Italian Mayor of Riace in the Calabria region is 40th in Fortune magazine’s ranking of the world’s 50 greatest leaders for his work in rejuvenating the once-dwindling town by recognising the potential of immigrants in a way that could prove a model amid Europe’s refugee crisis.
Domenico (Mimmo) Lucano was the only Italian on the list and he is well known for having welcomed thousands of refugees to the Calabrian town, previously only famous for the two male bronzes that were fished out of the sea in 1972 and are celebrated as supreme achievements in Greek art as the Riace Bronzes.
Here how the relevant magazine explained the choice: “”For decades emigration drained life from Riace, a village of 2,000 on the Calabrian coast. When a boatload of Kurdish refugees reached its shores in 1998, Lucano, then a schoolteacher, saw an opportunity. He offered them Riace’s abandoned apartments along with job training. Eighteen years on, Mayor Lucano is hailed for saving the town, whose population now includes migrants from 20-some nations, and rejuvenating its economy. (Riace has hosted more than 6,000 asylum seekers in all.) Though his pro-refugee stance has pitted him against the mafia and the state, Lucano’s model is being studied and adopted as Europe’s refugee crisis crests.
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