into concrete action in our cities.
Because when a person arrives in a place and is alone, disoriented, surrounded by indifference, they need a community of people who see them and support their trust in a new life.
We know this because we do it every day in our cities.
We share dinners and long tables where relationships are born, mistrust falls, and friendships are strengthened.
We seek safe spaces where we can practise a common language together, which becomes a bridge to share time, experiences, and stories. We create moments of orientation and listening, not to navigate bureaucracy, but so that no one is left alone in front of a complex system – that is often complicated even for those who know it from within.
We open the doors of our homes to share everyday normality, walking side by side through that difficult experience that is deciding to leave the place where one was born.
We do not want a community that merely hosts those who choose to live in it; we want a community that walks in the same direction, regardless of the geographical origin of the people who are part of it.
Every person who today studies, works, and builds connections here is proof that the activism and commitment of all of us generate welcoming communities that can change the destiny of a Mediterranean that has become a border of death.
If the sea continues to return bodies, let us commit ourselves to cultivating reciprocity and dignity.
This is what we are already doing, and why we have chosen to be here.
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