Mauro Armanino
Missionary, doctor of
cultural anthropology
and ethnology
- 25 AUGUST 2019
I recognize it, a month at home is not much. Just 30 days in a calendar that depends on the circumstances and the expectation of a visa to return to Niger, which expired even before leaving inadvertently. Of the Sahel and the Niger, at least so far, no trace on television, in newspapers or in speeches. We both ceased to exist and with us the sand and the daily deaths of the war entrepreneurs and the children of the poor who have long since stopped going to school. Teachers are threatened because they are considered supporters of the West who perpetuate their cultural and political colonialism with the school. Despite the story of the ships with migrants rescued from Libyan waters waiting to dock at Lampedusa, what happens upstream - indeed, in the desert - has been canceled.
The (self) complaints are the most dangerous and, as happened in other eras, could lead to further drifts on a continent that struggles to assume the consequences of the principles it proposes and often imposes on others. The unsustainable censorship of what constitutes reality, which is always a process to be interpreted, wanted or unexpected, of choices made in the contingency of time. Nothing is said of the migrants who were canceled by radar before they reached the thousands of detention camps in Libya. He has forgotten, guiltily, that now the European borders have also descended from Agadez, in Niger, towards the Atlantic coast. The locals are no longer free to stay or leave. How many, at their own risk and danger, are still trying to leave, are trapped in the "detention facilities" managed by the IOM. The latter, of International Migration, has made its Organization and that is the business in the name of the West that finances it.
The fact that migrants are now criminals to pretend to stop at borders is known and accepted by those who matter. Of the European policies that for decades and in particular, as regards the Sahel, since 2015 - the intercontinental meeting of Valletta - there are no longer any traces. And yet it is as a result of these policies that the salvation ships of people that the West condemns and then pushes to shipwreck appear.
People are not free to leave nor free to stay, because the dismantling of local economies and the systematic and consistent robbery of resources prevents or makes staying at least problematic. From fishing on the coast to minerals, to shift to agriculture, the global stripping system continues to rage in the Sahelian space. This happens with the complicity of the local elites, long acquired by the system and subordinate members of the international ruling classes. Obtaining visas and residence permits is a mission considered by the most impossible and the only way to go to be accepted as new slaves of the West is the journey in the desert or other impossible routes that last for years.
These things are no longer said because of this censorship which, like a blanket of smoke, prevents us from grasping history and limits itself to the news to be manipulated according to the dominant interests. The "political" is censored as a privileged area of common social construction and one replies on the administrative and romanticized management of politics.
The censorship understood as complicit concealment of the real brings as a consequence the unbearable betrayal of the poor. It starts from the eyes, subjugated to the merchandise and the dominant advertisements and involves at the same time the ears, prey of the cell phones, which rhythm the listening. You walk looking at the screen and listening and talking continuously in imaginary dialogues at a distance while the real faces of the people disappear, shattered by the absence.
Self-censorship, even more unjustifiable, involves the media, ordinary citizens and social and religious entrepreneurs. It assimilates and colonizes the political, educational and economic sphere of Western societies. The unmasking of this silence is the first step towards redemption. The second is called revolt, or conversion to faces.
Missionary, doctor of
cultural anthropology
and ethnology
- 25 AUGUST 2019
I recognize it, a month at home is not much. Just 30 days in a calendar that depends on the circumstances and the expectation of a visa to return to Niger, which expired even before leaving inadvertently. Of the Sahel and the Niger, at least so far, no trace on television, in newspapers or in speeches. We both ceased to exist and with us the sand and the daily deaths of the war entrepreneurs and the children of the poor who have long since stopped going to school. Teachers are threatened because they are considered supporters of the West who perpetuate their cultural and political colonialism with the school. Despite the story of the ships with migrants rescued from Libyan waters waiting to dock at Lampedusa, what happens upstream - indeed, in the desert - has been canceled.
The (self) complaints are the most dangerous and, as happened in other eras, could lead to further drifts on a continent that struggles to assume the consequences of the principles it proposes and often imposes on others. The unsustainable censorship of what constitutes reality, which is always a process to be interpreted, wanted or unexpected, of choices made in the contingency of time. Nothing is said of the migrants who were canceled by radar before they reached the thousands of detention camps in Libya. He has forgotten, guiltily, that now the European borders have also descended from Agadez, in Niger, towards the Atlantic coast. The locals are no longer free to stay or leave. How many, at their own risk and danger, are still trying to leave, are trapped in the "detention facilities" managed by the IOM. The latter, of International Migration, has made its Organization and that is the business in the name of the West that finances it.
The fact that migrants are now criminals to pretend to stop at borders is known and accepted by those who matter. Of the European policies that for decades and in particular, as regards the Sahel, since 2015 - the intercontinental meeting of Valletta - there are no longer any traces. And yet it is as a result of these policies that the salvation ships of people that the West condemns and then pushes to shipwreck appear.
People are not free to leave nor free to stay, because the dismantling of local economies and the systematic and consistent robbery of resources prevents or makes staying at least problematic. From fishing on the coast to minerals, to shift to agriculture, the global stripping system continues to rage in the Sahelian space. This happens with the complicity of the local elites, long acquired by the system and subordinate members of the international ruling classes. Obtaining visas and residence permits is a mission considered by the most impossible and the only way to go to be accepted as new slaves of the West is the journey in the desert or other impossible routes that last for years.
These things are no longer said because of this censorship which, like a blanket of smoke, prevents us from grasping history and limits itself to the news to be manipulated according to the dominant interests. The "political" is censored as a privileged area of common social construction and one replies on the administrative and romanticized management of politics.
The censorship understood as complicit concealment of the real brings as a consequence the unbearable betrayal of the poor. It starts from the eyes, subjugated to the merchandise and the dominant advertisements and involves at the same time the ears, prey of the cell phones, which rhythm the listening. You walk looking at the screen and listening and talking continuously in imaginary dialogues at a distance while the real faces of the people disappear, shattered by the absence.
Self-censorship, even more unjustifiable, involves the media, ordinary citizens and social and religious entrepreneurs. It assimilates and colonizes the political, educational and economic sphere of Western societies. The unmasking of this silence is the first step towards redemption. The second is called revolt, or conversion to faces.
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2019/08/25/migranti-loccidente-finge-di-non-vedere-ma-lomerta-porta-alla-rivolta/5408302/
translated by google translate
translated by google translate
