that night of March a decade ago ....
Angelo Pisoni
night between 17 and 18 March 2000. A fire broke out in the center of wood, but none of the citizens Legnanesi gets involved. The flames spread in an industrial wasteland and most central, the area of \u200b\u200bcanton. The result of the tragic fire is five deaths. Three adults and two children. Five ghosts "forgotten" in this for years to be the symbol of the indifference of the city. Five people, five Macedonians came from afar to try to escape from a nation in decay, to search for a condition of life.
is a Saturday morning. The news was picked up by radio stations, local newspapers, even those national and RAI. But as there are people that live in the area? Who am I?
On Sunday morning, someone enters nell'exfabbrica. In the afternoon about fifty people out to demonstrate in the streets. It is the first time that the "no name" are presented to the city. Are Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians. There are no Macedonians shocked and frightened by what happened.
But it is only the beginning of the story of the "cantons". L 'Hotel Misery "in Legnano.
Inside the buildings of Piazza IV Novembre beats a humanity composed mainly of Tunisians arrived in Legnano who knows how to find work. Regular and irregular living were once the machinery of a factory historical Legnanesi. For the city until the morning of March do not exist. Suddenly come to life and make themselves heard. A march of four people traveling in the months after the city's streets under the astonished eyes of the few Legnanesi remained in the city in a hot Sunday afternoon. It ends in a party at Castle Park.
Other parades will follow in the months and years to come. Meetings in the open or closed with the authorities Palace Malinverni premises. A city council opened for the first time where "foreigners" speak with great fear, before the Mayor.
What demand? One thing about it all: a home.
not want to live in the factory where when it rains, water washes the mattresses, not enough even when it's cold quilts donated by someone, when you eat, the company is more cheerful that of rats Olona.
For years overlap promises, meetings, discussions. Time passes and all remains as before. Nor is it an organized evacuation from above. Everything remains the "cantons". You get little things, but the casbah Legnano remains. Some complain, but what hurts the most is the indifference of many, indeed of many.
Until one morning the 'Hotel Misery "falls under the blows of the bulldozers. Years of life spent there, scattered in the dust of the rubble.
Ten years have passed. Cantoni is a shopping mall. The inhabitants then were gradually "spread" on the ground. Many have changed, life has changed them. Those ghost-workers, the foremen recruited at five in the morning, have evaporated, but in those who lived with them "cantons" is left an empty feeling and why no, of helplessness.
Many hours of social work to get to the "security decree" in recent months.
But that's another story.
This piece was present on the old site to fetch wood, (farelegnano.net) and remembered what happened at Legnano in 2000. Today, without any polemical spirit because if the ripubblichiamo tonight and rightly celebrated in our city also a testimony of what happened is not to forget.
