JULY 2015 – THE FOGOLÂR CIVIC’S REFLECTIONS

AS A LIVING STATUE OF LIBERTY

(This letter was sent us from England by Francesco Nicolettis, a young member of Fogolâr Civic e Academie dal Friûl)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
(Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, 1883)

“I’ve introduced this letter with a poem that you can found onto the basement of the Statue of Liberty in the Hudson Bay. Way? Because I think that in this poem it’s laying the very soul of the American dream. This is the idea that had pushed the American fathers to wrote down the Declaration of Independence, the idea that ha bring thirteen small colonies to rise against the mighty British Empire. A promise of a land where you can have fresh start, a land of opportunity for everybody, a land where find refuge. Rhetorical? Naïve? Yes, it is and I’m aware that this imagine of America is far away from the reality, but America has been for many years a place where Europeans, refused by their own countries, has had the opportunity to a second shot, a second chance to improve their life and to accomplish their dreams. Afer allo, for many people, America is still a beacon of liberty and opportunity, a safe place where seek refuge from the ruthlessness of this world. The Founding Fathers Idea was that of a Republic where everybody will be free to live and prosper, a Republic ruled by the people and for the people, and in part, this hope, this willing, is come true, making the United States the oldest uninterrupted Democracy on the earth! But, well before the born of this nation, someboy else in a small country in the middle of Europe had tried to set up something similar, had tried to give to the people of Friuli prosperity, opportunity and freedom, had tried to make them proud to be Friulian and he’d spared no energies to defend this idea of country from the threats abroad and inside the country. He defended the Friulians from the arrogance of the local aristocracy, he rose in defense of the poorest and humbles, as a living Statue of Liberty. So, as you can see, today, the fourth of July is not just an American holiday, but also a Wold holiday, a day when celebrate the rights of all the human beings to be free and happy, a day for celebrate those who, in the past and in the present, still defending the poorest of the world from the arrogance of the mighty, give them a shield under which they can refuge and give them the opportunity of redemption, the opportunity to be indipendent! The fourth of July is booth: the Independence Day for the United States and it’s been the start for a new era for the Friulian country with the nomination of Bertram as its patriarch. God bless the United States of America ‘e che Diu al benedissi il Friûl e il Beât Beltram’!”.

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