Migrations and Intolerance

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• Umberto Eco

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Today, after the XIX. century of full immigrants, we face phenomena that we cannot define with certainty. Today, in a climate of high mobility - it is very difficult to say whether some phenomena are immigrant or migrant. Certainly there is one unstoppable flow of movement from south to north (Africans or Middle Eastern nations to Europe), Indians from India have flooded Africa and the Pacific Islands, the Chinese are everywhere, and the Japanese are present with their industrial and economic organizations even when they don't move massively physically.
Is it already possible to distinguish immigration from migration when the entire planet becomes a territory of intertwined relocations? I think it is possible: as I said, immigration can be politically controlled, but not migration; it is like a natural phenomena. As long as there is immigration, nations can hope to keep the immigrants in the ghetto, not to interfere with the natives. When migrations occur, the ghetto is gone, and the mixing escapes control.
Umberto Eco

Migration and Intolerance is a small collection of Umberto Eco's writings and speeches. Some of these inscriptions date from more than twenty years ago, which is clear from the first line. But they urge us, with still valid and effective reasoning, to reflect on current and urgent topics today. They were chosen because of their importance when it comes to topics of migration and intolerance, on which Europe must confront its own history and values. These are inscriptions that make us act using our head, not our stomach.

Fundamentalism, integralism, pseudoscientific racism are theoretical positions that assume a single doctrine. Intolerance occurs before any doctrine. In this sense, intolerance has biological roots, manifests itself as territoriality among animals, based on emotional reactions, often superficial - we do not stand those who are different from us because they have a different skin color, because they speak a language we do not understand, because they eat frogs. dogs, monkeys, pigs, garlic, because they get tattooed ...

* * *

The most dangerous intolerance is precisely that which arises in the absence of any doctrine, as the fruit of elemental urges. It cannot, therefore, be criticized and kept in check by rational arguments.

* * *

Intellectuals cannot fight wild intolerance because thought is disarmed in the face of pure animality without meaning. But it is too late to fight doctrinal intolerance, because when intolerance grows into doctrine it is too late to defeat it, and those who would have to do so become its first victims.

• ISBN: 987-953-8075-69-8
• Dimensions: 125x200 mm
• Number of pages: 72
• Cover: paperback
• Year of the edition: 2020
• Original title: Migrazioni e Intolleranza
• Original language: Italian
• Translation: Damir Grubiša