Sunday March 4th 2018 was a tragic day for Italy. The political election had no more than a little part in it.

An unexpected loss shook the hearts of the Italians when Soccer Player Davide Astori, captain of Fiorentina Football Team, passed away in the night between Saturday and Sunday due to an alleged heart attack.

The departure of a paradigmatic example of sportsmanship and loyalty on and off the field, a beloved father of a 2-year-old daughter could remarkably tear the attention off the election in both newspapers and (Social) Media.

We might be wondering how this could happen, considering the economic struggles, the still high unemployment rates, the emergency of migrants, and all the other issues and challenges that Italy was and still is to going to face in the next future.

We might discuss at length how was it possible for Renzi’s PD to squander in a few years the trust of the electorate, passing from almost 40% majority in the European Election of 2014 to just over 20% of the voters of National election in 2018.

We could argue that PD suffered from its inability to find a channel of communication between voters (i.e. citizens) and the political establishment.

We might sight underestimated signs of their staggering consensus in the popular music (e.g. in the song “Comunisti col rolex”, very popular among youngsters, liberal artist J-Ax was clearly blaming the hypocricy of – at least a part of – the left-winged Intelligencija) and in the newspapers, sliding comfortably and progressively from appraisal to criticism.

We could debate whom the “winner” of the election was, either the Right-Winged Matteo Salvini, in his role of leader of the coalition recording the relative majority of the votes (together with a steeply declining Silvio Berlusconi), or Luigi Di Maio, in his role of leader of the party which individually recorded most preferences, the populist Five-Stars Movement.

We could raise concerns on their feasibility of both their electoral promises, respectively, an extensive Trump-akin fight against illegal immigration (with no walls, but only because most migrants come to Italy with ships…), and the introduction of a universal basic income that no struggling Country could ever afford.

Conclusively, we could question the promises that few could reasonably believe in and we could even doubt that the PD was the ultimate loser, since its representatives in Parliament are now enticed by the “official” winners looking for “external” supporters.

We could, but it would be pointless.

In fact, in the wake of the election, no party was expected to rise up to 40% of votes and thus to “manage” or “control” the relative majority of the seats in the Parliament, which is the condition to be able to autonomously set a Government.

Indeed, one may even argue that the overall results were largely foreseeable from the beginning.

This let us guess that, if new election took place, the outcome would not be radically different.

Therefore, it is likely that a coalition government is appointed and the position of the parties that today play their role as counterparts will have to be mingled and settled.

Notably, a few days after the Election, the prominent Manager Sergio Marchionne and the President of Confindustria (the main Italian Employers’ Association) Vincenzo Boccia reckoned that the Country had faced worse times in the past and they both expressed their faith in the future.

Their statement immediately reminded me of President Obama’s speech following President Trump elections: “no matter what happens, the sun will shine in the morning”.

The past of our beautiful Country shows that we when it comes down to safeguard the future of our children we can still find the necessary unity, as our political class – which is nothing but our image – is expected to do.

We constantly fall out and bicker over seats, offices or even football games, but we hear that a two-year old girl will not be able to be kissed goodnight by her daddy anymore, we can still find our unity in solidarity, like the thousands gathering in Florence from everywhere to give their tribute to Davide Astori and to his family.

At the very end,

“It is all settled beneath the chitter chatter and the noise, silence and sentiment, emotion and fear, the haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty, and then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity, all buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world, blah, blah, blah, blah. Beyond there is what lies beyond. I don’t deal with what lies beyond. Then, let this Novel begin. After all, it is just a trick.
Yes, it is just a trick”.

From “The Great Beauty”, Final Monologue

Share this:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Email