ACTIVITY PROGRAMME FOR A YOUTH EXCHANGE DEF.doc (173568)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Y-2fFPPXk
The eternal theme of the Stranger has always fascinated mankind, provoking mystery, curiosity, sometimes fear, taboo, or at least distrust.
Inevitably, the Stranger theme is related to the Trip theme: when you are a stranger, you come from somewhere, from a place more or less known; you travel for various reasons, that sometimes may be pleasant discovery and adventure, other times unpleasant reasons required by more or less existential needs.
Ulysses, the foreign traveler par excellence, has passed through the millennia of world literature, sometimes forced by events and the vicissitudes (Homer), others by curiosity and morbid desire to know (Dante). Ulysses is the stranger who comes in contact with foreigners, which still absorbs experiences, knowledge and values. Like him, there are other characters, from past and present, from real and fantastic: Aeneas, Medea, Gulliver, Alice ...
The choice of the Organizing Committee of this year fell on a subject for many aspects still relevant; the phrase "My Name Is Nobody" that you can read in the Odyssey when Ulysses meets Polyphemus, cunningly pronounced by the first one to escape from the Cyclop monster and his fellow, takes on a very different meaning, thanks to the subtitle, which straightens the shot and makes it universal "you are always Foreigner for someone."
But who is the real Stranger today? The Stanger is that other man, different from us, with different culture, language, religion, tradition. That man is the immigrant, the refugee, with his problems, his suffering, his more or less forced departure from their land of origin, but with its important wealth of experience, knowledge and values.
What are the Stranger expectations? The hospitality, the interaction / integration / inclusion; the mutual knowledge to become a bit less foreign to each other.
What can we offer him? Piety, hypocritical forbearance, or a warm welcome?
We could read this topic through Pirandello’s eyes in the novel One, No One and One Hundred Thousand.
An unexpected discovery upset Vitangelo Moscarda, the principal character of the novel by Pirandello, which is overwhelmed by a deep existential crisis: he has always believed to be "one man" when in fact he is "one hundred thousand men" since each person attributes him a different form. Realizing that, come to he discovers that in facts he is "nobody". We like to contrast this dramatic vision of the human being with the idea of a journey within himself, with a path of knowledge of yourself to feel less alien, to strengthen your identity and positively address the relationship with the other.
Interesting and compelling topic, very deep, with significant philosophical implications that this year, we can also deal with the right light, positive existence of sharing, of mutual enrichment through mutual self-giving to the other.
