The literary force and, I would say, political strength of Paola Regeni’s words always arouse wonder and admiration.
“Actions, not commemorations,” said the mother of Giulio Regeni, the Italian researcher killed in Cairo, before the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament, on Wednesday.
The commemorations are not useless — far from it — but they inevitably bring resignation and irreparable finality. Consummatum est: It remains, and the memory can even be renewed, but it will be a permanently exhausted memory.
That can stand like a monument, even a powerful one, but not viable. And the “actions” of Paola and Claudio Regeni, in their role of “parents moving around institutions” (as they define themselves), they wanted to, once again, declare the clear and inescapable words, asking the Italian government and the E.U. to “increase pressure on Egypt for a transparent investigation.”