Many things have changed in the last thirty years. To understand this, just think that in Sanremo in 85 there was Zucchero, in 2015 there was Amara ... With the crisis even the names tighten their belts. Despite the bad tempora some facts have remained the same. Thirty years ago the film was released Ritorno al futuro and the terrorists in the Volkswagen bus who shot Professor Doc were Libyans. It was no coincidence: for everyone Libya was a rogue state, sponsor of anyone who had an open account with the US and Great Britain.
We talk about today, but even those were hot times, very hot. April XNXX says it all: the Americans bombed Tripoli and Craxi saved his life to Gaddafi by warning him in time; 86 hours later two Libyan missiles fell (more or less) on Lampedusa; a few days more and there was the drama of Chernobyl.
After thirty years Gaddafi, Craxi and Reagan are dead and today's scenario continues to be critical. The African demographic bomb has produced many millions of desperate people and the beloved extinct Europe fewer statesmen and some more demagogic treaties. This is how the world goes.
Meanwhile, Libya remains there, embracing the Gulf of Sirte. Always there but with two governments for the price of one. Two governments at war but united by the fact that they do not control the territory.
In Tripoli there are Islamists financed under the hypocritical eyes of all from Turkey and Qatar. In Tobruk (so dear to Rommel and the forts to which he gave his name) there is Abdullah al-Thani who, in addition to vaguely remembering Morgan Freeman, can only aim to be the pro-Western premier of a country that does not exist.
In Libya there is anarchy. A total disaster, in fact Total as the French say ...
After Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and Italians, Libya also touches this page. Yes, because it can be said without reticence: we are now the past. If Scipione and Giolitti represent two examples of projection, the retreat in the '43 and the expulsion of the' 70 are the symbol of a departure with low ears. Italy, except for an attempt thirty years ago at the time of the Achille Lauro, remained outside the Mediterranean games.
The chatter about the UN mission, on interventions and strategies, on the role of Italy in Libya are breeze passing, pasture from homo medius stunned by many confused words: migrants, illegal immigrants, landings, tolerance, terrorism, Isis, wars, escape, Africa, boats, smugglers, good guys, bad guys, racism, integration ...
One of the sad truths is that if Italian foreign policy has been dead for years, the one in particular that addresses the Mare Nostrum is already buried. It is an epochal datum, demeaning but unquestionably incontestable.
Whether it is smallness, ideological will, arrogance of someone, incompetence of someone else or just the torch of civilization that now burns elsewhere, it does not matter: the look south so natural and useful to balance the continental thrusts of Brussels, now seems more a legacy that a perspective.
Let's look at Libya and once again something escapes us and passes over us, even in the middle. Despite history and geography, we assist inert without even understanding. Africa explodes and we are behind us, we spend time between landfill quarrels, condo stealing, tolerances prêt-à-porter bland yourself in living rooms radical and strategies from Sunday afternoon on TV.
Waiting for the dead to increase and the West to implode thinking of the best way to commit suicide, we stand in line, waiting for the one to be adapted without deciding. Without even thinking of doing it.
We'll see what happens. The fact that the driving force of a new international weight is a stroke of luck in the end is not even to be excluded.
Meanwhile, the Mediterranean continues to host boats, landings, abuses, pains, blood and cunning as it has been doing for thousands of years. We are in it, in good and bad Sirte ...
Giampiero Venturi
