Lampedusa...the bewildered island whose reputation and plight were made by immigrants

Lampedusa is little more than a protrusion of land jutting into the Mediterranean Sea a few kilometers long.

As you approach the island, you cannot expel from your imagination all the tragedies of irregular migration and those corpses or their remains that you saw being returned by the waves to the shores of the south. You remember the faces of the miserable people you saw suffering in what have become like camps on the outskirts of the Tunisian city of Sfax, waiting for the opportunity. They beg for luck, smugglers, brokers, and the negligence of the Tunisian Coast Guard.

From your position, you try to guess the amount of joy these people feel when Lampedusa waves to them from afar, and they have barely survived a deadly journey departing from the shores of Tunisia, Libya, or Egypt, but you do not see with the eyes of the immigrant.

This island, which at various times was a refuge for pirates, an exile for dissidents and dangerous prisoners, and an advanced observatory during World War II, appears to you to be too small and simple for these people to go through all these hardships for.

It does not attract you with its greenery or tall buildings during the day or with its dim lights at night. In the end, it is just a turning point in the paths of global migration, summarizing the sins of the world, its contradictions, and its walls that are gradually rising.

The "Door to Europe" monument on the island of Lampedusa, designed by Italian sculptor Mimmo Palladino (Al Jazeera)

The door of hope and adversity

In their long exile from the depths of Africa, the immigrants only seek a first focal point in the European North. They are not preoccupied with the history of Lampedusa or what it looks like, and they do not think about the luxury of embracing the statue of Umberto Eco in Verona, or to take shade from the landmarks of Venice, Rome, and Florence. They are not fascinated by the works of Alberto. Moravian, Dante Allegri or Italian Renaissance artists.

Lampedusa and all of Italy are for them only the supposed salvation from misery, deprivation and oppression for a while.

This is how the famous Italian plastic artist and sculptor Memo Palladino, in turn, approached the island to build on its outskirts in 2008 a huge monument that became one of its landmarks. He called it “The Door to Europe,” rising 5 meters long and 3 meters wide. He designed it facing south and reflecting the light of the sun and moon to be the first thing those who were granted access would see. To this island.

The giant monument commemorates those who perished on their arduous journey to Lampedusa, and symbolizes those whose lives ended or whose dreams were broken by the waves of the Mediterranean. Over time, the monument lost its brilliance and was not subject to maintenance, but its door remained open, as “the moment of new birth and another chapter in their lives and the possibility of salvation.” Of everything they have to leave behind,” says Palladino, who became one of the leaders of the Expressionist school in Italy.

Figures from the International Organization for Migration indicate that about 2,500 people died or disappeared during the journey crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in 2023, including 1,313 migrants on the Tunisian coast, whose main destination was the island of Lampedusa, an increase of 75% compared to 2022.

On the other side of the Mediterranean, in the Tunisian city of Zarzis - one of the main transit points - the Algerian artist Rachid Koraichi built the “Africa Garden” cemetery, for all those who did not know their way to salvation and left the world after the waves of the Mediterranean returned them as forgotten corpses, and a man called “Africa” is also struggling. Shams al-Din Marzouk to bury the bodies of those who were washed away by the sea in the “Cemetery of Strangers.”

Between the tombs of Zarzis, the depths of the Mediterranean, and the soaring “Gate of Europe” in Lampedusa lies misfortune.

Source: Al Jazeera