Inequalities and social injustices: this is what is being done in the territories according to the new report of the Network of Even Numbers

ROME – Where the vacuum of politics resounds, public intervention is lacking and cultural initiatives falter, it is the territories that develop new forms of coexistence and support based on solidarity and reciprocity: this is highlighted by a joint research by the Network of Even Numbersof the Inequalities and Diversity Forum he was born in Gran Sasso Science Institute. The report has an evocative title and a clear intention: to shed light on the economic and social experiments based on mutual support, widely practiced in the territories and within communities, but almost completely ignored by the institutions. The survey involved ninety-one realities divided by geographical area: North, Center with Sardinia, South, Sicily and Rome. The case of the South is emblematic, where many organizations act in the anti-mafia field by raising awareness but also offering services and therefore occupying spaces that would otherwise be at risk of mafia infiltration.

Three cases. Three different kinds of mutual aid interventions emerge from the report: organizations that tend to satisfy the basic needs of the person; experiments created for an ad hoc purpose and finally realities that operate continuously in order to propose a new social model. And this is because – underlines Fabrizio Barca, coordinator of the Inequality and Diversity Forum – the changes underway caused first by the economic crisis, by the climate crisis, then by the pandemic and now also by the war, can no longer be tackled with the development model current economic and productive, which is unsustainable.

Mutualism. In all the realities that have activated new forms of mutual organisation, there has not only been a crisis in public intervention, but also a substantial lack of answers. The latest dossier of Caritas certifies in Italy the presence of 5.6 million people living in absolute poverty. Of these, 13.6 percent are minors. Between the poor by inheritance and the new poor who are being weighed down by rising bills and food, the situation will worsen in the coming months if there is no adequate response. The local support networks also intervene to support these situations, alongside the public welfare and sometimes even replacing it.

Capitalism and welfare. A second aspect, which usually remains unnoticed, but which instead is useful to understand the crisis that the territories are experiencing and to understand the trends of the future, is that a part of modern capitalism is trying in every way to fill the void of policies public. For example, the decision by Unipol Sai to purchase the polyclinic system of the Sant’Agostino medical center dates back to October, with the aim of providing over one million new services by 2024, including in the field of health and corporate welfare.

Towards ecological justice. The research has opened a reflection on rights and inequalities, on social injustices, as Don Ciotti defines them. On the gap between the ruling class and the needs of citizens. But it also gives administrators an opportunity to innovate and the legislator ideas to implement a new generation of rights. “We live in a historical moment in which we cannot redistribute resources because half of the injustices on earth have an environmental matrix” said Giuseppe De Marzo, economist, activist and coordinator of the Even Number Network, during a public presentation of the report. There is therefore a correlation between the concept of citizenship and environmental conflicts, because this economic and productive model works to generate social exclusion, creating what Africans define as “low-intensity citizenship”. We should start talking about ecological justice instead of environmental justice and have the courage to recognize equal rights for all living beings, including the so-called rights of nature in the constitutions.