Politics and the common good

An innovative meeting was held in Rome on 6 September at the Palazzo della Cooperazione. To present the project, citizens, movements and bodies of the third sector gathered to ask politics, before and after the electoral campaign, that the common good and the experience of hundreds of realities engaged in the territories be put at the center.

«Today a place is born, a container – said Leonardo Becchetti, economist and promoter of the appeal signed on that date by 1,600 people representing civil society – which aims to reduce the distance between civil society and the political world, aggregating the demand» . The goal is that active citizenship becomes an "ally of good politics" and stimulates it "to move in a certain direction". At that meeting we had the opportunity to express that Retinopera (24 Catholic associations, movements and organizations at national level to which eight million associates adhere, therefore third-level realities) is convinced that diversity can be experienced as wealth.

Obviously it is not easy even within a world that has a strong identity: but there is a commitment to overcome particularisms in the collective interest. All the more reason, this applies to a set of realities present at the meeting that represented different worlds ASVIS, the Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development, CSVNET, the Association of Volunteer Service Centres, the Third Sector Forum, the Alliance against Poverty , AIPEC, the Italian Association of Entrepreneurs for an Economy of Communion, and others who however, on closer inspection, comparing the various appeals presented, had a commonality of proposals and repeated keywords. We shared that "we of September 6" had no intention of promoting a party but a "score" with accents on the notes of migrants, rights, taxation, the poor and the environment to be entrusted to the next parliament and the future government .

Both mayors in office and political candidates took the floor there. A series of short, concise but very effective speeches. I would like to take up a particularly significant one for what we want to represent. "We need a good community - said former minister Graziano Delrio - and if someone thinks they can win the battles alone, the country won't do it". September 6th was a first moment: however if we want to work for a "good community" it is necessary that we in civil society join forces, that we value respecting our diversity, that we recognize each other without being divided by shop interests.

Gianfranco Cattai

NP Ottobre 2022