TARANTO. “Ah, so you’re the boss here?” The story of Imad Dalil can be summed up entirely in this question mixed with amazement. Of those who cross the gates of the Taranto hotspot and certainly find it hard to believe that, to direct it, it is precisely those who were once a migrant like him. And here the disbelief becomes sharing, while the welcome gains a small step towards integration within this structure – among the four present throughout the national territory – created to identify those arriving in Italy. «When I introduce myself and speak in Arabic, the amazement is great – says Imad – and in their eyes I read the pride and hope in seeing a fellow countryman fill a prestigious role. And then they think that yes, they too can do it ».
Thirty-six years old, he arrived in Italy from Morocco thanks to a family reunion. His father had landed in Lampedusa as an irregular, in the early 1980s. Then he managed to get an employment contract. “At that point my mom and I joined him in Abruzzo. I was 4 years old. Before that I had only seen him a couple of times, when he came back to us with a tourist visa ». He left his uncles and cousins to Fquih Ben Salah, while the other two brothers were born in Italy. «I had Italian citizenship in 2013. I have dual nationality, but my blood is always Moroccan. Whenever I happen to talk to these guys, I think I could have been in their place. ” A story in reverse. “I bear my testimony by saying not to throw yourself into hiding or into the underworld.”
First a migrant, then a mediator, finally the director of a hotspot for a few months. An exceptional fact. He worked in all the reception facilities: Sprar, Cara, deportation centers, communities of minors. In 2010 also an experience in the Eboli slum as a volunteer. “I went there after the death of a laborer: I was young and that situation, emotionally, struck me a lot. We are talking about a ghetto that was like a village made up entirely of shacks: there was a barber, a grocery shop. And, in parallel, fires, prostitution, deaths in the fields. 90% was made up of Moroccans who worked in agriculture. Seeing my compatriots in that context was very hard ».
Imad graduated in Linguistic Mediation in L’Aquila. An added value is the knowledge of Italian, Arabic, English, French and Spanish. Then came the transfer to Puglia with the commitment in the tent city of Manduria during the revolution of the Arab springs of 2011. «The most beautiful working period from a humanitarian point of view. The first phase was the reception from Tunisia with young people who ran away in search of freedom and rights. Then they also arrived from other countries and there was no longer a distinction between men, women and families ». The thought of those days is still alive. “We saw these parents act as a barrier of defense to their children. Both during the journey and once you arrive. It’s something that has always stuck with me and they passed it on to me when I became a father. When it comes to immigration, for public opinion the difficulty is to embark and cross the Mediterranean. But no one thinks of the hell that happens before, of how many deaths there are when walking in the desert ». A neglected piece of travel of this humanity that tries to bring its children to safety. First them, then you. «In Libya we are still talking about slaves sold for 400 dollars and, if less, for 650. I have known a lot of them. When the landowner needs labor, he goes to prisons, settles the price and takes these people who become his property. Many manage to escape, others cannot. ” Imad feels lucky: he knows that what he is today, in large part, he owes his parents. And so, when after two years of working at the hotspot, he became its director, his first thoughts went to his father. «He was a shepherd of sheep and with a very low salary he made three children study. If I did it, it’s thanks to my family. That’s what they dreamed of for me and I for myself. “
In recent years, as a mediator and interpreter, he has been able to closely touch what really happens in the reception facilities. Many guests opened up with him, they told him about their life before the boats. But the most touching encounter was with a Syrian householder. “Four daughters, one 10-year-old invalid. He could not walk and had to take it to eat. I always have in my head the image of this man with her on his shoulders wrapped in a sheet, crossing Turkey, then Greece and arriving in Italy. He managed to keep her alive and also get the others and his wife to safety. For me he is a hero “. Today, as a father, that story has a particular value. He is married to an Italian woman and has two children who have double names: Beatrice Leila is five and Lorenzo, Mohamed like his grandfather, has two. In the heart of Imad, the two souls are perfectly integrated. “Even if I’m too Moroccan to be Italian and too Italian to be Moroccan.” At the parents’ home, people still live “in the Arab way”, following their values and culture. “In our country there is an African saying according to which a log of wood put in water for 40 years will never become a crocodile. Here, this explains the strong attachment to my origins ».