The International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade was celebrated on March 25, dedicated to honoring and remembering those who suffered these terrible circumstances, and to raising awareness of the dangers of racism and prejudice today. This date has been celebrated since 2008, and was chosen by the United Nations Assembly to remember that on March 25, 1807, the Slave Trade Abolition Act was passed in the United Kingdom.
. Isabel Miguélez shares today her reflections on this issue, inspired by her participation in the V Talitha Kum Leaders Training Course, organized in Lima, Peru, by the Kawsay network, between March 23 and 30. This edition of the training gives continuity to the initiative that was born in 2018, with the first Talitha Kum training course in Rome to train network leaders.
It is not easy to talk about racism today, because it is a complex phenomenon that includes not only the difference in color, but other forms of prejudice and discrimination of people based on cultural differences, race, ethnicity, gender, place of origin, religion and even genetics, resulting in social exclusion in the contexts where they live.
With current migrations, both from one country to another and within the same, xenophobia and racism become much more complicated, as a multitude of elements are manifested in this reality that go beyond the color of the skin or different origin.
A few days ago I participated in an international meeting where we met 27 different nationalities. Different languages, from 4 continents, different races and colors and, of course, different ways of living. With a single objective: to work and establish international networks for the eradication of human trafficking in every space and place. A difficult mission, but we are sure that, with the union of small efforts, great goals can be achieved.
Those of African and Asian origin stepping for the first time on a continent that received them as “slaves”, how many questions, how many mixed feelings, how much deep pain, unexpressed, but present there.
With some of them I was able to talk about it and tears welled up in their eyes, slipping silently in the course of the conversation. I wanted them to express themselves freely, but it was not possible; the fear and rage contained by their ancestors so hard hit, exploited, enslaved, massacred and torn away from their place and family did not allow them to do so.
This trampled rage and dignity can be felt and lived, when we are on their ground, in their places and spaces of security.
The testimony of Sr. Neide Lamperti, a Scalabrinian with more than 14 years in Africa, is key to understand today the slavery lived from a continent that has been so beaten, humiliated, exploited and enslaved.
As a religious family committed to justice, it is incumbent upon us to denounce everything that smacks of overt or covert discrimination, standing in solidarity with those who suffer disadvantages at any level. We are certain that solidarity is the only way out of this reality marked by a morality of racial prejudice and ethical animosity.
We are clear about this in our chapter documents and explicitly in “Born Again”:
“The care for life moves us to a deep desire for justice and fraternity that leads us to join the causes for the defense of the dignity of the person, encouraging his full and integral development.” – NdN 19
“We assume and understand the liberating dimension of the Charism as a challenge and a task shared by the whole Vedruna Family. From this perspective, we understand better the gift of embracing a new time to dream together with all humanity new spaces and new places where we live the Gospel logic of respect and reciprocal love.” – NdN 20
-There is no excuse for not being in the new spaces of exclusion and discrimination, if we truly feel that we are Joaquina’s daughters, who with love, tenacity and firm footing entered the peripheries of her time to respond to the love of Jesus that urged her to live it in the vulnerabilities that surrounded her.
I invite you to raise this beautiful prayer pronounced by John Paul II at the Jubilee of the year 2000:
“Lord God, our Father, you created human beings, male and female, in your image and likeness, and you willed the diversity of peoples within the unity of the human family. However, at times the equality of your sons and daughters has not been recognized, and Christians have been guilty of attitudes of rejection and exclusion, consenting to acts of discrimination based on racial and ethnic differences. Forgive us and grant us the grace to heal the wounds still present in your community because of sin, so that we may all feel that we are your children.”
L’Osservatore Romano English edition, March 22, 2000, p. 4.
Sr. Isabel Miguélez, ccv
