There are moments when a public debate stops being a debate. What happened to Richard Gere in recent days is, in my opinion, one of those moments.
In a video made in support of ActionAid, Gere spoke about migration, human dignity and the need to protect the rights of people forced to leave their countries. He also directly referred to Italy and the so-called “Albania model”, warning that policies based on detention, deportation and the externalisation of migration control risk turning human beings into numbers rather than people.
His final message was simple: “We are all migrants. Let us defend our common humanity while there is still time.”
One can agree or disagree with a political position, that is completely legitimate. Governments can and must be criticised and Richard Gere, like anyone else, can certainly be criticised for his opinions. But what I find deeply disturbing is something different: the personal attack.
After his intervention, harsh reactions appeared online, including insults directed at Gere himself. Matteo Salvini also responded publicly, telling the actor to “do his job as an actor” and not give Italians “unsolicited lessons.”
And this is where, for me, the discussion takes a wrong turn.
You can challenge Richard Gere’s ideas. You can defend the Italian government’s immigration policy. You can disagree with ActionAid. You can argue that the Albania agreement is necessary or effective. But none of this requires humiliating the person expressing a different opinion.
Criticism of an idea is legitimate. Contempt for a human being is something else.
And there is another element that makes this particular attack difficult for me to understand. Richard Gere has spent years using his public visibility to speak about humanitarian issues. His involvement with organisations assisting migrants is not something he suddenly invented yesterday. He has previously supported rescue efforts in the Mediterranean and has repeatedly spoken about human dignity and human rights.
That does not make him infallible. It simply means that, before reducing him to the caricature of a “rich Hollywood actor who knows nothing about real life,” perhaps we should at least listen to what he is actually saying. And what he is saying is not particularly complicated: a person does not stop being a human being because he crosses a border.
I write because I have followed this man for years, and one of the qualities I have always admired in him is precisely his willingness to use his voice for causes he believes in—even when doing so makes him unpopular. And I will never understand why disagreement must automatically become hatred. Attack the argument if you believe it is wrong. Question the facts. Challenge the position, but leave the person alone. Because once we lose the ability to disagree without destroying each other, the real problem is no longer migration, politics or Richard Gere.
It is us. And perhaps that is exactly why his final words deserve to be remembered: we are all migrants. We are all human beings.
