Reportage
Sergio Mattarella: Welcoming and solidarity are the foundation of the constitution
‘Italian history is made up of emigration and immigration,’ recalled the President of the Republic on the day when the first ship of the Italian Navy left Lampedusa for the new migrant centers in Albania.
“The commitment to social cohesion, welcoming, progress, integration, the process of the development of citizenship, is a permanent activity,” said President Sergio Mattarella in his speech last Monday in Milan at the Franco Verga Association (formerly the Center for Immigrant Orientation - COI). He thanked the NGO’s volunteers, “protagonists of a valuable work that proceeds towards realizing the objectives of solidarity that the Constitutional Charter has placed at the foundation of our coexistence: a work for the Republic.”
The president recalled that “Italian history is made up of emigration and immigration.” He did so at a particularly consequential moment, namely on the day when the first ship of the Italian Navy left Lampedusa for the new migrant centers in Albania set up by the Meloni government. Mattarella pointed out that Milan was a landing place for more than 300,000 Italians from the south between 1951 and 1961.
“It was not without its tensions, in what was a contrast – which today seems incomprehensible – between newcomers and old residents, and also a fruitful dialogue in the urban suburbs between the old and new Milanese.”
“Milan la ga el cor an man (‘Milan’s heart is open’),” the president said, quoting an old Milanese saying, stressing “the capacity for progressive integration on which [Milan] has based its development: the industriousness of Venetian immigration, the Giulia-Dalmatia exodus, the wave of migration from the south: all contributed to the city's growth and progress.”
This idea, of “making our society more cohesive by supporting the creation of shared value while intervening against inequalities” still works, the president stressed. And Franco Verga's insight that one should work “for integration” rather than set up yet another charity is as relevant as ever.
Mattarella quoted the words of Don Massimo Mapelli, head of Caritas Milano Sud, who was present in the hall at the Ambrosianeum: “Teaching the Italian language and culture, accompanying the young people and adults who arrive in our territory on their journey to become citizens, means building the city together.” Exactly as happened with the “literacy courses organized by COI since 1964” for Italians arriving from the south. In addition to the courses, they were offered “support in the search for housing and a job.” The same effort is being made today by various NGOs supporting immigrants from Ukraine, the Balkans, and other continents who are “burdened by unbearable conditions.”
“Citizenship must be granted to all those who were born and who were raised in Italy. There is no more time to wait,” was Don Mapelli's plea to Mattarella, who just a few months ago awarded him with the title of Knight.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/mattarella-accoglienza-e-solidarieta-sono-alla-base-della-costituzione on 2024-10-15