Pescara, 29 April 2024 – Standing ovation from the people of Brothers of Italyyesterday when it was mentioned Enrico Berlinguer. On stage daughter BiancaMediaset journalist, is interviewing the president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russawho immediately comments: “This applause is the coherent continuation of the homage that the leader of the right paid to Berlinguer. It is a long and heartfelt applause, at the conclusion of the three days of the Melionian party in Pescara.
Bianca Berlinguer and Ignazio La Russa at the Fdi event and Giorgio Almirante at Enrico Berlinguer’s funeral home
Berlinguer, in reality, is quick to point out that he is there in a professional capacity: “let’s not bring my father up – he explains -, let’s talk about what my father did but not what he would have said today”.
La Russa’s speech which triggered the applause was centered precisely on a sense of pacification: “Today I see some bad signs – said the President of the Senate, often at the center of controversy precisely because of his declarations – of intolerance in university, with the ‘Jew hunt’”.
They came from years of lead and violence in which red and black extremists had bloodied the streets and squares of Italy, with hundreds of young victims and executioners of ideologies of death. Yet, the two of them, the head of the great PCI and the leader of the right-wing MSI, as Ignazio La Russa and Bianca Berlinguer recalled, in times of iron considered themselves adversaries and not enemiesunited by the desire to contain the storm that carried away so many children to tragic and irreversible destinies.
Not it is a coincidence that the president of the Senate explains that “this applause and this standing ovation in which I join are the coherent continuation of the homage that the leader of the right paid to Enrico Berlinguer on the day of his death”, when Giorgio Almirante attended the funeral. And, to tell us about that episode which was experienced as one of the key moments of that great day of secular emotion, it was some time ago that she was the daughter of the leader of the MSI.
“Behind that gesture – he underlined Giuliana de’ Medici Almirante – there is the previous acquaintance but above all there is the esteem and consideration for the person: it is evident that he considered Berlinguer an adversary, not an enemy”. Of course, going in those years to Dark Shops at Berlinguer’s funeral home was certainly not easy for the number one of the right of fascist origin. “He was initially greeted with a bit of distrust – explained the lady – because no one expected to find him there, but he, respectful of the rules, lined up like an anonymous citizen among the crowd of militants who wanted to pay homage to the communist leader No one knew he was coming just because he went as an ordinary person. Of course, when he was recognized, activists and leaders rolled their eyes because he was the last person they thought they would meet in that place at that time in that situation.”
There was no warning to the management of the Bottegone, who, however, took action immediately: “The word of his presence reached the upper levels of the PCI – continued the daughter in the story – and Giancarlo Pajetta got out to pick him up to let him in and accompany him to the funeral home. I think they were afraid that something might happen to them or in any case to avoid gratuitous offense. It was Pajetta himself who guided him throughout the visit, making him leave through a secondary entrance of the party headquarters, to avoid him having to pass through the square again. At that point my father alone on foot reached the car that he had parked where he had found a place and went home.” Without escort, without driver: “No, he preferred to go alone for a sense of personal contemplation. Because it wasn’t the political leader who went to Berlinguer’s funeral but the man, the common person, who went to pay homage and respect to a person he respected” .
And, on the other hand, behind that last visit there was a reserved and secret acquaintance. “Now everyone knows – De’ Medici Almirante pointed out – also why Padellaro told it in his book (‘The gesture of Almirante and Berlinguer’): yes, my father is the secretary of the PCI they met secretly. I have always heard about it, but whoever was an eyewitness, even if he never heard what they said to each other because he stood aside, was Massimo Magliaro, his spokesperson and head of the MSI press office. We know that they met in closed chamber, on Friday afternoons, when there were no other parliamentarians around and the corridors of the Chamber were practically deserted.”
What is certain is that just four years later, in May ’88, they were the leaders of the PCI to go to Almirante’s funeral home (and of Pino Romuladi) at the headquarters of via della Scrofafrom Pajetta to the president Nilde Jotti. And it was, on that occasion, the “red boy” himself who closed: “We received him as someone who understands that beyond the stake there is no anger. We were adversaries, but not enemies: we could have been, but the circumstances they avoided it.”
