A country always equal to itself:
reflections taken from Giorgio Bocca
Starting from the archive of Giorgio Bocca's articles on the Espresso newspaper website, my aim is to identify guidelines for understanding our time with the hope of finding useful links to fully grasp the apparent mutability of this historical period. The acute and critical observation of the social life of Italians as a trait often present in Bocca's articles allows us to see the continuity existing with today's world where everything is difficult to understand. In an article entitled "The beautiful country where it is difficult to live" highlights how Italians are always asked to believe in the future especially by ecclesial hierarchies, which often complain about a lack of ethics in Italian society, the lack of good rules and good behaviour. The impression then as it is today is that it seems too late to come out of it, there are too many complicities, suffocating mass embezzlement and redemption opportunities are rare. It is the large dimensions of our current vices, of our laziness, of our habits that imprison us. This period does not produce 'garibaldini "full of courage and adventure. Every night, the Italians who still wish to live in a free democracy wonder how long this decadence will last, this yield to the worst and whether this rebirth is really possible or it is a vain desire that is renewed from generation to generation. Bocca's experience is that of having seen the fall of the fascist regime but only for self-destruction. The large numbers of society prevent this country from really changing. Leopardi's flaw in Italy had caught him when he denounced the lack of public opinion capable of an ethical choice. The last illusion was the war of liberation by the occupant during the Second World War, that is to say a people's war for freedom and justice. For half a century it has given a reforming impulse to the country, a will to become a democratic country. The journalist Giorgio Bocca is aware of the beauty and richness of Italy coming from its natural and artistic assets but it is difficult to live here because of the anarchy of those who live in this country. In Italy there is this permanent illusion of being able to improve society without discipline and without sacrifices, for the absurd idea that there is a "star" or a saint in paradise which represents the guarantee of solving problems spontaneously.
Since we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, the country seems to have been convinced as well as its people that the more one is without government, without a future, without common sense, the more it is adapted to this crazy world. The Northern League with their representatives since Maroni's times until today with Salvini have threatened to leave Europe ungrateful, to make secession with rich and civil Europe and maybe want to push Italy to try to find ourselves at a Middle Eastern level. Bocca tries to answer a seemingly simple but complex question such as the following: What does the government of the Italian Republic consist of? This ruling takes place in the sharing of promises that will not be kept, that everyone knows that they will not be kept, that nobody asks to keep: the painful affair of immigrants not addressed by the government, which gets angry if the rest of Europe does not want to accept them . International laws and agreements are empty words, Italy has committed itself only on paper to prevent the immigration of illegal immigrants to prevent it from reaching the whole of Europe. For Bocca the crisis of this world is that of not having a government capable of governing, of relying only on the appetites of capitalism, the planning of production and consumption, of not understanding that this going towards the future in a scattered order with a chaotic struggle to grab new markets by abandoning the old only leads to generalized disaster. In another article, Bocca called Italy, the country of eternal stories, always the same, that is, the discovery that the State is the real bank of thieves, the great safe from which they can pull money out. Just find a roped leader, a ducetto on duty, the man of luck and all the doors of the treasure open, even those of the misfortunes and disasters where they rejoice for future business to be done as in the case of the earthquake in Abruzzo.
In the article "Credetemi ci sono due Italie"(believe me there are two Italie ), Bocca highlights the presence of two Italie who never meet; in fact every morning Bocca wonders but who are they, where are they, where do all these shameless thieves live, these courtiers who enrich themselves with cliques? Where is the country of the scoundrels hiding?
These two separate and communicating Italies where there is an Italy of hardworking people and an Italy made of castes with a very different way of thinking, living, in the models of morals and aesthetics. How their coexistence is possible without a tough showdown remains a mystery.
