(Father Alex Zanotelli from fnsi.it) The words of Father Alex Zanotelli, missionary and profound connoisseur of Africa, were beautiful and shocking. He released a statement to the FNSI website that highlights an "unimaginable" reality and that slams "in the face" of us who are discussing how to stop the exodus of migrants to our shores.
"Excuse me if I address you in this torrid summer, but it is the growing suffering of the poorest and most marginalized that pushes me to do it. For this reason I use the pen as a missionary (I belong to your category too) to make their cry heard, a cry that finds less and less space in Italian mass-media.
In fact, I find most of our media, both paper and television, so provincial, so superficial, so well integrated in the global market. I know that the mass media, unfortunately, are in the hands of powerful economic and financial groups, so each of you has very little chance of writing what you would like. I do not ask you for heroic acts, but only to try to pass on some news every day to help the Italian people understand the tragedies that so many peoples are experiencing.
I appeal to you journalists / and because you have the courage to break the silence of the media silence that weighs heavily on Africa. (Unfortunately, there are few exceptions in this field!)
It is unacceptable for me to be silent about the dramatic situation in South Sudan (the youngest state in Africa) entangled in a frightful civil war that has already caused at least 300,000 dead and millions of people fleeing.
Silence on Sudan, supported by a dictatorial regime at war with the people in the mountains of Kordofan, the Nuba, the martyr people of Africa and against the ethnic groups of Darfur is unacceptable.
The silence on Somalia in civil war for over thirty years with millions of internal and external refugees is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable the silence on Eritrea, ruled by one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, with hundreds of thousands of young people fleeing to Europe.
It is unacceptable the silence on Central Africa that continues to be torn apart by a civil war that never seems to end.
It is unacceptable the silence on the serious situation in the Sahel area from Chad to Mali where powerful jihadist groups could form themselves in a new Caliphate of black Africa.
It is unacceptable the silence on the chaotic situation in Libya where there is a clash of all against everyone, caused by our damn war against Gaddafi.
Silence on what is happening in the heart of Africa, especially in the Congo, where our most precious minerals come from is unacceptable.
It is unacceptable the silence of thirty million people at risk of hunger in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, northern Kenya and around Lake Chad, the worst food crisis of the last 50 years according to the UN.
It is unacceptable the silence on climate change in Africa that at the end of the century risks having three quarters of its territory not habitable.
It is unacceptable the silence on the Italian sale of heavy and light weapons to these countries that do nothing but increase the increasingly fierce wars from which millions of refugees are forced to flee. (Last year, Italy exported weapons worth 14 billion euros!).
Not knowing all this it is clear that the Italian people can not understand why so many people are fleeing their lands risking their lives to get to us.
This creates the paranoia of the "invasion", furiously fueled by xenophobic parties.
This forces European governments to try to block migrants from the black continent with Africa Compact, contracts made with African governments to stop migrants.
But the desperate in history no one will stop them.
This is not an emergency, but a structural question to the economic-financial system. The UN expects already about fifty million climate refugees within the 2050 only from Africa. And now our politicians cry out: "Let us help them at home", after having looted them for centuries and continue to do so with an economic policy that benefits our banks and businesses, from ENI to Finmeccanica.
And so we find ourselves with a Mare Nostrum that has become Cimiterium Nostrum where tens of thousands of refugees are shipwrecked and with them is also shipwrecked Europe as a homeland of rights. In front of all this we can not remain silent. (Our grandchildren will not perhaps say what we say today of the Nazis?).
This is why I beg you to break this silence on Africa, forcing your media to talk about it. To achieve this, would not it be possible to send a letter signed by thousands of you to the RAI Surveillance Commission and the large national newspapers? And if the National Press Federation (FNSI) really were to make this gesture? Could this not be a journalistic Africa Compact, much more useful to the Continent than the various Treaties signed by governments to block migrants? We can not remain silent in front of another Shoah that is taking place before our very eyes. Let's all be done to break this damn silence on Africa.