Puglia and Monopoli. Apulian spring between image and reality.

Puglia and Monopoli.
The Apulian spring between image and reality.

Oscillating cycles of identity image, varied cultures and stereotypes, widespread contradictions of a dual, if not multiple, Puglia, difficult to interpret.

In recent times yet another Martian has been catapulted into our country and out of natural curiosity he has ventured into the land of the Messapi, Dauni, Peucezi in the footsteps of the romantic travelers of Grand Tour. Having returned to his planet of origin to dutifully report to his roommates, he struggled to elaborate an acceptable synthesis of a credible identity plan for Puglia.

Probably the Martian – in an evident state of confusion – had not metabolised the necessary sociological categories useful for analyzing a karst Levantine society like ours. But we must acknowledge that a clear, unambiguous and defined representation of the Apulian reality is an objectively difficult operation. Different souls, hell and paradise, jarring contradictions, excesses that are difficult to decrypt, atavistic multiplicity of cultures, stereotypes, and finally, even recently, sudden cycles of the identity image generated by political and judicial choices. And then that strident coexistence of sublime levels of authentic religiosity with dark caves where the most sinful and prosperous forms of illegality spread at all levels of social stratification thrive.

Contemporary literature itself, journalism and even filmography – except for the cases that distance themselves from the rampant euphoria and blinding lights – have focused on individual aspects (also in a satisfactory manner) but have hardly achieved convincing syntheses and organic visions. It is a complex land, difficult to experience and interpret.

The facets, both individual and of social groups, communities, territories require – for an authentic reading – a wealth of skills and professionalism, above all detachment and absence of hysteria; ultimately require a habitus of intellectual independence and thirdness of dialectical positions which, alone, can be functional to a correct and transparent analysis capable of representing reality and above all its changing, often misleading dynamics.

Much more belongs to the heart of Puglia and to the bumpy path of the traveler on duty who, restless, tries to understand this land, a true encyclopedia of “difficult living” and mysteries to interpret; poor Martian, too many old and new variables to put together, process and talk about with conviction.

After all, we must all forgive ourselves to some extent on this subject; our friends who are social scientists confide in us that society is changing faster than the thoughts and reflections that should include it, also to help slow down the widespread decline.

The Martian, exhausted and confused, made it clear that, after a necessary phase of didactic acculturation in the fields of cultural and even criminal anthropology, sooner or later he will willingly return attracted by the charm of this land, by its warm welcome, by a pleasant and seasoned with a complex pathos that embraces and often consumes territories, youth, playful moments seasoned with spices, drugs, bombastic music and spirits of all kinds.

I am confident that when he returns, rich in adequate “knowledge”, the Martian will find one Different and better Pugliain which in the meantime the issues of legality, social justice, urban security, the fight against poverty and inequalities, and the efficiency of public administration will have been taken care of, and more taken care of.

A Puglia in which human and social capital will have been simultaneously enriched, women will have been more decisively inserted into the political, economic and decision-making mechanisms; and young talents will discover adequate professional growth opportunities in their land of origin. And naturally citizens will no longer be forced to wait long hospital waits and suffer painful “health tourism” to be treated with the necessary professionalism; falling ill will no longer be a tragedy reminiscent of the vicissitudes and torments of Ulysses. And therefore, in parallel, thanks to a favorable emulative situation, the ruling class will also have had the opportunity to enrich their professional background for the exclusive benefit of citizens and the ancient stereotypes, especially of gender, will have evolved towards greater degrees of civility.

We are equally convinced that automatically the atavistic, widespread forms of “adaptive existence” (to everything) will have dissolved so that social sensitivity towards legal and fiscal duties and the fight against mafia infiltration will be a strong point of society and not its opposite , as well as the disappearance of the demeaning and degenerative suburra generated by the “exchange vote” which today infects democracy and undermines the roots of its existence, its balance.

It is today’s worrying social malaise, widespread and growing especially among the weakest and most defenseless groups, which gives us hope that this evolution will be completed with the participation of many and the satisfaction of (almost) everyone.

