Dear citizens, dear citizens;
the choice to apply was not simple, but it developed over time, in a broad discussion that called into question my life path, my profession, my experiences.
You have to be a little crazy to deal with politics here, in this small place in the South where the past seems to have taken away all hope, all proactive strength.
Our city has been born many times, but today we are called to be reborn, to make a turning point, to bear witness to a sign of strong change compared to a past still full of wounds.
My name, and that of many others, represents a rupture. For thirty years, with my work in the social world, I have tried to improve – day after day – the quality of life of people, in particular the most fragile, minors and the least.
What is this if not a political commitment?
I learned, as Don Milani wrote, that other people’s problems are the same as mine. Getting out of it all together is politics. On the contrary, coming out of it alone is avarice.
Our Manfredonia needs politics to return: participatory, open to the future and to society. A politics that, finally, returns to distributing its power, to listening to everyone, to sharing the difficulties and dreams, expectations and desires with the citizens.
Over time, by comparing myself with others, I realized that we can promote autonomy, we can emancipate ourselves from discomfort, we can trigger generative changes only if we are able to activate cooperation, collaboration, co-responsibility.
In the next five years, after a long period of discontent and depression, we will be called to come out and look – without fear – at our tomorrow. And then it will be important to build a new narrative of the city, with different points of view and numerous bottlenecks from which to imagine and dream a new idea of Manfredonia, not linked to immediate answers, but full of visions and projects that will have to answer questions capable of find the right answers and possible solutions together.
We must start again from the identity of our land, from its human capital, from our young people, from dignified, regular, inclusive work; from strategic infrastructures and cultural assets, from the sea, from tourism and from the many productive activities that support our economy. Manfredonia is a deposit of skills and resources that must be networked, creating positive connections between the realities already present, in an attempt to face the crisis that we have been experiencing for too long as a new opportunity, a new challenge.
In the city that I dream of, we will return to taking care of certain values such as honesty, trust, equality and solidarity. Politics, today more than ever, must tackle a complex challenge: the one committed to transforming these moral values into public practices and conduct for a city finally returned to its citizens, with equal rights and duties.
Now is the time to make a future: now, all together!
Domenico La Marca, mayoral candidate of the “Together for Manfredonia” coalition.
