I was born in Genoa in 1951, and I remained there until 1987. I was a child when the city rose up, at the instigation of the Ligurian Sandro Pertini, against the return of fascism with Tambroni government. The city, Gold Medal for the Resistance, perceived the congress of the Social Movement, complete with the tricolor flame, as an outrage. In Piazza De Ferrari, in the clashes with the Scelba police, my grandfather was there Nando, my father Luigi and his brother, uncle Carletto, with the striped shirts, typical of dock workers. It was June 30, 1960. The Tambroni government fell. Genoa was one of the vertices of the industrial triangle, and still is, albeit to a lesser extent, but not by much. With the arms race at least two Genoese companies are rubbing their hands, others are waiting for the breakwater.
In 1983 a scandal led to the arrest of the region’s president, the socialist Alberto Teardo. Sentenced to 12 years for criminal association, extortion, embezzlement and extortion. But even before that, Genoa was the scene, in 1974, of the oil scandal: the “assault magistrates” uncovered a cauldron of oil-related politics and business. The government fell, but then everything was hushed up in Parliament. Twenty years before Clean hands everything was already known.
Also in Genoa a comedian, Beppe Grillopurged from television for a joke about Craxi’s socialists (if in China you are all socialists, who are you stealing from?) denounces scandal after scandal (from Cirio to Parmalat) in his theater shows and, in the end, decides to do something different serious and asks to join the Democratic Party. Fassino she advises him to make a party, and he does. We know the story. Going back in time, it was the Ligurians who made Italy, from Mazzini and Garibaldi, born in Nice to a Genoese family, to Bixio and Rubattino, who gave the Thousand the ships that left from Fourth. The national anthem was written by two Genoese: Giovanni Mameli the lyrics, Michele Novaro the music. In 1976 in Genoa the BR massacred the Judge Coco and his escort, and in 1979 they murdered Guido Rossa who denounced the terrorists.
After the infamous G8 from the Diaz school, in recent times Genoa was a model for the whole of Italy, with the reconstruction of the Bridge, whose merit, for me, goes first of all to the most reviled minister in Italy, Danilo Toninelli, who entrusted it to mayor Bucci and president Toti, based on the Genoese’s design Renzo Piano. The bridge was built in record time thanks to the two administrators chosen by Toninelli. He could have done as was done in Romagna in the case of the flood, with the exclusion of Bonaccini. With the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America, in 1992, Renzo Piano returned the Old Port to the city and built one of the largest aquariums in Europe. Ducal Palace, restored by Giovanni Spalla, strangely enough a Genoese, it hosts the most important science festival in Italy and is home to countless cultural events of the highest level. Let’s not talk about our national sport, football, which in Italy was born with the Genoese team: the Genoa.
This very long trail of lights and shadows, which places Genoa at the center of the country’s history, is completed with recent events which, I must say, do not surprise me. The presidents of the regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Sicily, Abruzzo and Calabria were imprisoned. Liguria Still once he beats everyone: he has two! The first is Teardo and the last, for now, is Toti. An endless story. The justification is that of Bettino Craxi: what do you want? everyone does it! Part of the electorate, disgusted, does not vote. Another part sees nothing wrong with it. They are all the same anyway. Anyone who tries not to be equal is accused of populism and justicialism by those who are equal to everyone else.
Mani Pulite failed, and Grillo’s success was temporary: they are the criminals! Sgarbi, in 1994, on Canale 5, he shouted against the prosecutors: MURDERERS!!! For Berlusconi I’m a cancer, and the 5S are incapable runaways. Those who want cleanliness cannot tolerate even the slightest stain and if they find one they retreat… into private life, as they used to say. Anyone who isn’t scandalized shouts at clockwork justice and to the presumption of innocence until the last level of judgement. Prescriptions become acquittals. Those convicted sit in Parliament and are candidates for elections. Those who vote for them always find themselves… paying, of course. There are many who believe that mafiosi like Mangano are heroes, victims of the cancer of the Judiciary!
I’m very curious to see how it will end, in my Genoa: given the contribution it has made to the history of the country, for better or for worse, it could reserve some surprises for us. The first verse of the hymn written by the Genoese Michele Novaro today gives its name to the first party, complete with the tricolor flame, in the preferences of Italians. Who knows what Pertini would say. Another could be done with the second verse: Italy has awakened! More than a party, it could be a coalition of parties that have honesty and ethics as their guiding light, together with competence. I find it tough, given that these values are now the object of ridicule.
Should we surrender to this drift? The wall that has at the top the sharp shards of bottles from the poetry of another Genoese must be demolished, with the stubbornness with which Christopher Columbus, to go east, went west, in a stubborn and contrary direction, and put an end to the Middle Ages. Or, how Fantozziwe will say to the politician caught red-handed: how human you are… And now, remaining in Genoa, we wait for Crozza to make us Toti.
