The seventeen boats of the Italian delegation of the Global Sumud Flotilla, having completed the leg of their journey toward the open sea, destination Gaza, are awaiting final operations regarding satellite communications with some vessels docked in Tunis. Most of the boats from Barcelona are anchored in a harbour south of Cap Bon, Tunisia. In the meantime, this leg is useful for further minor repairs and improvements, such as those on the boat I’m sailing on, which had to replace, or rather repair, the old membrane on a marine toilet. This was a rather complicated mission because the season has ended here , south of Pachino; and once we had reached land, the task was not an easy one since only one tender [boat] was available at the time and the road to the village was like a long, endless stretch of asphalt lined with closed hotels and campsites.
So I found myself having to ask for help, first by hitchhiking to get about 8 km away, and then for repairs from a tire repairman specializing in hot vulcanization. The first people I asked for help after walking 4 km were an elderly lady who sadly informed me that she hadn’t driven the car parked outside her house for years, and three very young bricklayers who were intimidated not only by the idea of leaving the construction site to give me a 5-minute ride, but even by the mere thought of having to ask their boss for permission to leave. So I walked another kilometer and stopped at a gas station. After a bit of conversation, I asked the owner for her opinion on the situation in Gaza, the absence of [action from the ] government, and the reckless management of migrants in a land where the official language is about to become Arabic, at which point she agreed to help me. She had her colleague take me to the tire repair shop, where I was even introduced as a friend! In Sicily, these “warm” relationships are important even for small things! The toilet membrane for that brand is practically impossible to find here in the south, and the work that the tire repairman is about to do with hot vulcanization is more like art than craftsmanship.
The operation is almost impossible and desperate, but it is nevertheless carried out with the utmost skill; I couldn’t miss the opportunity to interview the architect of this undertaking, thanks to which six people will be able to count on two bathrooms instead of just one for about ten days. The price asked for the work is purely symbolic. The admiration and gratitude for our mission are shared not only by the lady at the bar, but also by the gentleman who, despite having business to discuss with the tire repairer, chooses to accompany me on the 8-kilometer return trip to the harbor, where the tender [boat] is waiting for me.
“I confess that I am a right-wing man,” he tells me immediately after realizing who I am, “but of the enlightened right wing that, at present, has been unable to find any kind of representation in Parliament for several years.” From migrants to his position on Israel, he is in total disagreement with the right-wing government, a disagreement accompanied by an awareness of a lost humanity, of a series of political exploitations of social issues that spare neither the left nor the right. This is humanity that is by no means residual, but certainly more than a majority in Italy and perhaps in the rest of the world, and which sooner or later will make itself heard when the situation becomes unsustainable even in our so-called “civilized” West.
