Italics by Paola Sacchi
In some respects, perhaps because I was born in the summer, I have always loved Ferragosto more than Christmas, while respecting its high religious value. But I don’t think it will be one of the best Ferragosto. And I really don’t think we will come out better after Covid.
Daniele Capezzone is right who in recent days wrote for “The Watcher Post” that the state of mind of a country is a necessary precondition for a restart. And although the Draghi government is the only possible solution to deal with the serious emergency and Professor Draghi, as Capezzone also acknowledges, could play an important role in mending the lacerations of a country exhausted by more than a year and a half of pandemic crisis, the right mood, the one needed to start again is not there yet.
Although I am absolutely in favor of vaccination, on the Green Pass (I personally have no problems, I have three, one of the first vaccination, the other of the second, which so far certifies it definitively, by the Ministry of Health, and finally a other of the Lazio Region) I have seen in addition to a series of difficulties for managers of bars and restaurants, above all, to create a climate of excitement. Climate already exasperated by that sort of unique TV transmission that bombards at all hours entitled virologists, variants and vaccines. With conflicting information often from the same experts to each other.
I have also seen people of a good social and cultural level get caught up in exaggerated anxiety despite having taken all the necessary precautions. Well, since it is a bit easy to say, perhaps to make a good impression, I am obliged to vaccinate, and I would be too but we know that it is not possible, I would have preferred a real persuasive speech to the Nation by Prime Minister Draghi.
I would have preferred it to the slightly ungenerous and excessive blow, described as decision-making by the usual mainstream compliant with the powerful of the day, given to the leader of the largest center-right party in the government. That is, that Matteo Salvini who had not sown “death” messages, but had only posed problems, referring to other choices of Western countries, on vaccinating children under a certain age threshold.
Yet the so much demonized League remains, based on the real numbers of all the elections, the first party in the country after the 2018 policies. And at the helm with Fdi and FI of the clear majority of the Regions.
Draghi’s scolding has aroused surprise, perplexity among the same voters of the League and the center-right of the government who continue to support the decision to support the executive. I heard them with my own ears, entrepreneurs, artisans, VAT numbers, professionals, people without a fixed state salary, or the social backbone of the Democratic Party.
Responsible people from every point of view, including health. But who are asking for a lowering of taxes, an economic recovery, a decision-making but also empathic attitude that favors them a different state of mind. Since, as the director of La Verita Maurizio Belpietro wrote in an editorial as a chronicler, street journalism makes us understand many more things than the background stills and editorials on the mythical center, in the enclosure of the Palazzo or in offices with overloaded bookstores, I heard also many discontent over certain words deemed too comprehensive on citizenship income.
And this not from dangerous subversives but from an Italy, which constitutes the social backbone of the country, which rolls up its sleeves and applauded the arrival of President Draghi. He still supports this, but he also wonders why he should not block an immigration that is now out of control and not take the right measures with the EU to help countries such as Tunisia where economic crisis and pandemic are raging on the ground.
These are not racist questions, but rational, very logical ones. While here we are now in the grip of a climate where even a vaccinated is not suspected as such. No, at this rate, between anxieties and aggression rates among useless people, we will not come out better from Covid.
Between demonizations if not virological-media showcasing of anyone who poses a doubt, there is no better way out. And in the meantime, while the utmost prudence remains necessary, festivals, cultural and religious traditions that have always cemented the sociality of entire communities in the extraordinary Italy of a thousand bell towers also risk disappearing.
Not even today, the second year in a row, will there be in my beautiful Orvieto, the city of every holiday, the traditional procession of the Madonna di Ferragosto, Santa Maria Assunta which the Cathedral Basilica of the Duomo is named after.
The splendid wooden machine of the 17th century will not be carried on the shoulders of the porters on the steps of the Cathedral. A show that also attracted tourists from all over the world.
It is understandable that it has been decided not to do it yet, also given the conformation of the narrow, medieval streets of Orvieto. But, combined with that of many other beautiful parties in Italy, this is also a small example of how there still cannot be the right mood. All the more so with the undeterred virological-media bombing that already speaks of the fourth wave.
Happy Ferragosto.
