Of youth and madness

I have been in the editorial team of Progetto – NP since January 2008 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary – right from the beginning. 45 years well spent for me! They have helped me and are helping me to grow, to mature, to form myself on a daily basis. At that time there was still no Arsenale della Pace and the seat of Sermig was still the one that card. Pellegrino had allowed us to use, in Via Arcivescovado 12. The editorial meetings took place in the beautiful sacristy connected to the church in Via Arsenale, and since we no longer had it available, in one or the other's home.

Clearly we didn't have today's technical tools at our disposal. For example, I followed, together with others, the drafting, layout and printing phase. Strictly in the first years for the articles the typewriter was used to facilitate reading and composition in typography with lead characters, later in typography they passed from lead to perforated tapes (I still remember that perforated pink stripe!) and only then the use of writing programs began using the first PCs they had given to the Arsenale della Pace. In the typography they had now moved on to machines equipped with electronic control systems and the typographers could use files written in the appropriate language. It was therefore not enough to bring the 8-inch floppy disks with the articles, but they had to be "translated" with a suitable program.

Finally we arrived at the direct dialogue between the editorial staff and the typography. The same odyssey also for the layout. The typography gave us the strips, which we had to cut to arrange them glued on the dummy, and for the photos the cuts and dimensions had to be calculated and indicated. Here too until electronic programs for pagination showed up. Talking again with the friends with whom we did this job, we remember it with great sympathy. On the other hand, working together becomes a source of increasingly advanced friendship and respect.
Sermig's decision to venture into a monthly was clearly a "madness", but also a direct consequence of the "active struggle and contemplation" kneaded into Sermig's own world.

In the magazine's introductory article in the first issue, I relived the initial spirit, which in my opinion has been maintained and enriched. Now I will use it. So many follies to face.
Not using advertising to finance us, focusing on volunteering and the free collaboration of journalists and experts. "To be totally free, he does not have masters behind him, but seeks only loyal and generous friends who share the same trust in man, the same hope in the future". Seize the positive, then also focus on the white news, on the good that exists, to make it spread together in the conviction of the validity of the Chinese aphorism that a falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest, therefore an alternative choice to that to focus on news, situations and facts that tickle the belly. Making our experience available, "from meeting famous people to meeting so many ordinary people, with so many poor people in the world, becoming aware of the injustices that oppress them and committing ourselves to fight them".

Offering a tool to deal with in the belief that we can only grow by working together, bringing out the values that guided our action: keep hoping, tell the truth, want to implement justice, be the voice of the weak… «The magazine it wants to be a humble and courageous tool to be placed in everyone's hands. Young and old, intellectuals and ordinary people, believers and non-believers… for everyone to be involved in this exciting adventure: to make a new world». "The magazine focuses on a new element of humanity: it intends to contribute to conceiving and realizing it, through discussions with everyone and a concrete commitment to action".
Here once again peeps "active struggle and contemplation" or, better, "contemplation and active struggle".

Truth and love the condiments of the articles. «Progetto's discourse will always be clear, frank, even harsh when necessary, capable of denouncing evil wherever it lurks, without ever compromising. His critique, however, will not tend to destroy, but instead to build».
The transition from the initial 24 pages to the current 64 can also be interpreted that for NP it is not the time to close, but to continue along the path of an alternative magazine of information and participation for which it was born, with the signs that can be summarized in “goodness is disarming”.
To commemorate the 45th anniversary, two essential components are missing: the direction and the editorial staff of the Project.

We keep in mind that the ecclesial drive due to card. Pellegrino had enriched the already lively participation in diocesan life and further set many sensitivities in motion. Surely Giorgio Ceragioli and Ernesto Olivero were two strikers, in two different sectors. Different but complementary which also allowed Sermig to walk by deepening and broadening his horizons. Restitution, globality, non-violence, passion for life and its dignity, technological hope, a stimulus for participation, the stubborn conviction of making the "eschatological" objectives of a new world nourished by peace and justice current and feasible... brought Giorgio and Ernesto to decide to start together, at least for an initial period, the adventure of Project, taking responsibility for the management. Giorgio helped us until the November 1979 issue, when he left the co-direction, while continuing his necessary and prophetic collaboration through the continuity of his articles and columns, since his various commitments did not allow him to follow up with continuity and pace Project step.

With regard to the editorial team, the list reported in the first issue of Progetto brings together all the friends who were part of Sermig, precisely to highlight that the madness that was about to begin was shared and desired by the whole community. Too bad there isn't a group photo, but the faces, the time spent together, the strengthened friendship are indelible. And the friends with whom we started the Progetto adventure 45 years ago and who are no longer here, like Giorgio Ceragioli, Pierino and Franca Grossetti, Irene Mathis, Cecilia Quattroccolo, Gino Michieli, Lino Vidiri and Maria Olivero, leave a great sense of gratitude.

Guido Morganti
NP March 2023