“Ignore him“, says an electoral poster of the Democratic Party put up in recent days, with the writing largely covering the face of a general of the army which has made itself famous in recent months with a pair Of books. Overall it’s a good idea don’t give space, in the sense of mental energy and further prominence, to those who seek their minutes of fame at the expense of this or that category from time to time. But there is also a dark side of ignoring. Ignoring can become to remove, towards who and above all what we don’t like to face. Even in Veneto, as in the rest of Italy, on April 25th it was a day of dutiful remembrance marked by flags and give them celebrations of administrations and institutions. Yet, with the notable exception of exponents of the center-left and liberal area who come from political cultures different from that one postcommunist (so as not to mention names, in Veneto Ivo Rossi, Paolo Giaretta, Giampiero dalla Zuanna, and many others) repression dominates in anti-fascist political field Italian. He has a name: Ukraine.
The repressed that returns
Not only was there not much talk about it on April 25th, the date on which the epic of the Resistence Italian, which until proven otherwise was done with weapons, not with requests for negotiations with the Gestapo. We haven’t talked about it anymore, almost at all, for weeks, for months. But as Emmanuel Carrère once said, “the repressed always returns, otherwise what kind of removal would it be?“. So what if on April 25th one had gone for example to the Biennial in Venice, he would come across the removed Ukraine, both in the Ukrainian pavilion at the Arsenale and in the Polish pavilion (beautiful). And in the previous days he would have found i around Venice signs and the brochures that the good Ukrainians, who resist every day, had distributed in places of art, history and culture, thanks to the creative agency Bickerstaff.734: for example, in Piazza San Marco, “nearest bomb shelter”, that way to the nearest air raid shelter.
“Foreigners everywhere”
A simple and brilliant idea, to remind us, with a shiver, that before “foreigners everywhere”, which is the title of this edition chosen by the curator Pedrosa, the Ukrainians are still, more than two years after the start of this war of aggression, foreigners in Italy. That is, too much ignored. In the meantime, however, they are fighting the war. With the substantial help of some democracies, among which, she whispered, with a little of (absurd and inexplicable) embarrassmentfortunately, ours too.
