Giuseppe Silipo
June 18, 2024 08:34
by GIUSEPPE SILIPO*
Once upon a time, but it’s not a fairy tale, there was a nice street vendor (the less young people will remember him) who arrived in the city districts on board his ramshackle three-wheeler, intoning an obsessive refrain into the microphone that went: I’ll bring you the potatoes and you’ll want the cipuddi , I brought you the cipuddi and wanted the potatoes. It was a very colorful way of demonstrating how difficult it was to please our fellow citizens. The metaphor is useful because even in the case of the current Administration the difficulties of pleasing everyone are similar to those of the late Salvatore. By now it seems like a broken record, whatever is organised, criticism and disappointment arise. The streets could have been asphalted, these are not the city’s problems, the purifier doesn’t work, etc.etc.
For heaven’s sake, we know well that there are more important situations. But criticizing on purpose, often without even participating in the events that are organised, seems ungenerous to us. Let’s leave the opposition alone. They fulfill a political role and do what the voters have delegated them to do. Therefore criticism, even specious, can exist.
We who do not have to fulfill any political role and who are equidistant from all the parties, think that criticism is right, just as it is right to give credit when there is merit.
And in this regard, last weekend our historic center was repopulated with some events that attracted a lot of people. The first “Nuvola” event was certainly of considerable cultural depth and attracted visitors from all over the region. The other, much more popular but no less attended, is the beer festival in Piazza Prefettura.
And the Biodiversity Park also experienced some days dedicated to food. In short, we tried to please all palates. Rather, if there must be criticism, we address it to those who did not think that it would be appropriate to make Corso Mazzini pedestrian on Sunday, given that the layout envisaged that people, in addition to sipping the blond drink, would sit and eat delicious sandwiches. And doing this in the middle of honking cars doesn’t seem ideal to us. But evidently this was of little interest to the Municipal Administration, given that it did not even sponsor the initiative. Details anyway.
What interests us is that the historic center has rediscovered itself as attractive this weekend. As it should always be.
Returning to our dear Salvatore, he had solved the problem in his time: oja you brought potatoes and cipuddi.
Could this be a suggestion for someone?
*Citizen Coordinator of the CalabriaOltre Association
