Put case...

On June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, around 10 am, the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip returned home depressed, with the unused revolver in his pocket because the attempt on the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had failed. Archduke Francesco Ferdinando. One of his comrades had missed the timing of a grenade throw and had made the sovereign's car run away. By pure chance, the archduke's driver had taken the wrong road and Gavrilo found himself just a few steps away from the car of the future king. He did not hesitate, shot and killed the arch ¬ duke and his wife. The assassination of Sarajevo was the triggering event of the First World War. But if Francesco Fer¬dinando's driver had taken another route, would the great war have broken out anyway? Again, if Cavour and Lenin had not died prematurely, what fate would the newborn Kingdom of Italy and Bolshevik Russia have had?

If you are interested in these questions, it is very likely that you might like a book released a few years ago entitled The story with the se in which the authors questioned the role of chance in past events. Not all historians appreciate history with ifs but it can be an interesting exercise: some great scholars have in fact talked about the theory of consequences to determine the importance or otherwise of an event: the more significant and widespread the effects, the more decisive the 'event. These considerations help us to reflect on two particular aspects of human action. On the one hand, the fundamental role of the freedom of human action. Even if the random element seems to prevail, it nevertheless provokes reactions that are the result of deliberate choices. Most likely the First World War would have uncovered the same because so many reasons for clash had accumulated that another similar episode would have been enough to sca¬ten it. However, the fact remains that after the accidental discovery of the car of the heir to the throne, Gavrilo deliberately chose to shoot him.

On the other hand, we can see how every event produces consequences. It is valid both in the macroscopic of international political life and in the microscopic of our individual existences. Life like history is a flow of events that continually produces intersecting consequences. The current pandemic has the secondary effect of teaching us this very truth. Let's take the use of masks as an example. Experts tell us that the use of the mask is necessary not so much to protect yourself as to those around us. I, therefore, become responsible for the other and the other becomes responsible for my health. Beyond Covid and examples like this, history shows us that not only is it possible to think of changing reality but it is possible to really change it, perhaps becoming more guardians of each other.

NP Febbraio 2021

Renato Bonomo