Starting from the archive of Giorgio Bocca's articles on the Espresso newspaper website, my aim is to identify guidelines for understanding our time with the hope of finding useful links to fully grasp the apparent mutability of this historical period. The acute and critical observation of the social life of Italians as a trait often present in Bocca's articles allows us to see the continuity existing with today's world where everything is difficult to understand. In an article entitled "The beautiful country where it is difficult to live" highlights how Italians are always asked to believe in the future especially by ecclesial hierarchies, which often complain about a lack of ethics in Italian society, the lack of good rules and good behaviour. The impression then as it is today is that it seems too late to come out of it, there are too many complicities, suffocating mass embezzlement and redemption opportunities are rare. It is the large dimensions of our current vices, of our laziness, of our habits that imprison us. This period does not produce 'garibaldini "full of courage and adventure. Every night, the Italians who still wish to live in a free democracy wonder how long this decadence will last, this yield to the worst and whether this rebirth is really possible or it is a vain desire that is renewed from generation to generation. Bocca's experience is that of having seen the fall of the fascist regime but only for self-destruction. The large numbers of society prevent this country from really changing. Leopardi's flaw in Italy had caught him when he denounced the lack of public opinion capable of an ethical choice. The last illusion was the war of liberation by the occupant during the Second World War, that is to say a people's war for freedom and justice. For half a century it has given a reforming impulse to the country, a will to become a democratic country. The journalist Giorgio Bocca is aware of the beauty and richness of Italy coming from its natural and artistic assets but it is difficult to live here because of the anarchy of those who live in this country. In Italy there is this permanent illusion of being able to improve society without discipline and without sacrifices, for the absurd idea that there is a "star" or a saint in paradise which represents the guarantee of solving problems spontaneously.
Since we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, the country seems to have been convinced as well as its people that the more one is without government, without a future, without common sense, the more it is adapted to this crazy world. The Northern League with their representatives since Maroni's times until today with Salvini have threatened to leave Europe ungrateful, to make secession with rich and civil Europe and maybe want to push Italy to try to find ourselves at a Middle Eastern level. Bocca tries to answer a seemingly simple but complex question such as the following: What does the government of the Italian Republic consist of? This ruling takes place in the sharing of promises that will not be kept, that everyone knows that they will not be kept, that nobody asks to keep: the painful affair of immigrants not addressed by the government, which gets angry if the rest of Europe does not want to accept them . International laws and agreements are empty words, Italy has committed itself only on paper to prevent the immigration of illegal immigrants to prevent it from reaching the whole of Europe. For Bocca the crisis of this world is that of not having a government capable of governing, of relying only on the appetites of capitalism, the planning of production and consumption, of not understanding that this going towards the future in a scattered order with a chaotic struggle to grab new markets by abandoning the old only leads to generalized disaster. In another article, Bocca called Italy, the country of eternal stories, always the same, that is, the discovery that the State is the real bank of thieves, the great safe from which they can pull money out. Just find a roped leader, a ducetto on duty, the man of luck and all the doors of the treasure open, even those of the misfortunes and disasters where they rejoice for future business to be done as in the case of the earthquake in Abruzzo.
In the article "Credetemi ci sono due Italie"(believe me there are two Italie ), Bocca highlights the presence of two Italie who never meet; in fact every morning Bocca wonders but who are they, where are they, where do all these shameless thieves live, these courtiers who enrich themselves with cliques? Where is the country of the scoundrels hiding?
These two separate and communicating Italies where there is an Italy of hardworking people and an Italy made of castes with a very different way of thinking, living, in the models of morals and aesthetics. How their coexistence is possible without a tough showdown remains a mystery.
Perhaps from a survival instinct, with the idea that we still in the same boat, in the same treacherous sea. Every
morning newspapers, televisions inform honest Italians, respectful of
the laws, attentive to the morals and judgment of the neighbor who in
the other Italy hundreds, thousands have challenged prisons,
dishonour, the Carabinieri to get rich through politics and to the
detriment of the State and they did it without feeling ashamed or
remorse, indeed with the satisfaction of those who feel part of the
thief class who pretends to be a ruling class. For this coexistence
of the two Italies, Italy lives in a state of schizophrenia, the
coexistence of the two Italies is allowed by the natural reluctance
of the honest to frequent the thieves, a choice often to instinct and vice versa distrust and still the thieves annoyance for
honest people. The possibility of meeting these people occurs mainly
to those who have small children who go to school and have many
friends, therefore you have to go to their parties with the relatives
of their companions and on those occasions you cannot fail to
recognize them these thieves and courtiers. As you go through the
years, the risk of meeting them decreases considerably because your
circle of friends becomes increasingly reduced to the few and trusted
friends. And this is the country where
every sense of shame, repentance and unease has been lost. The Italy
of thieves is not only shameless, but protect and protected. The
well-known entrepreneur will take advantage of the right not to
answer in front of "communist" magistrates and will
threaten billionaire lawsuits to those few courageous journalists who
dare to deal with these legal matters.
In this Italy, employers no longer take advantage of the work and talents of their employees, but are benefactors who accuse their employees of spitting on the plate in which they eat.
