Avellino
by Arturo Aiello*
After the tumultuous days of the election campaign, silence fell. Even today, I ask myself, despite the legitimate political debate: don’t truth and goodness make their own way? Two images seem to me to be part of the history of this last month: Gengaro’s handshake as he, as a gentleman, went to compliment his opponent, offering her compliments, on his “black Monday”, and a dance that Nargi and Gengaro had done, invited to a mutual friend’s party, after the last heated rallies. That dance reminded me of the “waltzes” that Francesco Giolitti, in epic times in the history of our Italy, invented to identify and justify the secret contacts he had with representatives of officially adversary nations. After him, in the continuation of the twentieth century and these first decades of the new millennium, we have seen many other transformations that, compared to Giolitti’s attempts, make the latter seem like fairy tales for children. But let’s go back to the waltz between Laura and Antonio which could be much more than a coincidence or a last ditch idea of a subtle subliminal message when the imperative of great silence was in force. I I would start from that gesture, from that improvised and innocent waltz, to design the new government of the city.
Dearest Laura, first of all, best wishes and congratulations for the result achieved by you and your team. I tell you right away that I would not want to be in your shoes these days when you choose the group that will govern the city of Avellino. Up to now, electoral strategies have prevailed, the fictitious “center-suburbs” opposition, the waving of flags, the promises of one candidate and the other, the fireworks like for the victory of the championship (we are a stadium people!), but now the common good must prevail and not the empire of one party. When you take the oath as the first citizen of Avellino, you will not do so as the Mayor of a group, but as the director and guardian of a good that concerns everyone, winners and losers. Now is the time for the city, for its truest and most forgotten needs, first of all for the people, all of them, without any exclusions whatsoever and, if there is to be a predilection it must be directed towards the pockets of poverty of Quattrograne, Valle, Rione-Ferrovia. I am not writing to you as a Bishop, but as a citizen who fears that “One cannot make equal parts among unequals” as Don Lorenzo Milani wrote.
To choose the city and give it a stable government, your team must be as inclusive as possible, skipping the winners-losers divide, and choosing competent collaborators even from lists that have not reached the victory podium. I do not intend to cancel the task of the opposition, which must be intelligent and, when necessary, collaborative, but, in the game of parts, to think beyond the fences and the old and corroded party logic.
The city needs stability and long-term projects that can only be achieved by a team that unites the different souls. I know it is difficult, but it is the high task to which you are called, in this solemn moment, to avoid uncertain balances and short-term interventions that prove right the historical adage that wants in the last victory the premises of the future war. Your Bishop, who does not want to confuse competences that are and remain different, accompanies you in these decisive days for the future of our city, prays for you and blesses you. Laura, it’s city time now.
Who knows, maybe that impromptu waltz at a party is the key to our future.
*Bishop of Avellino
