"The other voice of IBIS" - History of a research project

06/12/14

Ever since I was little my parents have taught me that there are always two parts of a story, one told by the vanquished and the other told by the winners and so that an event can be rebuilt it is necessary to listen to all the parties involved even if what we feel we don't like it.

The 1992 Italian mission in Somalia is no exception to this rule: it has two stories to tell, one of them is uncomfortable but I listened to it anyway. Two years ago, in fact, I decided that the time had come to give a voice even to those who were on the other side of the IBIS, that is, it was necessary to give voice to those with violence and racism had nothing to do with it. In a nutshell, I wanted to give a voice to those in Somalia who brought us hope.

So, I start my search on social networks, I subscribe to various groups that bring together Somali veterans of every weapon, grade and year of service. I leave a message on the bulletin board so that everyone reads, I look for stories about Somalia .. of any kind.

Within two days, I am overwhelmed by messages, phone calls and a decidedly unexpected affection.

I find men and fathers of families, far from those photos of little boys in their twenties who served in Somalia, and I discover that they are ordinary people, some with a job and some not, who live everyday life like all of us but are pervaded by that mal of Africa that has not abandoned them for almost twenty-two years.

At the same time, I also find a certain mistrust, a fear of telling and being misunderstood, of seeing one's words manipulated to construct a fake reality, which they have not experienced.

I hear so many stories, hundreds, I see thousands of photos and those drag me into a dry land red to where the children have ebony complexion and smile with an emotional smile, in the arms of those soldiers who fall wide uniforms.

If children are the mirror of society then Somali society is not afraid of our army and of our soldiers - indeed, from the glow in their eyes we see an immense gratitude. "I wonder if they remember us?" so many ask me, almost all of them to tell the truth.

A truckman tells me about a child - perhaps not even five years old - overwhelmed by a pickup truck and left on the edge of the imperial road, while everyone passes undisturbed as if a scene like this were normal. 

They all pass with indifference, but our soldiers do not: they stop, they harness the legs that are almost detached from the body and take it to the nearest medical station. It will be saved.

The child does not speak and has no name, no one has reclaimed her for months and our soldiers and our Red Cross nurses adopt it for almost a year.

"Have not you seen her again?" - I ask.

"We don't even know if she is still alive, we left her in an orphanage of Italian nuns. You know what Somalia is like, it's not a country where you live long!"

A former parà tells me about a woman they tried to save from a rape at a check point: "An indescribable scene" - he tells me with a sigh - "we were at one of the numerous checkpoints to check that everything was in order, I don't know tell you how many men there were. An elderly man runs to meet us with a girl just over eleven, in an Italian almost better than mine (!) He tells us that they are fleeing because they want to torture and stone his daughter - the eleven year old - for having opposed the rape of a local squire.

Shocked, we decided to keep them with us at the check point and offered to act as mediators between them and the local squire. Anything. After more than half a day we had to go and go back to the base, they couldn't stay with us.

We thought everything was resolved and instead ... After a few meters from our eyes, almost from nowhere the first stone came to the side of the girl, then a second to the temple and so on ... Until the screams stopped while the earth around it was red. We fired a few shots but they were all well hidden, we were horrified and not a day passes that I do not regret leaving her alone. "

After every story I listen to there are always many silences, silences of those who thought they could do more, silences full of regrets, silences made of nostalgia.

Sometimes we also run away from tears, tears that have different meanings depending on the case.

Tears and silences are a bit of the summary of these twenty-two years in which Somalia has only told about the violence, the alleged racism and the re-enactment of a distant past.

Nobody in twenty-two years has thought of those who went to Somalia with a different intention to torment innocent poor and returned with a heart full of immense joy, the joy of saving a life and not asking for anything in return.

One of the first to call me was a bersagliere who, with a slightly moved voice, said to me: "Then send me some interviews? You know my son thinks I shot people in Somalia, I don't know how to change his mind."

Here, then, what has been done in twenty-two years, has told only a story leaving out what should have been the beautiful and generous part of a great Italian history.

We have muddied and mocked the work of thousands of soldiers who have saved men and improved lives and who, for two decades, bring in mind and heart the memory of a piece of Africa so dear to them.

After twenty years the time has come to read and tell the other voice of the IBIS.

Denise Serangelo