Often the Italians of honest Italy live in their country as in a foreign country, trying to go unnoticed, not to incur the wrath and blackmail of the bosses who at the slightest dissent accuse them of being subversives, members of the hate party.
In a contextual situation like that in Italy, the main task of politicians is to transfer public money into the pockets of manufacturers and builders to move the brick and contracts, distribute public funding. With these matters, political diversity, ideals, the vision of the future give up for the business. Even the civil protection, born as a provident organization to endure the populations during natural disasters, becomes a large more or less clean business machine in which a leftist deputy counts as a rightist deputy as a businessman. Politics as an oil to lubricate administrative mechanisms: this "difficult" job of the politician is not always presentable because it must be made for the state, its economy and its services work, often in competition with producers and traders. The engine of the State, the cooperation of politicians and entrepreneurs is often similar to a swarm of bees looking for their honey. This behaviour worries a lot Giorgio Bocca and those who have had to make a war to free Italy from occupation. Maybe in the future there will be a return to authoritarian regimes capable of resolving conflicts by force. This millennium seems to open up like the preceding ones in their uncertainty and randomness. Being able to compose the new profound contradictions of social life seems to be the task of politics in this period. We are all at the same time for conservation and reforms, for Shumpeterian law, order and innovation. The society of today and tomorrow will be a neurotic society grappling with the thousands of risks of this world installed by the tide of the poor who pile up at its borders and within its borders as a threat (I add as an opportunity for others)
But then they give their best and is the title of an article describing the Italians capable of giving their best in moments of difficulty, while in days of peace and abundance they show huges differences between them. And from here it is difficult to say whether happy days or new misfortunes will affect this Italian people?
To answer this question, you need to ask yourself another question, namely who are the Italians? It is enough to go beyond Trentino and South Tyrol to understand that you are in different worlds, between different peoples in terms of languages, customs, sense of landscape, design of fields, woods, bell towers, houses, in short, a little everything. Not knowing what Italians are makes it difficult to answer about their future and their social and political fate. Will the future of the country be possible in harmony with a renewed sense of belonging, solidarity, affinity or because in the end there is' always a 'saint in paradise' to offer protection to this country? For Bocca, the Italian is certainly different from that of Goebbels who contemptuously defined Italy as a people of waiters and gypsies, or La Martine with its famous' geographical expression ', just as Mussolini said that' the Italy is a useless people to govern. In practice, millions of people with the same language but unable to become society, state together. For Bocca, the Italians are those esteemed for their categorical imperatives such as Bobbio, Gobetti, Foa and the many poor mountain and peasants who offered you wine while their houses burned. In difficult times the Italians give you what you don't expect, so suddenly the same one who was ready to kill you and sell you for a trivial interest in defence of the 'stuff', is now ready to lose everything against the occupant.
In this Italy, employers no longer take advantage of the work and talents of their employees, but are benefactors who accuse their employees of spitting on the plate in which they eat.
Often the Italians of honest Italy live in their country as in a foreign country, trying to go unnoticed, not to incur the wrath and blackmail of the bosses who at the slightest dissent accuse them of being subversives, members of the hate party.
In a contextual situation like that in Italy, the main task of politicians is to transfer public money into the pockets of manufacturers and builders to move the brick and contracts, distribute public funding. With these matters, political diversity, ideals, the vision of the future give up for the business. Even the civil protection, born as a provident organization to endure the populations during natural disasters, becomes a large more or less clean business machine in which a leftist deputy counts as a rightist deputy as a businessman. Politics as an oil to lubricate administrative mechanisms: this "difficult" job of the politician is not always presentable because it must be made for the state, its economy and its services work, often in competition with producers and traders. The engine of the State, the cooperation of politicians and entrepreneurs is often similar to a swarm of bees looking for their honey. This behaviour worries a lot Giorgio Bocca and those who have had to make a war to free Italy from occupation. Maybe in the future there will be a return to authoritarian regimes capable of resolving conflicts by force. This millennium seems to open up like the preceding ones in their uncertainty and randomness. Being able to compose the new profound contradictions of social life seems to be the task of politics in this period. We are all at the same time for conservation and reforms, for Shumpeterian law, order and innovation. The society of today and tomorrow will be a neurotic society grappling with the thousands of risks of this world installed by the tide of the poor who pile up at its borders and within its borders as a threat (I add as an opportunity for others)
But then they give their best and is the title of an article describing the Italians capable of giving their best in moments of difficulty, while in days of peace and abundance they show huges differences between them. And from here it is difficult to say whether happy days or new misfortunes will affect this Italian people?
