Another air

Compared to a certain grayness that surrounds us, we can still breathe another air, perhaps rare, but encouraging. In fact, with more than one person, on January 1st, we instinctively commented with gratitude on the speech of President Sergio Mattarella, the previous evening, in the substantial wish for a good 2024. In short, there is another way of being into the problems and issues of politics, whatever you think. Because there are the right, frank, frank, clear, even dialectical and severe words to call things by their name and to take on responsibilities, without ending up in the shallows of assorted or specious banalities.

And, from the people who commented the next day, also the admission that there aren't many voices of this stature, on the contrary... Almost the sensation of regret and disappointment, compared to figures who in any case, albeit from different positions , in the decades that followed the launch of the Constitution, they served democracy, people, communities, giving dignity to being together, in the search for the common good.

One can also ask oneself why we ended up in this almost desert, now populated by few testimonies of superior caliber. Certainly something is stuck in the strands of social commitment, of various backgrounds and ideals. And something has weakened in the search for a quality policy, in which to redesign the crucial urgencies of a problematic today.
Mattarella, on the other hand, managed, in sixteen minutes of message, to put on a different tone. Drawing on the basic ideas of the Constitution, which lead to a generous and courageous commitment to the country, in which no one is left behind.

The painting is in strong chiaroscuro, to be faced without superficiality. From the "culture of peace" to love "which is not selfishness, possession, domination, misunderstood pride", but "the real one, which is much more than respect, it is gift, gratuitousness, sensitivity". From the black holes of work that is missing or underpaid, to tax evasion, to the environmental crisis, to the reception of migrants, to the exercise of democracy by voting and not just by being on social media.

And valorising the many alternative gestures that exist in the country, and which perhaps do not make as much noise as the events and words that disrupt the horizon.
While the underlying reasons are at stake which should instead remain powerful and constant beacons for everyone. Another air is possible.

Corrado Avagnina
NP February 2024