“Nice picture! Beautiful shades of sand. If you had an identity now (quoting Aime’s article) it would be sand! Good day”
AND Clelia to send this message by mail after having browsed the article sent to her by her friend Marco Aime centered precisely on identity and ‘roots’. And it’s true, along the way (that is, the road that gets inside you and works on you), the Western identity monolith of roots has gradually turned into sand. Mobile and immobile on the sides of the roads and between the banks of the Sahara/Sahel, where, as is known, history is made with the feet, which are the first interlocutors of the sand. And that’s how it is the identity it gets contaminated by sand and wind.
The general management and the entire staff of moov africa niger wishes you a happy aid el fitr day, this sms was sent to Niamey on April 21, 2023 at 9.11 am to the users of the named telephone company. There is no traffic this morning in the city because the celebration of the conclusion of the holy month of Islam, Ramadan, the name of the ninth month of the Muslim calendar which means ‘burning heat’ is being celebrated. Nothing more true given that in these days the temperatures have been around 42 and 43 degrees centigrade in the shade when there is and that, in the capital, 44 degrees are expected for the weekend. Help the Fitr it means that fasting is over and that, after prayer and the profession of faith, the feast begins which in some parts lasts three days. This is followed by almsgiving to the poor, cordial greetings to brothers in the faith, gifts and festive clothing.
During the month of Ramadan, after evening prayers, food was distributed to the poor at the mosques. Many homeless, internally displaced and needy migrants have profited from this particular form of ritual solidarity. They are the best representatives, perhaps without knowing it or wanting it, of these mentioned sand identities. Abandoned their country of origin because, often, abandoned by them, they remake other and multiple migrant identities. They are then defined irregular and in the past they were simply clandestine because they were unwilling to entrust our common sand identity to printed documents.
They are in fact thousands migrants ‘covered up’ in Niger at the border with Algeria that arrests, robs and ‘exports’ them to the border as if being human persons no longer counted for anything. But also elsewhere they are now installed in the offices of the International Organization for Migration and in the numerous bus stations. The latter offer the accommodation for a few days and the minimum services of water and sanitation, on the condition of being as invisible as possible. And this is how, gradually, our identity is modeled on situations, interlocutors and the unpredictable seasons of life. Sand, like identity, is nothing but dust.
From here the Europe dreamed of by many migrants appears even closer and further away together, just like a mirage which, as it approaches, recedes further and further away. A giant with feet of clay how hard it is to stand up. Incapable of offering any semblance of identity other than the aged face of walls, controls and coercive measures to reduce everything to numbers and statistics. What happens on this side of the world with migrants is none other than ‘side effects’ of European policies for the management of migratory movements. Continuing to pay Tunisian, Libyan or Moroccan coastguards only makes the sea even more deadly. Borders, detention camps and reasons for migrating are externalized elsewhere.
We will not save ourselves anywhere because “coexistence precedes existence” and, as he remembered Paulo Freire, only there is salvation in the communion between needy and beggars. Here our identities have been remodeled with the sand that has given us a face, a story and perhaps even a destiny. Sands of the world, unite!
Niamey, April 21st