To answer this question, you need to ask yourself another question, namely who are the Italians? It is enough to go beyond Trentino and South Tyrol to understand that you are in different worlds, between different peoples in terms of languages, customs, sense of landscape, design of fields, woods, bell towers, houses, in short, a little everything. Not knowing what Italians are makes it difficult to answer about their future and their social and political fate. Will the future of the country be possible in harmony with a renewed sense of belonging, solidarity, affinity or because in the end there is' always a 'saint in paradise' to offer protection to this country? For Bocca, the Italian is certainly different from that of Goebbels who contemptuously defined Italy as a people of waiters and gypsies, or La Martine with its famous' geographical expression ', just as Mussolini said that' the Italy is a useless people to govern. In practice, millions of people with the same language but unable to become society, state together. For Bocca, the Italians are those esteemed for their categorical imperatives such as Bobbio, Gobetti, Foa and the many poor mountain and peasants who offered you wine while their houses burned. In difficult times the Italians give you what you don't expect, so suddenly the same one who was ready to kill you and sell you for a trivial interest in defence of the 'stuff', is now ready to lose everything against the occupant.
The
more humble, poor and abandoned the Italians were, the greater the
ability to deprive themselves of the little to help you, during the
raids they hosted you despite the threats of shooting. In this nation
that we call Italy there are enormous differences between the
Italians: there are the fixers friends of the politicians in power,
the courtiers of the shift chief, the administrators of the cunning
and deception that we see on TV. In this country it is discovered
that original sin and the devil are not an invention of the priests
but the indelible reality of the world. Faced with so many questions,
one should ask why people decided to turn to the "Lega Nord" party. The lega nord
won because it dealt with these areas of the Milanese hinterland and
the Lombard province. The good Milanese bourgeoisie had not noticed
that no left-wing party remained on the territory. These beautiful
souls of the bourgeoisie were not very careful in the face of the
fact that many provincial mayors in Lombardy had ended up in jail and
had been replaced by uncultivated but not thieves Lega leaders. The
educated left did not realize that the country was very divided, the
constitution was violated on a daily basis and that the Lega was
growing before our eyes for our manifest inability or willingness to
make our country a country of rights but also of civil duties. The
bourgeoisie allowed this regression of politics. The Lega has shown
that its goal is to support an authoritarian democracy that seems
inclined to the worse the better. To Italian politics incapable of
providing for national interests we have before us a Lega which
places their localism or ethno-nationalism before the
macro-continent of Europe. As Cota said: I do not care at Termini
Imerese. A beautiful example of gravestone of our Risorgimento, now
we have Salvini who proposes a model of the type 'Brussels does not
matter to me' highlighting a beautiful example of burial of the
European horizon as a natural vocation for Italy intended as the
founding country of the Europe is the cradle of European
civilization.
In this situation is also important to understand the presence of Silvio Berlusconi for Giorgio Bocca which tries to explain the reasons for Berlusconi's political success in Italy. Starting from the bitter observation that the secret of Berlusconi's consent lies in the poor civil and democratic education of the Italians, to whom the party of authoritarian democracy is fine as long as there are no taxes to pay.
In this situation is also important to understand the presence of Silvio Berlusconi for Giorgio Bocca which tries to explain the reasons for Berlusconi's political success in Italy. Starting from the bitter observation that the secret of Berlusconi's consent lies in the poor civil and democratic education of the Italians, to whom the party of authoritarian democracy is fine as long as there are no taxes to pay.
Many
Italians wonder why Berlusconism never goes out of fashion or in other words
what have we not understood about this phenomenon? Berlusconi is a
master in the play of words that Giolitti, Crispi or Mussolini has
always enchanted Italians, he is a rich man like any Italian would
like to be, he is a skilled populist because he tells Italians what
they want to be told: that they are beautiful, intelligent, funny,
smart. He is a great seller who tells stories and is full of optimism
even when there is an earthquake or an Icelandic volcano to remind us
that there is no reason to show off all this optimism. His optimism
rhymes with activism and with the mythical 'I do everything' but he
does not forget to remember his bad side of having to bring critics
and unruly people to order.
