Florence has been very badly administered for a long time, now it is a city shaped by large speculative interests and crossed by enormous inequalities; but the alternative to the Democratic Party of Nardella and Funaro cannot be the right. It cannot and must not be. The 11 August Association was born to liberate Florence. Many Florentines signed up, enthusiastically participated in the events organized and believed in it. Tired of the policies that have devastated a city and disfigured its identity. The opportunity would come with the next elections.
Since the appeal in January, and then at the Puccini theater in February, “11 August” was born to plan and build together a profound change for Florence, in the sense of the Constitution. In an interview, Tomaso Montanari stated: “If there is a coalition capable of really having an impact, there will also be a list. We are not interested in giving birth to yet another bush. We are so used to politics as a will to power that the media and politicians struggle to understand ‘August 11th’: we are not looking for positions, we have a job, we do not ask the other forces for anything. Only unity, and the ability to really make the vote of the citizens who want change count. What would be the point of voting for a small piece that will serve no purpose, when we could have a coalition capable of making a difference?”.
The current rector of the University of Siena takes a step back and officially announces that the association will not present lists at the municipal elections in June. In short, after days and days of reflection, in the end the bank broke. The historic opportunity had arisen to build a broad coalition, capable of going to the run-off against the Democratic Party, knocking out the right and changing the direction of city politics. Having qualified representation in the City Council would have been very important. A coalition is built, by definition, between different subjects who have political differences between them. Identical subjects, who think the same way about everything, would be a single party or a single movement, not a coalition. The desire to build an alternative to the power system of the Florentine Democratic Party and the right could be a good starting point for an alliance. “The gaze was long and the desire to resolve it together was great,” writes Daniela Morozzi, president of the association, in a long post after the announcement of her withdrawal. The desire for another policy remains.
The intent, as written in a previous article (see here), was to prevent Florence, like most of the Tuscan capitals, from ending up in the hands of a fascist right; and at the same time it was to free Florence from a state of things that reduces it to a commodity and makes it more unequal and unjust every day. A city political association that, in less than a month, has over a thousand members is the best testimony to the desire for change.
We should be sorry, but – let it be said with sympathy – the failed candidacy of Tomaso Montanari made this outcome predictable. In Sardinia, a coalition worked because it was formed around Alessandra Todde, a strong and credible candidate. Although a non-personalistic vision of politics is to be shared, the presence of a strong candidacy generates an enthusiasm in the potential electorate which then translates into participation. Otherwise, even the best intentions are not enough to build concrete and unrealistic political projects. The responsibilities for the failure of this opportunity, moreover, have names and surnames with which, whether we like it or not, everyone will be forced to deal. First of all, the 5 Star Movement should have taken note that in Florence the Democratic Party does not present any element of discontinuity compared to the Renzi and Nardella councils; then other groups – such as Firenze Città Aperta, Sinistra Progetto Comune and Firenze Democratica (of the former PD dissident Cecilia Del Re) – should have understood that the Florentine PD does everything to have an opposition to its fragmented and weak left, with the aim of maintenance of status quo.
Deeply believing that things can change for the better, and looking for ways to make this happen, is the soul of political, but above all ethical, action. The honest analysis of the state of things, which can be read on the association’s website, is the premise for continuing to build an alternative cultural and political project the havoc we are witnessing. The association certainly acted as a glue for many feelings: ardor, conscience, passion, desire, commitment.
Eike Schmidt’s candidacy for mayor unites the right, conferring on the right black alliance a (fake, but useful) veneer of credibility; we also know that the victory of this alliance would be “an even greater evil than the evil represented by continuity with a wicked PD”. This can be read on the association’s website: “We call ourselves ’11 August’ because we strongly believe in the anti-fascist prejudice: and we would never, not even indirectly, want to bring fascist forces back to the leadership of the city. For this reason we will not be present on the ballot but we will certainly not be excluded from this electoral campaign.”
After years, the possibility of a policy built from the bottom could be glimpsed. The birth of the association was important to highlight even more that there was – and is – a need for an alternative proposal for Florencebased on public interest, on a vision of a public city, and not on the logic of power.
