Foto luca de mata®
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…
Honor your father and mother.
June 21st, 2010
Foto luca de mata®
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. ”
The freedom of democracy.
June 9th, 2010
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.
Islam: Believe, Pray. Coexist.
May 29th, 2010
L'Islam una preghiera per la misericordia
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
No longer pharaohs, but people!
February 19th, 2009
Egypt – SINAB (photo & copyright by Luca De Mata © ® All rights reserved)
Here in Egypt, the Land of the Pharaohs, where the Israelite People lived as slaves, one of the greatest prophecies that would change the cultures of the nations – regardless of their creed, believers or non-believers alike -would be fulfilled…no longer pharaohs, but people. No longer slaves…no more laws legalizing tyranny and despotism; instead, the law of mercy!
There are many reasons to travel, but in the end there are really only two.
January 15th, 2009
There are many reasons to travel, but in the end there are really only two: to take a rest, or as one of my dearest friends would say: “Once in and while we need to send our ideas on a trip!”; the other is to live, to work and in this I would also include the will to know and to make things known. In the case of the first reason, you take your distance from anything that the mere thought of it could result bothersome. In the latter, you are moved to live or – more dramatically speaking – to survive, flee, search for peace or simply study and take notes, whether you work in the mass media or on your own. I have a drawer with over 80,000 photographs of my trips all over the world. I have selected a few and wished to comment on them and respond to all the questions that you may have after seeing these photos. But, most importantly, I am interested in the answers, so that together we can come to understand who we are.
India – New Delhi – Moschea Sufi – Copyright Luca De Mata
What is it about Islam that fascinates me? Its severity and fidelity. What is it that alarms me? The fact that I cannot see where the fanaticism of the severity meets the fidelity to fanaticism.
