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5 10 15 20 25 30 35 25 “But the people that you don’t know and just meet where you live don’t have the same effect on you. Don’t you believe that the rumours about that place and those people have influenced you a bit?” Jensika smiled. Everybody was in the park, including Mario. Jensika wanted to hug him tightly and make him understand that, as long as they were together, he didn’t have to fear anything, not even the charge of robbery, but she restrained herself and just said hello and that she was sorry about the rumours. “Who cares?” Mario said. “If I listened to all the stupid things they usually say I’d be consumed with rage. I don’t give a damn.” “Indeed,” Mariella said, “those people don’t know what tolerance means.” “Tolerance?” Mario laughed. “I don’t want to be tolerated.” “Mario, what do you mean?” Mimmo didn’t understand. “Tolerance is the basis of civil life. For example, it is tolerance towards different religions or cultures that makes us live in peace and allows us to study in the same school with Rahma and Jensika. It makes us know cultures different from ours.” “Yes, but this is not the point. First of all, we aren’t living in peace today, and it doesn’t seem to me that the Islamic religion is tolerated...” “That’s right,” Rahma interrupted him. “Yesterday in class we read the newspaper article on that boy who died in Syria. He was Italian but had decided to convert to Islam and, for this reason, was investigated by the Italian political police. Why should the police be interested in a person only because he converted to Islam?” “Because of the whole September 11th incident,” Mimmo affirmed. “Ok, but if you convert to Islam, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a terrorist! I’m Islamic, ok, even if I’ve decided not to wear the veil and all the rest, but that is my religion, so am I a terrorist too?” “This is the same mentality that affirms that all Roma people are thieves,” Mariella said. “For this reason, I insist that we all should learn to be tolerant,” Mimmo claimed.