2024-04-17 16:10:07
(ANSA) – ROME, APRIL 16 – “I have been on boats and personally met many refugees and migrants; I had the opportunity to listen to their stories and I think it is very difficult not to see in them human beings equal to us. I would ask, and I would hope , that those with government responsibilities spent some time with them, understood the situation and did not demonize them”. Richard Gere says this in an exclusive interview with Vanity Fair where he talks about the importance of human sustainability and his commitment to social causes in favor of the most fragile people who live in poverty or in countries at war. “Obviously – he clarifies – we have the same problem in the United States, with deranged people like Trump who seem to hate everyone who is not white and culturally aligned with him, but that’s not how the world works.” According to Gere, it is “our responsibility to take care of each other: it costs more energy not to help than to help. Our sense of security, our happiness and our success must be universal: we are all in this together.” With his wife Alejandra Silva at his side – he met in 2014 in Italy and with whom he shares activism and interests – the actor, increasingly distant from the Hollywood spotlight but always on the front line of civil battles, returns to talk about the clash that occurred in 2019 with the then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini who had refused to welcome a boat with 147 migrants on board blocked off the coast of Lampedusa: “For me it is very difficult to understand a far-right conservative movement, especially in a country which is purely Christian. In those hours I couldn’t stop wondering what Christ would have done in such a situation, and the fact is that Christ welcomed everyone as children of God, everyone. He would have said: ‘Only save the white people, those Italian or Christian ones’. It seems quite ridiculous to me.” His wife Alejandra recalls the incident: “By pure chance when we heard the news we were in Italy, and he told me: ‘I have to do something.’ We had just met the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to try to do something for her. understand the gravity of the issue, and Richard was able to speak to Pedro Sánchez from the boat to ask him for help when welcoming all those people. I think it was one of the most emotional moments at his side.” The complete interview is available in the issue of Vanity Fair on newsstands from 17 April and on the website vanityfair.it. (HANDLE).
2024-04-17 16:10:07