Ddifficult to describe what the Mediterranean is for noi, the “mare nostrum” which saw civilizations born and died and which today sees migrants dying in the depths of its waters. But it is the same sea of our holidays, of the happy days spent in idleness that lets us be lulled by the waves and capricious winds.
And they are also the same waters that have given us back the beauty of the Riace bronzes witnesses of a glorious past that emerged after centuries on the beaches devastated by illegal villas, or rather incomplete concrete artefacts that look like monsters petrified by the Medusa during a transformation. Just to pay homage to the latest beautiful novel by Niccolo Ammaniti. The building upheaval also represents the Mediterranean, an arm of the sea that divides us from wars and destruction and that Global Sumud flotilla sailed to bring aid to the besieged population of Gaza.
Today we no longer talk about Gaza, only occasionally we glimpse photos of rubble on the news which, although in colour, appear to us in black and white, the color of destruction. Now the war has moved a little further and the Middle East is on fire, what was the cradle of extraordinary cultures has become a military map, the names of once epic cities are reduced to strategic objectives of a conflict whose reasons we struggle to understand but in which we are all involved.
We are sailing on the brink of the Apocalypse and it no longer appears to be science fiction the usual catastrophist discussion about the end of the world. Yet, from the worst scenarios new forces arise that could save humanity, at least that’s what happened in the past, and an interesting book by the philosopher Federico Campagna explains it to us, Otherworlds. Lessons from the past to survive history (Einaudi).
“Altrimondi” by Federico Campagna, Einaudi360 pages, €12.99
An original essay that retraces the events of this strip of water and land which has seen the passing of peoples and leaders, queens and slaves, fugitives and visionaries: a multitude of different cultures which over the centuries, crossing routes and mixing traditions, have produced new civilizations and unprecedented perspectives of life.
From the mythology of Mesopotamian heroes to the crusaders’ expeditions in defense of the Holy Sepulchreup to today’s desperate people in search of a better future, through a literary, historical and political journey, the author reveals to us that migrating is a state of mind inherent in human beings and what seems only an end and desperation is also a new beginning that we had not imagined.
