25 April: free from what?

(To Paolo Palumbo)
24/04/19

The Italy of 25 April has changed. Speaking on this anniversary it is easy to slip on indifference, or to say banality like "there are no longer men of the past". Behind the axiom just mentioned, actually, there is something real, especially in the field of politics which, today more than ever, faithfully reflects the majority of Italians. The 25 April serves to remind this, but also to other generations, what the value of freedom is, but more than anything else to remember how a people is still a prisoner of the shame of those years. A historical period full of contradictions and a turnaround that, to a certain extent, confined Italians to two different banks, with dissimilar values ​​and with crimes behind them for which nobody wanted to take responsibility.

Today it would be right to go on, to go beyond those emotional blocks that push several Italian leaders to speak of "criminal fascists" or "communists who eat children"; also because, if we carefully examine the facts of this last decade, we will note how certain dogmas have undergone a reshuffle that is anything but coherent and in some cases comparable to heresy. Few nostalgics remain, a bit pathetic, waving the flags praising the Duce as a nobler symbol of being Italian. A hilarity provoked equally by the old "companions", those who have placed the red flag with the hammer and sickle in the closet, pulling it out only on occasions of protest where communism does not have the slightest hope of finding a role.

The government of change, however, has captivated everyone, finding the compass to direct us out of the nightmare of that granite bipartition, giving us a new, and ever less intelligent, distribution of minds and values. Never as with this government, the 25 April, acquires an insipid taste, since the Italians have finally discovered a new national consciousness; those who took to the streets years ago with their fists raised, singing "Bella ciao" and extolling the end of barbarism, are now fervent fans of the "super minister" who preaches everything except freedom. Today, part of that red people, favors lighter colors, rediscovering themselves as Italians to the detriment of someone else. The 25 April was the feast of liberation, where even those who dressed in black shirts proudly appreciated the beauty of a world in which everyone could have their say.

On this point we could strive to change the meaning of 25 April, borrowing street demonstrations with respectful silence. Or dedicate this commemoration to a lesson in collective history, the same "story" denigrated by the honorable gentlemen only because they fear it and do not know it. An impartial teaching that gives space to all the voices: both winners and losers. This would help to make a leap forward compared to a past that, increasingly, has changed into an alibi behind which to eclipse the lack of original ideas.

We are living on the uninspiring wave of a new era: sunk, with disgusting awareness, in a "Republic of ignorance" where on the seats, long ago occupied by the fathers of the constitution, less elegant ministers stand out, unable to conjugate a subjunctive correctly .

What happened to the 25 April? But above all where are the Italians going? This, of course, is a bipartisan appeal, addressed both to the so-called "neo-fascists" "nationalists" and followers of the "first the Italians", and to the boys splitting windows of social centers. All, in fact, would do well to take an examination of conscience, wondering if they still have a reason to exist or whether it is better to continue to be empty masks for government use and consumption.

Deepening what you choose to represent gives your ideas an unparalleled strength, but unfortunately today we prefer to rely on the carelessness of a tweet to pretend to have understood. For this reason, a date like the 25 April, struggles to find a glimmer of understanding, since it cannot be summed up in a post. That day of the 1945 demands a complex and articulated story, with people willing to listen, but also to put their faces and tell the truth. Here is what is happening: those who still have common sense, the intellectuals, the real ones, not the "radical chic" from the living room, have definitely lost the narrative power. Those who decide to do so remain unheard, teased and silenced. A minister who talks about history - if he knows it - would not even get a "like", so it's better to have his picture taken while greedily eating a cutlet during a village party, commenting on it with seductive slogans like: "the real Italian festival". This word, "Italians", that fills the mouths of men who drink of the percentage of favors reached on the pages of Facebook without having done anything.

The funniest thing, but at the same time typically our own, is that the same people who today praise Italianness as an absolute value, have the same profile as those who longed for a nation split in two, believing themselves to be the plenipotentiaries of a "non-place" like the Padania. Why then wonder when the interior minister declares - revealing pride and indifference - that he will not be present on the day when the end of a regime is celebrated?

The Italians, for better or for worse, prove to have a short memory. That's why in this 25 April, the streets and squares should be depopulated.

Finally, among the most excellent victims of liberation, there is the Italian army: condemned to oblivion for several decades, then rediscovered during the Cold War and recently the object of a targeted attempt to remove it. Post-war Italy cursed those who wore the uniform, omitting that many freedom fighters wore the uniform of an Alpine, carabiniere, infantryman or sailor. Who, during the war, had flaunted the stars with dignity, was overwhelmed by the September 8 and by a fratricidal war unjustly destined to stain its future. It is important to remember that the army of the Second World War was the "royal army" and not the fascist army, although there were units with specifically political connotations. The serious fault of the Savoy generals was that of bowing their heads to a man who had suffered the trenches of war, but completely ignorant of what it meant to set up a nation for a conflict.

In 1940, Mussolini surprised Europe by entering the war with the same infantry that he had fought on the Karst, extolling the virtues of the Italian soldier who loved everything except war. Speeches full of nationalist fervor, destined to crumble in the mountains of Greece and Albania. Then the Africa of El Alamein, where "lacked fortune": a phrase that says a lot about the strategic preparation of the general staff that preferred to rely on the courage of a few desperate, instead of equipping them with suitable means to face the enemy. On the basis of the war facts of the last war, one wonders why many still think that the army suffers from right-handed sympathies. Fascism (in primis) has in fact destroyed the army, both from the historical point of view, nullifying the victories inherited from the First World War, and in substance by sending it to die, with shameful indifference, only to please the ally.

The same ignoble disregard with which the previous and current governments are treating the military. The cover has changed, but the music is always the same: resources reduced to a flicker and soldiers transformed into policemen, night watchmen and road maintenance workers. The military, as understood in historical books, is no longer there. Unfortunately, the "expert" ministers in the field of defense (and not only) continue to exist who are showing a disastrous intellectual shortage. The ministry of Pinotti inaugurated a slow but inexorable path to weaken the military sector; the Thirty - initially praised, it is not clear how, on the pages of this magazine - it is giving the final blow, surrounded by lackeys responding to a directive that looks more like a sect than a governmental one.

A second 25 April would be desirable (no matter the day, as long as it happens). A new wave that liberates Italy from stupidity, listlessness, crime (the real one, all our own), arrogance, superficiality and arrogance. We hope to find the right path again: this will only be possible if we create a new national consciousness that does not recognize any political color, but that draws strength from a country that has given the world a culture that no one can do without.

Photo: Minister of Defense / Presidency of the Council of Ministers