SERMO CASTRENSIS

(To Nicolò Manca)
31/08/19

It is known that in the military world one indulges, above all when one wants to emphasize the opposition to something or someone, to the sermo castrensis, the language of the barracks of the legionaries of ancient Rome.

In recent days the press reported the news of a vessel lieutenant definitively condemned by the Court of Cassation to 1 year and 4 months of imprisonment, 3000 euro fine and payment of court costs for commenting (on his facebook profile in the far December of the 2015!) with words connoting a crime (State of m ....) the behavior of the Italian state on the occasion of the well-known affair of the two marine fusiliers Girone and Latorre.

The two riflemen, as will be remembered, during an anti-piracy mission on board an Italian merchant ship, were handed over to the Indian government following the accident that caused the death of two fishermen from Kerala.

The conviction of the vessel lieutenant brought me back instantly to the 2012 in May, when for the same reason I publicly protested and returned the honors of knight, commander and officer with this motivation: "... in protest against the management lacking courage and of pride followed by the Italian Government in the Girone-Latorre affair ... ".

The form of the protest and the words used by the vessel lieutenant and the writer are undoubtedly different ... but not the substance! However, what got me off my ass (pardon: "irritated me") making me run the risk of performing in a sermo castrensis without restraint, it was a third circumstance that has much in common with the previous ones: the one that saw the protagonist of the senator of the Italian Republic Monica Cirinnà, who on her facebook profile performed performing a sign with the edifying message "DIO-PATRIA -FAMILY. CHE VITA DE MERDA ”.

It is undeniable that the substance of the judgment of Cirinnà "shitty life" is inevitably associated with the trinomial object of judgment, "God-Fatherland-Family". However, for those who write, it has been even stronger inducement to foul language that among those who should have felt the duty to censor or denounce the gentle senator, not one has struck a blow: silence from the party belonging to Cirinnà, silence from the Quirinale, silence from the Vatican and silence from the judiciary, the same one that has condemned the vessel lieutenant citing scholarly motivations.

There remains a bitter taste in the suspicion of two weights and two measures adopted in all courts, both judicial and political, in assessing offenses against institutions. Nor are the scholarly dissertations worth arguing about whether the object of the offense is the state or the nation or the government or the homeland or the family or the people with its history, its culture and its traditions, not excluding the religious ones: they are dissertations who know they belong to politics rather than ethics and mutual respect.

To want to express a summary judgment on these painful events, nothing better than remaining on the subject by using the formula made famous by Napoleon General Cambronne: "Merde".