Luca De Mata

Today I was at a table. Thoughts crossed each other. Cultures and histories of ancient and different origins. Mutual respect. Women and men of the highest level: intellectual, spiritual, moral, agnostic and political. High reasoning.
I thought I was living the harmony of utopia in pursuit of mutual knowledge.
Do I know? Do we really know humanity in all its complexity? How can we find a space where different ways of thinking can meet, coexist and confront each other? I say that diversity is an asset, but then again, do I really accept that declaration? Many, many, many years ago, Rai entrusted me with the making of a program titled “Being a Woman, Being a Man”. Today, I might accept such a job with one condition: that it would simply be called “being.”

In one of my trips to Asia I have arrived to a large Buddhist Temple in Hong Kong, where all day long men women children light incense, give offerings, pray and ask incessantly, as in any other Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple or in the intimacy of non-religiousness, for a response of peace and of coexistence in mutual love to their anxieties and their expectations…

During a trip to Africa the head of an association of women’s rights who welcomes girls victims of forced marriages, said to me:
“I am responsible of the program against this abuse! Abuse against women and against all the commandments, and mainly against the commandment Honor thy father and mother. Under the guise of local traditions marriages are arranged without the consent of the women. In exchange of a basket of cola, a drug that is chewed or a goat. Or just because a tribal chief wants to have a good relationship with another leader he gives a girl as a bride… and so a girl of 12 years is given to a man of 60. Do you understand?! How can this little girl honor her father and mother who sell her, exchange her for a goat, and who give her to an old man. They even go against the commandment you shall not steal… because forcing them into marriage they steal their sexuality. The girls are tied! They tie them because these girls want to escape from the horror into which they are forced … Honor your father and mother who want to enslave you to a stranger … they escape and come here looking for the affection and parental love they were denied. It is very probable that their mothers were also victims of such horrors. Our laws punish these practices … but in reality it’s difficult to enforce them. It is a slavery against which we must all fight, for the emancipation not only of women but also of our nation and of Africa. ”

Kosovo. Mine, bombe, cecchini uccisero uomini, cose e civiltà. Andai lì. Mi rimase questa foto di una casa scheletro capovolta; ma anche il mio senso di civiltà rimase capovolto domandomi perchè odiare fino ad ammazzarsi. Sto ancora cercando in me la bestia che un giorno si potrebbe impadronire della mia ragione. Aiutatemi. Aiutiamoci perchè prima di noi venga la civiltà e la convivenza. Il fanatismo, l’odio, la pulizia etnica, l’estremismo religioso, l’intolleranza: sono i più delirante ozi del pensiero

On this blog, in which we narrate our inquest “European Muslims” for RaiUno, we have excerpted a phrase by a woman who has responsibility in the Muslim community. This phrase should make you reflect, free of the usual schemes that divide rather than unite. For now we choose to leave it anonymous, it would be wrong to label before properly understanding the mining of these few lines. Each and every one of you should feel free to respond; your arguments might be agreed or disagreed with. This is the freedom of democracy: to challenge each other in order to understand and build peace and harmony: “in its complexity Islam is more a doctrine than a religion, a philosophy of life, for both men and women and has never been incompatible with Western values. The problem does not lie within the religion itself, but in its interpretation, in fanatic speeches that sometimes tend to distort the religious content according to personal ideas. We must work to increase awareness, to promote a tolerant Islam that fits its self to the western lifestyle, this should benefit Muslims and whoever practices a different religion: Christians or Jews.

Dear friends I created this group as part of an inquest I’ve been working on for two years. I would like to open a debate free of any logical or xenophobic prejudice, in the search for possible paths of dialogue and coexistence with what is now the reality of the “European Muslims”.
Your contributions and ideas will be useful me as I hope they will be useful for everyone, to get closer and want to understand the diversities.
The concept of secularism and freedom in European societies has been a long and complex path that took centuries to evolve. All of us, today, have the right to change our opinion, live in freedom in respect for others. Equality between the sexes is a value that was difficult to understand, but today it is a reality of essential justice that will increasingly permeate our lives if we wish for the word civilization along with all of its values to be part our behavior. The West is increasingly becoming multiracial and multi religious, this formidable resource should become a heritage, not cause mistrust and fear on both sides.
In this group we might encounter a variety and polarity of opinions, but if we wish to become more aware and broaden our dialectic capacities, that should not scare us.
Thank you for your time, yours always with affection and esteem Luca De Mata

foto luca de mata®

When I was there at that prison in Rwanda, surrounded by forced labor camps and finally, with the authorization to take pictures, I stayed a long while. Without moving. My thoughts were stronger than the work of documentation that I was supposed to do. Each one of those people I was looking at had probably ruthlessly killed one, ten, or a hundred like themselves. Ethnic hatred? I looked at them and they looked at me. That’s all fine. In their eyes there was no trace of the blood they had sent gushing from the skulls they had smashed, from the heads they had cut off, from the bodies they had torn open. In their ears, there was no trace of the word “Mercy” shouted by those whom they had killed. That’s all fine. All that was in them was the will to survive. That’s all fine. I wonder if you can kill, and then let life just continue on as if nothing had happened, and indeed, believe that you can be understood, justified? That’s all fine. No! This is not fine! Even if the person who kills out of hatred, bigotry, or ideology, would like to see us give them a pat on the back saying: “Don’t worry, that’s fine.”

luca de mata © copyright 2009

luca de mata © copyright 2009

The roped suitcase: for the courage of Democracy, not a word but a fact. Democracy and the concreteness of rules that today have changed an unlimited part of our planet. Lands of hope that allure millions of desperate souls.  If colonialism and inculturization have failed, as they have in fact failed, the reason is precisely because they are based on the methods of ideologies of the past century. What then are the answers we can give today, without falling ourselves into demagogy or assistencialist neo-paternalism.Has time expired? The stories gathered from all the continents will not be able to give an answer, but only increase the question or questions