For an authentic Spring of the spirit.
21 March. Spring arrives with all the magic of nature that awakens after the long winter hibernation. We hoped that after two years under the hateful yoke of the Covid - 19 virus we could once again "breathe" life deeply. Someone, however, has seen fit to unleash a war one step away from us. March 21 is celebrated the World Day of People with Down Syndrome, WDSD - World Down Syndrome Day, an appointment strongly desired by Down Syndrome International and moreover officially sanctioned by a UN resolution. Everything was born with the precise intention of being able to offer greater knowledge and awareness, to try to give life to a new culture concerning all aspects of the so-called "diversity".
March 21. Knowing in order not to make mistakes
Knowledge, respect, inclusion, are the three necessary, primary and indispensable steps to bring about a real Copernican revolution in us. But why on March 21st? The choice regarding the first day of spring can be understood almost as a hope, that is to say that of a profound and sincere awakening of consciences regarding this sensitive issue. The choice of number 21 on the other hand, it is linked to the fact that Down syndrome is also called Trisomy 21, as it is characterized by the presence of an extra chromosome, three instead of two, in the chromosome pair # 21 inside the cells.
For this reason, saying or, even worse, writing, that people are "affected" by Down syndrome is a serious mistake, since it is not a disease which, as such, could be cured in order to then heal the patient, but of a genetic condition that will accompany the person throughout his life. Knowledge precisely, because in the absence of this, only gross errors and harmful prejudices arise and develop.
How much do we need them ...
Perhaps never, as at this moment, do we need people with Down syndrome. We need more than ever to have them next to us, because we need their sensitivity, their smiles, their inexhaustible will to live. In the current darkness that surrounds us, created exclusively by normality and its best representatives, diving into this wonderful diversity can become something extremely constructive. Paraphrasing a wonderful song by Giorgio gaber in which the great singer-songwriter wondered: What is the right, what is the left, one would wonder what is normalcy? Normality is simply welcoming diversity, in its most diverse forms, into our daily life.
21 March. Against any type of wall
Today, more than ever, where we return to talk about walls, real or virtual, which are erected to reject everything alien, different from our everyday life and the rites that distinguish it, to include it becomes not "a verb" but the most important "verb" of our present. Only by understanding that diversity is a wonderful opportunity for growth can we hope for better days than these and those that preceded them. And finally, hope for a real springtime of the spirit for all of us. March 21 must be above all this.
