CORIGLIANO-ROSANO 23 years ago, on 2 June 2001, the national edition of Ansa reported an appeal to the then President of the Republic Ciampi signed by Eight Towers on the Ionian Sea, an associative experience that started a few years earlier, in 1997, with the launch of what in the following years would become, also thanks to the support of the Minister of Youth Giorgia Meloni, the largest Summer School in Identity Management ever organized in Southern Italy . Otto Torri sull’Ionio asked the Head of State to block the Trenitalia advert of the time, because it was considered offensive and misleading for the Calabrians. «Stop that Trenitalia.com commercial – reported the Ansa take – because it deceives foreign tourists, offends Italians, but above all it mortifies Calabrians. The Eurostar advert offends a part of the country: namely the one where trains still run on diesel and on a single track. From injury to insult. The very serious and persistent lack of road and railway infrastructure is fine, but even wanting to advertise with so much emphasis and in all the media the efficiency and convenience of some limited parts of the country seemed really too much. If, in fact, in some areas of the Centre-North one travels on the Etr 500-Eurostar, on the contrary – reported Otto Torri in 2001 – on the so-called Frecce del Sud, such as the sadly known Crotone-Milanpassengers are forced to sleep in the toilets, crowded on the floor and in the corridors for at least 15 hours».
Montesanto: «A great infrastructure relaunch project for Calabria»
«That commercial was suspended immediately. And 23 years later – he declares Lenin Montesantodirector of Otto Torri sull’Ionio – on the 78th anniversary of the Republic, we can perhaps begin to say that a bit of history and destiny begin to change direction. Without rhetoric but always and only with that secular optimism that has always distinguished us, forced to compare and oriented towards action, we refer to the turning point in infrastructure investments in the South and in Calabria, especially in recent years. In fact, June 2 this year perhaps truly represents a turning point. At least this is our wish which we believe is widely shared. After so many years, we can perhaps take note, in fact, that Calabria is at the center of a major infrastructure relaunch project, with financial numbers perhaps unprecedented in the history of post-unification Italy. The third megalot on the SS106 is a reality and soon the electrification of the railway will be too. High speed is advancing on the Tyrrhenian Sea and above all the Strait Bridge project has regained momentum. Without ever taking our feet off the ground, 23 years after that appeal, we can perhaps look to the future with a little more confidence. Of course, without ever letting your guard down, and because the risk of construction sites stopping is always around the corner; both above all because – concludes Montesanto – the road of Calabria and the Calabrians towards the conquest of their autonomy and their cultural, food and economic sovereignty passes and will always pass through the definitive managerial and competitive re-appropriation, without oicophobiaof its history and of its identity and distinctive heritage”.
