Basilicata? Italy’s Saudi Arabia

“Basilicata? It’s a small region but it’s our Saudi Arabia.” The smiling comment of Libero’s co-director, Pietro Senaldi, sounded more or less like this during Agorà (Rai 3) this morning. With a benevolent tone he unequivocally summarized how Lucania is seen from Bologna upwards. You are because you are, or rather, in this case, you are the way you are because you have oil. And it is not at all a far-fetched, casual opinion, which represents only the ‘good’ Lombard bourgeoisie. It is a much more representative stigma.

It was Renzi, who on the altar of Sblocca Italia, praised the Lucanian oil totem. The then minister Calenda thought and still thinks the same way today. Like much of the Italian political class, which in recent weeks has been parading in the Lucanian squares for the electoral campaign. It is due to that same ‘stigma’ that the agreements with the French company Total, at the Tempa Rossa site, were extended just a few days ago until 2068, as if it were a natural fact. In the meantime, it is the Lucanians who pay the price. For the alleged “illicit disposal” of Eni-branded oil waste, with related investigations, for the levels of pollution and possible related diseases. Not to mention corruption, which has always been linked to the exploitation of black gold. In every part of the world. And also in Basilicata, with specific lines of investigation. But for Senaldi and many other commentators and politicians from the Bel Paese, Basilicata matters because it is a small ‘Saudi Arabia’ or whatever happens, the Texas of Italy. A “small” but “important” region because it is Gruyère, ready to be drilled, exploited, like the Niger Delta, or an Amazon of indigenous people, which counts for the economic interests it holds underground. Not for the dignity that an individual, a people should bring with them, regardless of the ‘dowry’ they offer on the altar. You count for what you have, therefore, and not for what you are.

Here, perhaps, in these last days of the drum-beating electoral campaign, the ministers, ladies and secretaries, the prime minister and vice prime ministers of this state, who are so eagerly awaited in the streets, should be asked to account. For them, what is, and more precisely, what will it be in the future, Basilicata? An indefinite energy exploitation hub, with associated nuclear waste sites? Tell us now, however, so that the electoral choice of Lucanians can also be more informed. Knowing, and then voting, reinterpreting Einaudi. And then let the candidates for president of the Region clarify it unequivocally, and once and for all, for what they matter (little, to be honest) on the national stage.