To understand its success there are two very important elements present in the behaviour of Italians, namely the reluctance to pay taxes and the propensity to 'fix ourselves' present in all Italians. This is the great transversal party on which Berlusconi floated and which he said within himself: "thank goodness that Silvio is there" as a motive for salvation.
The majority of Italians to vote for Berlusconi are the traders who when the euro arrived understood that the Italians continued to reason in old lira and earned on it, the freelancers who can report the half or half half of their income. And even the emerging classes, that is, those who defraud the public sector, stamp the office tag and then go shopping or errands. The secret of Berlusconism is a secret of Pulcinella and it is the poor civil education of the Italians who naturally justify themselves by saying that Italy is too long to say too different, in terms of climate, history, too beautiful or warm to want to work. So even the workers ended up voting for the party of liberty because within them they have the same dreams and desires as the chief. And then the chief represented the best fun in a historical period dominated by politics as the only form of 'divertissement' for the people.
To understand its success there are two very important elements present in the behaviour of Italians, namely the reluctance to pay taxes and the propensity to 'fix ourselves' present in all Italians. This is the great transversal party on which Berlusconi floated and which he said within himself: "thank goodness that Silvio is there" as a motive for salvation.
The majority of Italians to vote for Berlusconi are the traders who when the euro arrived understood that the Italians continued to reason in old lira and earned on it, the freelancers who can report the half or half half of their income. And even the emerging classes, that is, those who defraud the public sector, stamp the office tag and then go shopping or errands. The secret of Berlusconism is a secret of Pulcinella and it is the poor civil education of the Italians who naturally justify themselves by saying that Italy is too long to say too different, in terms of climate, history, too beautiful or warm to want to work. So even the workers ended up voting for the party of liberty because within them they have the same dreams and desires as the chief. And then the chief represented the best fun in a historical period dominated by politics as the only form of 'divertissement' for the people.
Berlusconi's
victory shows that the candidate's vote and choice often follow
irrational criteria, mysterious conformisms that produce miraculous
successes. As happens with books, films, songs, clothes, the popular
vote is not based on the best program, but also on the candidate's
charismatic capacity, his capacity for seduction in the electorate,
which often has nothing to do with its merits.
Voters often feel the urge to change in front of the old politician
and his political staff with the hope that the new one is better than
the past. In short, we notice a series of mysterious conformisms that
have produced miraculous successes.
Today the fashion is that of being a " leghista" or a "grillino", also conscious or unconscious fascists are back in fashion. These parties that obsessively preach doing to the detriment of thinking, this running blindly towards a future that will be what will be. Politics is not always rational but it is fashion and conformism. For Bocca, the only way to avoid the worst is by mutual checks, even if difficult and tiring.
This Giorgio Bocca's articles gives a clear and ruthless picture of the situation of Italy in these first twenty years of the millennium. Taking seriously this articles from Bocca can be a useful exercise to identify the recent historical reasons for our evils to get out of this state of permanent paralysis and move towards a horizon made of commitment, sacrifice and realism.
webgraphy
Archive of Giorgio Bocca's articles traceable with the following hyperlink:
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio?page=4Today the fashion is that of being a " leghista" or a "grillino", also conscious or unconscious fascists are back in fashion. These parties that obsessively preach doing to the detriment of thinking, this running blindly towards a future that will be what will be. Politics is not always rational but it is fashion and conformism. For Bocca, the only way to avoid the worst is by mutual checks, even if difficult and tiring.
This Giorgio Bocca's articles gives a clear and ruthless picture of the situation of Italy in these first twenty years of the millennium. Taking seriously this articles from Bocca can be a useful exercise to identify the recent historical reasons for our evils to get out of this state of permanent paralysis and move towards a horizon made of commitment, sacrifice and realism.
webgraphy
Archive of Giorgio Bocca's articles traceable with the following hyperlink:
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2010/10/22/news/ma-poi-danno-il-meglio-di-se-1.25031
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2011/01/21/news/la-festa-e-finita-1.27604
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2011/03/04/news/cosa-fa-oggi-chi-fa-politica-1.29145
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2011/04/21/news/150-anni-per-ridurci-cosi-1.30698
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2011/07/28/news/che-fatica-capire-l-italia-br-1.33688
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2011/10/27/news/il-bel-paese-dov-e-difficile-vivere-1.36706
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2010/06/04/news/meno-male-che-silvio-c-e-1.21240
http://espresso.repubblica.it/opinioni/archivio/2011/10/27/news/il-bel-paese-dov-e-difficile-vivere-1.36706
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