Luca De Mata

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

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.”