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Giuseppe Catozzella: Using literature to bridge different cultures
Courtesy of Italian Cultural Institute JakartaItalian writer Giuseppe Catozzella finds a beacon of hope in war-torn SomaliaItalian writer Giuseppe Catozzella, who in 2014 was nominated as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) goodwill ambassador for his literary work addressing the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea, said he was deeply concerned about racism that was “still very much alive” in the Western world today
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Courtesy of Italian Cultural Institute Jakarta
Italian writer Giuseppe Catozzella finds a beacon of hope in war-torn Somalia
Italian writer Giuseppe Catozzella, who in 2014 was nominated as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) goodwill ambassador for his literary work addressing the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea, said he was deeply concerned about racism that was “still very much alive” in the Western world today.
“Just look at the rise of so many xenophobic and fascist political parties in the European Union, as well as the ascent of United States President Donald Trump, with the erection of walls separating the US and Mexico,” Catozzella told The Jakarta Post in an interview on the sidelines of his appearance at the 2018 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) in Bali recently.
The writer has just visited Jakarta and Bali in late October courtesy of the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute Jakarta to mark the 18th edition of the global Italian Language Week celebration.
His stint in Jakarta included a visit to the University of Indonesia’s (UI) School of Humanities on Oct. 19 before he headed to Bali to become a panelist in this year’s edition of the UWRF in two discussion sessions on Cosmopolitan Creativity and Migration on Oct. 26 and 27, respectively.
Catozzella said he found it difficult to grasp racism, since if we looked at history, human beings had always been migrating across different places throughout the ages, an activity which had actually enriched our civilization through the cross-cultural exchanges that it promoted.
“Our modern civilization has been the result of an infinite chain of human movements across the continents,” he continued.
To Catozzella, 42, who has spent many years of his life studying how the Western world has constructed the world of “the Other”, portraying non-Westerners as not only different but also inferior to justify colonialism of non-Western societies, this issue hits close to home: his late grandfather fought in the Somali war during Italy’s occupation of the nation between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
He added that his way of thinking had been heavily influenced by Palestinian-American writer Edward Said’s monumental 1978 work Orientalism, as well as works by Italian author Primo Levi, a Jewish man who had survived the Auschwitz concentration camp in Southern Poland.
“I became interested in Somalia’s society and history, spending around six years to learn the country’s language and history, while studying the country’s current affairs, including the recent civil war and the rise of the Islamic Courts Union as well as jihadist movement,” he said.
“I had also visited the area of Lamu, located on the border of Somalia and Kenya, many times, spending time with locals, accompanied by a cultural mediator to immerse myself in the culture,” he continued.
As his learning process went on, he said he became increasingly fascinated to experience what it felt like to be seen as “the Other” — or a stranger in a stranger’s land — as a Westerner traveling in Somalia; to reverse positions with people whom Westerners usually marginalized, as we have seen in Europe’s immigration crisis.
His attempt to adapt as a Westerner in Somalia’s culturally different landscape reached its culmination in 2012, when he was having breakfast in a hotel room in the country while watching television, which broadcast a news story on Somalia’s achievement during the 2012 Olympics in London, the United Kingdom.
“The Somali Olympics committee head announced that the country did not win anything at the Olympics because they were still going through a civil war, but the committee head dedicated a quiet moment to honor the memory of a recently deceased Somali sprinter named Samia Omar,” he said.
Curious to know more about Omar, he did his research about the sprinter and discovered that Omar, who had competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, had died at the age of 21 in April 2012 when her ship, which was about to smuggle her out of Somalia to Europe, sank in the Mediterranean Sea.
Omar wanted to go to Italy, where she dreamed of finding some European coach who could help her fulfill her dream to become an Olympian.
She tried to escape her country because the political strife, lack of proper training facilities and the discrimination against women there hampered her aspiration to become a world champion (she failed to finish first in a 200-meter race in the 2008 Beijing Olympics for these reasons).
Catozzella became interested in Omar’s story and got in touch with The Guardian Northern Somalia correspondent Teresa Krug to research the late sprinter’s life.
This led him to eventually meet and talk to Omar’s surviving family members, who gave him documents and told him their recollections about her. He also spent time walking across the beach in Mogadishu where Omar used to train every day.
Catozzella’s research led to the birth of his 2014 novel Non dirmi che hai paura (Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid) translated into English by Anne Milano Appel and published by Penguin Random House.
The novel tells a story which, despite its heavy sociopolitical context, is not a political story at all. Rather, it is the story of a girl’s undying determination to attain her dreams of becoming a world class racer against all societal and political odds that hamper her attainment of these aspirations.
The novel has sold more than half a million copies in 40 countries. Catozzella has also earned Italy’s prestigious literary award the Premio Strega Giovani.
According to Catozzella, he has been greatly exhilarated by the uplifting response the book has garnered from so many readers around the world.
“A woman who was reading the book told me she had cancer and had been depressed upon the diagnosis of her illness. A friend gave her the book, she told me and on the evening she read [about Omar’s struggle] in the book, she regained her strength to go to the hospital and take care of herself because she had instantly decided to live,” he said.
He said that people around the world actually could take some inspiration from Somalians who lived happy and resilient lives despite all the conflicts and limitations they had to face.
“We, middle-class Westerners, often complain about what we don’t have; oftentimes we are not able to appreciate what life is and what we have,” he lamented.
