I say gladly to the mayor of Milan,
person I know and I appreciate since
we were together parliamentarians,
that I add my name to the letter, sure
that he will face this issue (so serious
and so delicate because it touches so
many lives of people without power)
with the cautious attention to the life
and feelings of human beings, which
is his way of doing politics. I add, not
for mayor of Milan from which I expect
a reassuring intervention, but also for
all those who unwittingly or
unknowingly may still have slag
ancient prejudices against "gypsies",
which, unfortunately, the intersection
between local bureaucracies and
politics (including the national policy
that always forgets the weakest)
always leads to a typical and ugly solution: proceed with evictions (that make the news, especially in
the proximity of election periods) more quickly as possible, but without having a ready solution for the
people involved, for entire villages of families who have never broken the law. Nothing is more sad,
depressing and alarming of an eviction of a Roma camp, often in ways that are terrorizing the children.
Never happened to me, in many occasions when I have tried to be present, to be able to accompany
the Roma and Sinti evicted in new, decent places where to live appropriately prepared before the
eviction. What I learned when I was in charge of the Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights is
that evictions are organized not in relation to the life of the inhabitants of the camp, not because it
came to fruition a project of inclusion, but because it comes to relationships between parties that have
nothing to do with the interests and lives of those Italian citizens called Roma and Sinti treated as
mysterious bulky strangers which does not have the same rights as everyone. For all these reasons,
and because Giuliano Pisapia is still mayor of Milan, I am certain to get a quick answer to a peaceful
and humane solution to the problem via Idro camp in Milan.
Furio Colombo
