Egr. Director I am an occasional reader of your magazine and I appreciate the independent approach to the generally stereotypical analyzes that prevail over the most widely circulated media outlets.
On the other hand, I would like to point out to your attention how the positions taken by your magazine regarding the facts that have seen a carabiniere display the flag of the German imperial navy in his room, may appear, in my humble opinion, a little above the lines and, above all, almost specular to those who, unquestioningly crude and cialtronesco, accused the military of unacceptable neo-Nazi sympathies.
Personally I believe that the fundamental principle that should guide us in evaluating the whole thing is that, inside a barracks (although in a personal room), the only symbols that should be allowed to be exposed are those attributable to the Italian Republic, not to mention for this purpose that the military has interests for historical studies.
That military can, with good reason, be interested in the history, even recent, of Germany, will be just right, nourish admiration and respect for the efficiency and value in combat of military units of Kaiserliche Marine and Deutshes Heer or Wehrmacht that is, the army of any state (present or past), but, evidently, the reasons that push it to exhibit its symbols are not immediately comprehensible.
For the rest, any discussion about Nazism (or anti-Nazism), any expression of exaltation or condemnation, is accidently cloying if not understood in an eminently historical perspective. A mere rhetorical exercise by scoundrels and / or donkeys who, for opportunistic reasons, pretend that it represents a category through which to interpret the current reality, forgetting that the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis have been the subject of an unappealable condemnation both from history and of a real human tribunal (representing, instead, this last event, a precedent for a phenomenon of very current importance - awaiting the recent hyperactivity of the Hague tribunal - such as that of prosecuting the defeated accusing them, without fail, of crimes against 'humanity, thus shifting the confrontation between states from a mere conflict between divergent national interests to the typically ideological dimension of the bellum iustum).
In the case that concerns us, I think, it should simply be remembered that a person who chooses to become a servant of the state (military, bureaucrat, magistrate, minister, and so on), and who has even a minimum of dignity, owes loyalty to a single flag : the Italian one.
Cordially
Stefano de Martino
Dear Stefano, thanks for the letter. It is yet another thought that, in any case, together with the numerous counter-current comments on the issue, although it can be underestimated, probably contributed to the annulment of the disciplinary sanction against the carabiniere.
In dictatorships, ideologically imposed morality almost never follows criticism or exchange of views. This time it went badly for someone desperate for electoral support and, since the regime was now at the end of the line, the trick was not successful.
Perhaps we should do more to reflect on the distinction between the military and politics. In a few periods like the last few years, the conscience of men and women in uniform has been tested in the face of the awareness of so many lies and hypocrisies.
Basically, confusing a military banner with a government or a party would be like saying that our defense was first Renzian and now a Silverian Gentilonian. A consideration - if expressed outside the court - absolutely absurd and deeply unfair.
Andrea Cucco
