There are so intense days on which, on completion, you need to think to draw the right lessons. Sunday 4 May was one of these. In St. Peter's Monastery in Lamosa, Provaglio Iseo in the province of Brescia, was delivered to Vincenzo Billeci, Assessor-fisherman Lampedusa representing the workers of the sea, an award in memory of Francesco Arrigoni, journalist and student of Veronelli.
I did not know Francis, but these days I read about him. A man who loved the mountains, who lived his passions in intimacy, unaccustomed to the fashions of the moment and the waves. A man of character who was not hiding behind a comfortable status quo that unfortunately, I woke up after a slumber of years due to a, I'm experiencing in this society. I am convinced that we would have gone very well.
The award is dedicated to him the solidarity shown by the fishermen of Lampedusa, in recent decades, to the thousands of migrants that the law of the sea with his teachings, forces to rescue. A rescue dictated by conscience, which unfortunately is in conflict with the laws of men which prohibits fishermen to intervene in support of illegal immigrants, in case of emergency.
Vincenzo Billeci interviewed by journalist Gianni Mura
"The emergency call. But how is it possible that an emergency hard to twenty-five years? Emergency which, among other things remind us coast 300.000 EUR per day. "Vincenzo Billeci complaint with these words a situation that has persisted for years.
I feel very close to the fishermen. Last summer I spoke to them in Fiumicino, and Pozzuoli, a Crotone. I wanted to understand what is possible, because in a country like Italy with 7450 km of coastline, fishing is dying. Surely the expensive diesel, The burro, the illegal and the institutions do not facilitate this sector. But it does not end here ... Vincent said that in Lampedusa Tunisian fishing vessels only three miles from the island, for nearly one hundred and fifty days a year. The Coast Guard operates but without great results. I still do not understand, but perhaps there is nothing to understand, because it is already all too clear.
At the end of ceremony I stopped to talk with him at length. In the years 80/90 fishermen in Lampedusa were six hundred, now there are only a little more than two hundred. It 's very different to listen to the problems experienced in the first person by those who live on land and sea. Are our politicians who should do it, because it is from them, from land and sea that we must start. I often wonder if we'll be able to repair the damage that we have done.
Vincenzo Billeci is not just a fisherman, Scrivia's poesie. We carry one who wrote in October 2013. Yesterday, when we said goodbye, it gave me an autographed copy. This will keep it carefully among the things dear.