Then the Martian on duty will be able to read, without perplexities and Freudian questions, the well-known welcome sign “Be happy, you are in Puglia”; then yes, the contradictions now resolved will allow a univocal and credible narrative also on Mars, even in the advertising versions of our tourist posters. Then yes, the thousand incongruous and transformative masks, the ambiguities and contradictions will have consumed their deviant and polluting history, leaving the field open to the “beautiful Puglia” and “felix”; and so we will be able to boast, finally with authority, of the cosmic hedonistic call “Puglia d’amore”.

And the Martian will no longer feel uncomfortable for “not being able to understand”, for “not being able to accept”, for “not realizing”, like many terrestrial inhabitants of an ephemeral and standardized society poised between reality and imaginary in the perpetual search for a meaning to give to the virtual nothingness that oppresses us, to the fatuous everyday life, to the impending fate, to the false and blinding lights that do not allow a clear view of good, of evil, of reality, of the “middle world” ”.

The tourist epic of the Martian is ultimately the very metaphor of us travelers in a sunny, scorched and suffocating desert in search of a more visible and transparent world, with less “false development” and more “civil progress”, less virtual and more on a scale for men, especially women, for all people.

Aesop (6th century BC – Fables) tells us that a traveler met a woman in a desert who was alone looking at the ground and said to her “Who are you?”. She that she replied “I am the truth”. “And why, having abandoned life, do you live in the desert?” She said “Because in ancient times the lie belonged to a few, but now it belongs to all men, whatever they say or listen to. I am the truth and they left me in the desert.”

From the truth in the desert to the desert of truth the step is short. The truth combines (and confuses) with power and dependence, impotence and arrogance, opinions and beliefs, the right to speak confused with the right to lie, manipulations, disinformation and mystification; but in the end it wins, and illuminates, almost always even if not immediately, even if in a subsequent, growing era of fragile and ephemeral post-truth.

With the emergence of the truth (or presumed such), the “Apulian spring”, or its legacy, or if you like the widely publicized “Apulian renaissance” underwent a sudden spring freeze that awakened many citizens from a lazy torpor. Evil is a lucid connoisseur of men and politics, the “evil of the East” is always around the corner, the image of Puglia returns to suffer treacherous, historical oscillations that create disorientation and chaos and which recall it to the fate of ” eternal unfinished” oriented by the desertions of the public spirit.

Let’s hope for a next, better, longer-lasting season of real and distributed blooms and harvests. The hope is that the vocation to the “crossroads” will be oriented, without any more territorial blemishes or convenient rhetoric, towards widespread culture, transparency and inner civility, social well-being, the search for ancient dignity; and that the glittering and luminous activities, the tourist paradises and similar, the criminal hell and the mafia suburra, together with the many atavistic vices, leave room for the improvement of the social fabric, for the legal and remunerative employment of the young and less young in the our territory, to raising the levels of democratic participation and opportunities, to a realistic and overall vision of the region. Thus encouraging discussion mainly on values, on important themes, on the needs of all citizens, on choices that promote collective well-being.

Ultimately, the hope is that Puglia will finally take care of itself.

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Francesco Lettieri

Born in 1943, he graduated in “Public Economics” and specialized in “Financial Science” at the “A. Olivetti” of Ancona.
In 1971 he joined the Bank of Italy where he held roles in the inspection supervision of credit companies and in the tax function, studying in depth the issues of direct and indirect taxation in the credit sector and in the capital market with international implications, the civil and tax aspects of bank balance sheet.
He is the author of writings on the relationships between civil and fiscal budgets, inflation and taxes, tax evasion and income distribution.
After having participated in the organizational review of the Bank’s functional areas and in the project to revisit the branch operating system, he directed the regulatory production sector.
Manager of the Bank’s Fiscal Relations Service, he participated in the work of the Commission for the advancement of employees to Management and of the Joint Commission for Equal Opportunities.
He is currently retired.
He was part of the first Steering Committee of the Revenue Agency (2001) appointed by the Council of Ministers with a Decree of the President of the Republic. Decision-making and deliberative body of the Agency which managed the organizational transition phase of the public tax function.
He has lived in Puglia and spent his summer holidays in Monopoli since the 1950s.
He recently published the volume “Le Puglie”.