AGI – There is a storm over the statements of General Roberto Vannacci, candidate for the League in the European elections. In an interview with La Stampa, Vannacci expressed some beliefs (“the Italian has white skin, statistics say so”; the homosexual who “shows off as an exhibitionist must accept criticism”; “abortion is not a right” ; students at school, including disabled people “must be divided according to their abilities”) received coldly by the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti.
Roberto Vannacci “is not from the League”, said Giorgetti in Varese on the sidelines of the event in support of Isabella Tovaglieri’s candidacy for the European elections on the League’s lists. The latter, observed the head of the Ministry of Economy, “is a candidate daughter of this land, she feels what the people think, she serves the territory”. To reporters who pointed out that Vannacci is not, he replied: “Correct sentence and already contains the answer”. Finally, on Vannacci’s statements, Giorgetti replied dryly: “I don’t agree”.
The vice-president of the CEI, Monsignor Francesco Savino, is also harsh: “Separate classes reproduce ghettos. Instead our disabled brothers have many abilities that we don’t have. Please let’s be serious and be responsible – concluded the prelate – avoiding returns to dark years “. To controversy General Vannacci replied with a statement to AGI: “The diversity of disabled people must be valorised in the best way, allowing them to express themselves and fully realize themselves by following their talents. They invented the Paralympics for disabled people, they didn’t put them to race with those who are not disabled. My childhood friend Norberto De Angelis is a champion of disability: he is in a wheelchair due to a road accident, but he has won several Paralympic races by training in a peculiar way and bringing out the best he has been able to express through his diversity.” The general then explained: “This is why yesterday, in the interview, after specifying that I was not an expert on disabilities, I said that I was convinced that disabled people should be helped in the most peculiar and specific way possible. Which, at times, it may not coincide with putting them together with other people with different characteristics.” Regarding the sentences about Benito Mussolini, Vannacci confirmed what he said: “he is a statesman, like Stalin, because they are ‘statesmen as Treccani writes'”.
Needless to say, Vannacci’s statements brought the opposition back together. “The general’s incredible words about separate classes for disabled children echo concepts in vogue during a historical period called Nazism,” he said Raffaella Paita, senator and national coordinator of Italia Viva. “With her chilling exit, Vannacci has crossed a line that must never be crossed. We ask the Minister of Disability Locatelli to immediately distance herself from such horror.” The same concept was also reiterated by Davide Faraone, group leader of Italia Viva in the Chamber: “The party that the Minister for Disability expresses is the same one that General Vannacci is nominating for the European elections, who today proposes special classes for girls and boys with disabilities. And for keeping its racist profile high declares that Italians have white skin and that Mussolini is a statesman. This is Matteo Salvini’s League preparing for the European elections, distancing itself from such absurdity”, concluded Faraone .
“Vannacci’s words on separate classes for disabled students – they underlined the M5S exponents in the culture commission – are delusional, extremely dangerous or offensive to thousands of families. The Northern League candidate promotes an inhuman ghettoization of children, in contrast with the deepest values of our Constitution and with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which commits to equal participation of persons with disabilities in society, obviously including school . What do the Northern League disability and education ministers Alessandra Locatelli and Giuseppe Valditara think? Will they defend the Italian public schools and disabled students from Vannacci’s delusions or will they endorse with their silence an idea that takes us back to the darkest and most terrible years of the last century?”.
“So Vannacci is a candidate. I had a comparison with him a few weeks ago. Vannacci is very good for Salvini. I am everything and I am nothing, I am marketing and distinctive”, joked the leader of Action, Carlo Calenda. “Here is a general who is running for the European elections – is the analysis of Arturo Scotto, deputy of the Democratic Party -. And he has a vast programme. To rehabilitate Mussolini because he was a great statesman. To introduce differentiated classes for disabled children. To certify the white identity of the nation. I don’t think he’s joking. His is a vast program. I never use the word at random: but the smell of fascism can be felt a mile away from the minimisers or complicity”.
“Everyone today talks about Vannacci and his shameful remarks about disabled people. The general provokes, the others reply. I am proud and proud to have signed the law on after us, on autism spectrum disorders, on the third sector. The others – he said Matteo Renzi, leaders of IV – are divided between those who provoke and those who gossip: we are those of the laws on social rights”.
For the president of the Italian Paralympic Committee, Luca Pancalli, that of separate classes for the disabled, “is an unacceptable and retrogressive proposal, fortunately society is more advanced. The Italian school was the first in Europe, way back in 1976, to abolish the differential classes, favoring the full inclusion of disabled students giving them opportunities for growth as well as their companions the possibility of being better citizens in a country without ghettos and fences but rather civilized and supportive Pancalli “any discrimination and any choice that tends to separate people is not acceptable in a country that is based on the values of equality, solidarity and respect for every human being. As a disabled person and a sportsman, I am happy and proud of how sport has contributed to overcoming all diversity and all barriers. I believe that today society is ahead of certain unacceptable and retrogressive proposals.”
“General Vannacci should think before speaking”: this is what the lieutenant colonel told AGI Gianfranco Paglia, who lost the use of his legs on 2 July 1993 in the battle of the pasta factory in Mogadishu in Somalia and for the courage and altruism demonstrated on that occasion was decorated with the Gold Medal for Military Valour. His story and the battle at “Checkpoint Pasta” also inspired the television film “The Wings”. “With those words Vannacci demonstrated that he knows nothing about people with disabilities – commented Colonel Paglia – he should go around and really understand what they are and what they can give. The fact that these words come from a general who wore the stars are truly a slap in the face, also towards all the soldiers who have lost their physical efficiency due to service.” As for Vannacci’s candidacy for the European elections, Paglia said he “is happy that he is a candidate, with the hope that he may never wear the uniform again because he doesn’t deserve it”.
