Satnam's death symbolizes our decline
The story of the death of Indian farm laborer Satnam Singh in the province of Latina leaves a deep bitterness in anyone who still possesses a modicum of conscience about the accompanying inhumanity.
When faced with an injured and dying man, there are those who do not know how to go beyond their own petty interests and do not think about what they can do to save that life, but act only with the intent to save themselves.
This horrible story should make us reflect on the kind of society we are building, where the other counts for nothing, even in the face of death, and only self-interest matters.
The affair is also yet another demonstration of the failure of the laws wanted by then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, passed in 2018 and only partially amended during the Conte 2 government. Those laws, with their restrictive regulations, have led to the creation of hundreds of thousands of illegal foreigners, deprived of all rights and therefore at the mercy of unscrupulous people who see in caporalato the way to enrich themselves at the expense of the weakest and most defenseless.
Regulations made even heavier by the Cutro Decree, wanted by this government and its premier, after yet another massacre of migrants drowned in the Mediterranean. Today the government regrets what happened in Latina, but it does not feel the weight of what its laws are causing.
In the days of international remembrance of the refugee, Satnam Singh's story reminds us of how horrible we are doing to these people. With these laws we have taken away rights from those who come to our country to have hope and the possibility of a job, and we are creating the conditions for them to be exploited by those who have no qualms about paying a few euros an hour, without guaranteeing any form of protection.
The criterion of so-called regular flows is often in the hands of phantom companies that run the system with bogus or nonexistent contracts. Corporalism is only one of the cases of exploitation of so-called irregular foreigners; the other, far more serious, is cheap labor granted to organized crime.
Thus, the Meloni government's regret and words of outrage seem like crocodile tears of those who, from the Bossi-Fini law onward, have only pursued policies of intolerance and restrictiveness toward the migratory phenomenon. One failure after another to which for years even left-wing political action has been attached.
In the last few weeks we have all been dismayed and bitter about what happened to Satnam Singh, who died probably because he was not rescued in time and abandoned, with his arm crushed and encased in a cardboard box, in front of his home. But perhaps we should think about the hypocrisy that has overtaken us, because this policy, over the years, has only reinforced our belief that these are not people like us, but second-class people.
This is the rift that has been created in our society, sustained by norms, laws, political action and a way of viewing these men and women as intruders and usurpers. The words of Satnam's wife, "Italy is not a good country," should give us pause and hurt for the truth they convey.
Not even our Christian culture, which we so much say we defend, will save us from a drift that has taken hold of this country. A sense of meanness that can be read in so many different facts that happen every day, not only toward migrants. We have abandoned that sense of solidarity that united us for many decades, giving way to indifference, coldness and detachment toward the lives of others, enclosed as we are in the petty defense of our selves and our interests.
That dying body, abandoned in front of a house, is there to question us about what we have become, as individual persons and as a community. This politics is both creator and consequence of our decline, as individual persons, but also as a people and as a nation.
Pierluigi Ermini, is a public communicator, lover of writing, creator of the blog "Pierluigi's Paths" and Valdarno contact person for the Libera Association.
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