Yesterday I went to the camp of nomads Casilino900 of Rome. This is what I saw. Already accuse me that I drank the brain, they may be right. But that is exactly what I saw and heard ...
Children. The oldest Roma camp in Rome is a den "dangerous" to children. Among the 600 residents, half are under 14 years and everyone, from first to last, go to school. Then they go home, do their homework, a bit 'of television and then to bed. Those in search of easy exotica metropolitan will remain disappointed, as would disappoint those who were trying to track down thieves, rapists or "rubabambini.
The Casilino900 not a Roma camp any. It 's a fertile and vital organ of the capital in forty years of existence has integrated almost seamlessly into the neighborhood. Nothing exotic, of course. Yet, sometimes wandering among the colorful shacks, one gets the impression that they ended up in Macondo, the magical city born from the pen of Gabriel García Márquez. And then they, those children barefoot, dressed in shabby clothes but smiling, always smiling. There is something solar Casilino900. Of course, there is the difficulty of living in an increasingly precarious situation toilet, but there's something light. Something that the children of our prosperity have forgotten. Even
Don Paul, who attended the camp for about a year, speaks of something sweet, light: 'It is a kind of life that brings us back to the essence. " Nobody complains about muggings in the area has ever heard of stolen children. And yes, when it comes to Roma are not talking about abducted children: rather stolen. It 's a term favolesco, easy to bring home to Italian children who must stay away from those people there. Dirty and dangerous people. People who steal children.
"Stealing our children? - Hakija smiles, the Bosniak community of the field - but if each couple has five children. I've got even eight. Why should we steal other people's children? ".
"I do not understand what's happening in our country - echoes Najo Adzovic, coordinator of field and writer - on the date of death of Mrs. Giovanna Reggiani has made us the number one public danger. They have already tried to clear, cut our homes, but we have mobilized all our friends and bulldozers, for now at least, have stopped. "
Yeah, for now. But to hear the proclamations coming from the new tenant of the Capitol there is little to stay calm. The eviction, in fact, there is always that hovers like a shadow, a ghost. A sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of each of these people, on each of these lives. "I do not know what to do - says Klej, with a baby in a sling that fiddles with his gold chain - I have eight children. They were all born here, are Italian. Seven of them already go to school and next year we should include also the smallest. If we do not know where we hunt and I can not explain to my children why do not you want and why will no longer go to school with their friends. We are very worried and desperate. "
What's more the other day, came the news of the special commissioner for the Roma emergency. "An Inspector? - Repeats incredulously Najo - we do not need any commissioner, we are not an emergency, we are a peaceful people who never had a war and who suffered a holocaust in which they died, were killed tens of thousands of our brothers. So to say something strong - continues Najo - but Hitler started this way. The killing was a culmination of a gradual: first we have demonized, then we have moved away from the cities without any form of work. At that point, it is clear that someone started a hunger to steal to feed their children. And so the circle is closed. And 'Just a few stolen potato to say, "here Gypsies steal". " The end, though too often someone forgets, is known: 250 thousand Roma were deported and killed. It is the Porajmos, the "devastation", their Shoah. And to think that
Najo, with the wholehearted support of the whole community, working around the clock to open the Casilino900 district. To prevent possible friction and make known to the citizens of the town hall VII their lifestyle and their traditions. "Often - says dejected by the news coming from Naples - we invite our children's classmates. It 's a way to integrate and pacify the area. " Najo was imposed so that the entrance of the camp there was a word "ecumenical", "Children of one Father." Hope. But the avalanche
anti-rom that struck the country does not spare either. To begin with, to clarify that pulls air, ripped out the light. 'It happened suddenly and now we have no electricity. But responsibility is not new mayor Gianni Alemanno, the light has it removed before the council. " A nice way to make them understand that the presence there was no longer welcome. One of the many strange things happened in the days of the murder Reggiani, in the days when Gianfranco Fini, who shortly thereafter was to become Speaker of the House, patrolled the 'zone of discomfort "with the helicopter, promising tens of thousands of expulsions; and in the days when Rome's mayor Walter Veltroni multiplied evictions and ran in the Council of Ministers to persuade the then Prime Minister Prodi to launch a new decree on expulsion.
words and decrees that rained down like millstones on the lives of these people. "These days there - continues Najo - we felt besieged. We were all branded as murderers and rapists. I felt anger and pain. We have a centuries-old code that is based on absolute respect for women, children and our elders. They were and are accusations that burn like wounds. " And while
Najo is unleashed, an "old", from the wrinkled face is intent on working with copper foil. Next to him a mountain of waste that selects wisely. They are our waste, our waste which are cleaned and reused in many ways. Often sold at the market area that the Roma of Casilino900 organize every Sunday. The "old" does not speak Italian, but nice greets his calm eyes. "It really has been through a lot," says Najo.
Casilino900 fact is that the risk of being wiped out. Li is coming next underground, and many would like the Roma, all Roma, outside the ring road, the ring road which surrounds the capital city boundary. "It would be a real tragedy, we would be isolated. The years of schooling and all the efforts of mediation and integration would be rendered meaningless, erased by bulldozers. "
In recent evictions wanted by Veltroni, and before that was dedicated to our campaign, a photo depicting a caterpillar of the Italian Republic on a book, a subsidiary of elementary crushed and immersed in the mud. A snapshot devastating behind the book was the effort of who knows how many people, an effort to integrate and work lasted for years. An effort which eventually won. That book was a Roma child in school, our school. Education was his right and his parents had understood. And 'the beat enough of an edge of the mayor and a shot to defeat all of that caterpillar.
Don Paul, the Roman Major Seminary, attended by about a year Casilino900. It 'happened there almost by accident and decided that this field could serve to raise his young students: "There is a climate very confused about the question of the Roma. I - continued Don Paul - I am convinced that the experience of Casilino900, with all its limitations, might be a model. They begin to represent themselves, to talk and discuss in person with the administrators to seek solutions common. "
Meanwhile, as in starting to prepare lunch for the children return from school, Gianni Alemanno continues to offer the special commissioner for Roma. "We are not talking of the historic presence of Sinti or giostrai, or the classic presence of nomads in our country - said the mayor - but an invasion that is determining the boundaries of the community with increased flows." Yet, waiting for the Super-, of cleansings, life flows to Casilino900 mild. "In the end - Najo concludes - we have passed the worst."
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