By Luis Pellegrini
Vimeo video and photos: Lior Sperandeo
Source: www.luispellegrini.com.br
My two grandfathers were named Antônio; my grandmothers, Giuseppina and Anna. They were Italians from Veneto. All of them were refugees in Brazil in the last decade of the 19th century, fleeing the extremely difficult conditions in that region of northern Italy, invaded by the Austrians who ruled and exploited it with an iron fist.
Even as a boy, I listened, fascinated, to my paternal grandfather's stories about his childhood and youth spent alongside battlefields, to the sound of cannon fire, under the blanket of fear and uncertainty that enveloped everyone.
He recounted that, as a boy, he and his brother were sent to spend some time at their aunt's house in Venice, in the old military quarter called Arsenale, where, it was assumed, conditions for the children would be somewhat better. At their aunt's house, as soon as they returned from school, the children would spend an hour or two at the windows, fishing for small fish in the Venetian canal that ran just below. These fish were tiny, and when there were enough of them, they would take them all to the kitchen, where their aunt would prepare a sauce to be eaten with polenta. That was all the animal protein they could get for months on end. Milk was out of the question. At dawn, before leaving for school, each child received a bowl full of red wine and a slice of homemade bread.
When Pedro II opened the immigration gates
This same grandfather also recounted that, years later, as a teenager, while walking along the banks of the Piave River, near the city of San Doná, he would see the corpses of soldiers killed in combat floating on the surface, being carried away by the current.
When they learned that Emperor Pedro II had opened the gates to the immigration of workers in Brazil, the four didn't even count to ten. They boarded the ships in Genoa and, weeks later, disembarked on Brazilian soil, ready for whatever might come their way in their struggle for survival.
Refugees, all of them, just like the hundreds of thousands of other Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Germans, Greeks, Syrians, Lebanese, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, to name just a few of the many nationalities who have found refuge in Brazil and throughout the Americas.
Today, however, when faced with the problem of Syrian, Kurdish, Iraqi, and other nationalities arriving desperately at its borders, Europe seems to have forgotten its own past as a major exporter of refugees fleeing war, politics, and misery. Xenophobia, the aversion to foreigners, has returned with great force, and there are many Europeans who judge and confuse refugees with terrorists, calling for the closure of borders.
They don't want to see their beaches invaded… They don't want their high standard of living disturbed and contaminated by these hordes of fugitives. After all, it cost so much to get to this "società del benessere" (welfare society, in Italian), and now these wretches, and even more so of the Muslim faith, come to ruin everything?
Of course, it's understandable. Nobody wants to see the roses in their garden trampled. But then, and this is the fundamental question that must be asked: Why did they, the French, the English, the Italians, and so many others, in the wake of the American armed forces – and also their bankers and oil industry magnates – invade Iraq, Syria, Libya, killing their leaders, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi? In doing so, they destroyed the organizational infrastructure of these countries and instigated chaos. "But Saddam and Gaddafi were bloodthirsty dictators," exclaim the defenders of the invasions. They were indeed villains, without a doubt. But at least they were openly declared villains. Is the difference between them and so many other rulers around the world, bandits disguised as messiahs, wolves in sheep's clothing, bloodsuckers of the populations they govern, really that great?
One of the worst evils that so many men and women cultivate is hypocrisy. Another fundamental evil is ignorance, especially that which concerns the cosmic laws of action and reaction, which Eastern cultures call the "Law of Karma." The pure and simple knowledge that, in life and in the world, every action entails an equal and opposite reaction. Everything comes back.
It would only take a little opening of the mind and heart to realize that, after all, on the face of the Earth, we are all refugees. In one way or another, we all seek shelter. And finding true refuge is our only chance of surviving not only in body, but also in mind, soul, and spirit.
Israeli videomaker Lior Sperandeo
A beautiful video about refugees.
After hearing and reading a wide variety of opinions about the Syrian refugees who board precarious boats in a desperate attempt to reach the beaches of the European Mediterranean, Israeli videomaker Lior Sperandeo went to the island of Lesbos, in Greece, to gain, as he himself says, "a healthier and more human perspective on the situation."
“Seeing with my own eyes the people who truly exist behind the newspaper headlines broke my heart,” says Lior Sperandeo. “So this is the ‘people who threaten us’ everyone talks about? All I saw were courageous people, living through a moment of profound crisis, searching for hope. I also saw brave volunteers from all over the world who came there to help these helpless people, without considering their religion, race, or past. And, I confess, all of this inspired me. My hope is that this video can help to dismantle some of the many false ideas and opinions built up about the world’s refugees.”
The author used the song "Ton sourire" by Ravid Kahalani as the background music for his video.