EUROPE - MISSION AND EMIGRATION - “The suitcase tied with string”: poor people frighten us, because poverty can be just around the corner

Rome (Agenzia Fides) – It is easy to judge a persons who holds out his hand begging for a coin, or the drunk who falls asleep on the pavement, of the drug addict who reels aimlessly here and there among the crowds. Poor people frighten us, because poverty can be just around the corner for any of us. Are we really convinced that these people choose to suffer? Poverty, immigrants shatter the dream of life. And what is happiness of not the sum of everyone's happiness? And who are we if not the more or the mess of those who come before or after the corner? Poverty is not thin, it is fat, it feeds on our indifference, on our incapacity to distinguish between charity and handouts. (Luca De Mata) (television programme trailer “La valigia con lo spago”: a series of 4 programmes: an investigation into migratory flows and new slavery in the world: Rai Uno beginning 29 June, 2nd evening feature). (Agenzia Fides 8/7/2009; righe 10, parole 168)