Today we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the priest of Barbiana. His teaching also inspired two PIME missionaries, Father Gianni Criveller and Father Franco Mella, who promoted the translation of two of his texts into Chinese: «The theme of non-violence and the primacy of conscience have strongly challenged us even in a context like the one in Hong Kong»
Don Lorenzo Milani also speaks Chinese. And he does it thanks to two PIME missionaries who translated it into Mandarin in the belief that his message was still of great interest and relevance even today in the context of Hong Kong in which they have lived for many years
«The theme of non-violence and the primacy of conscience over unjust laws contained in the famous Letter to the judges they had strongly questioned us. And in fact that intuition had been somewhat prophetic given the progressive degradation of democratic guarantees and human rights which has led Hong Kong to experience a very critical situation today”. The speaker is Father Gianni Criveller, a PIME missionary, who lived in Taiwan and Hong Kong for 27 years. Together with his confrere Franco Mella and some operators of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Asian megalopolis, he promoted the translation of this and other texts by Don Milano into Chinese.
The publication of the Letter to the judgesin fact, follows another editorial initiative dedicated to Don Milani, namely the translation of Letter to a teacher, which decades later continues to maintain great relevance.
The idea was born within the University for the right of residence (Right of Abode University), a voluntary school, promoted in 2000 by Father Mella in the midst of the civil battle for the protection of children born in China of Hong Kong residents, who were not granted family reunification and therefore could not attend school or work . Father Mella had experimented with these young people the Milanese method of collective writing. And in 2004, they had sent a letter to the director of the Hong Kong Immigration Department to claim their denied rights.
And it was some of these students who translated Letter to a teacher, published by the publisher Step Forward Multimedia and released in September 2005 in Hong Kong bookstores. The volume has also included some fact sheets on the figure of Don Milani in order to make the profile and message of the prior of Barbiana more accessible to Chinese readers.
Also the content of the other text translated into Chinese Obedience is no longer a virtue – containing two letters from Don Milani dated 1965 on the subject of conscientious objection: the first to a group of military chaplains, which earned him a complaint; the second, the famous Letter to the judges that represents his self-defense – they also have significant resonance in Hong Kong and China, where many laws suppress basic human rights.
«Another topical reason – explains Father Criveller – concerns Milan’s severe criticism of the notion of patriotism and nationalism. With the end of the communist ideology (but not the communist regime), the government of China exploits the theme of patriotism to legitimize its power. The ambiguous shadow of “patriotism” has also stretched over Hong Kong, but this means total submission to the government. A position that has been exacerbated with the introduction of the National Security Law in July 2020 which led to a very harsh crackdown and imprisonment of hundreds of people accused of secession, sedition and subversion against the People’s Republic of China, and alleged conspiracy in collusion with foreign entities. (from Scarp de’ Tenis, February 2023)