“Here, you and I, Southern Italy, must talk to each other once, really think calmly, alone, without telling each other fantasies / about our districts”
These verses by Franco Costabile, twentieth century poet and man of letters, represented the leitmotif of the meeting-debate held in Lamezia for the presentation of the book “State prejudice – That Italy with limited sovereignty, the Oliverio case”, of which the journalist and writer Adriana Toman is the author.
Following the meeting was an attentive and large audience who showed great interest in the interventions of the speakers who ranged from the social poetry of the author from Lamezia to the Oliverio case, which is yet another terrible experience of bad justice described masterfully by the author.
With rigor and passion Adriana Toman narrated a bad page in the history of Calabria in recent years, a page to be archived with the hope and firm determination that the Calabrians wake up from the torpor of addiction, from the belief that what happens is inevitable and that nothing can ever change .
“I wrote this book with my head, with numbers – commented the author – Other than judicial errors, in reality everything is studied carefully by those who come here to Calabria to make a career in politics, and above all in the judiciary. In cases like Oliverio’s we can talk about judges who fall in love with their accusatory hypotheses.”
“This book – reiterated Toman – is not against the judiciary but is a book that denounces the malfunctioning of justice, an unfortunately undeniable reality. Calabria is the victim of a cultural prejudice because the objective, for some, is to prosecute people and not the crime.” The author added: “Justicialism and populism are two sides of the same coin, two sides of a system that crystallizes Calabria and prevents it from overcoming its gaps, from expressing its potential to the fullest.”
Senator Ida D’Ippolito, senior parliamentarian, coordinated the interventions, who defined the book as “an ideal and programmatic manifesto. This – D’Ippolito remarked – is the complaint of those who do not accept pressure, of those who do not want to be seen as criminals because they are neither criminals nor servants. For the author, a just world is not a dream but a project. Her story is a socio-political and anthropological narrative of a Calabria in which many lights can be glimpsed but which is still clouded by many shadows”.
Renzo Andricciola, president of the Criminal Chamber of Lamezia, he applauded the fact that Oliverio fought head-on in this matter in which he was involved. “In Calabria – he commented – the democratic order of things has been subverted. Careers in many fields are truly built on the judicial vicissitudes of this region, this happens because politics is weak.”
Valerio Murgano, member of the national council of the Italian criminal chambers, he stated: “I have no political coats, my coat is my toga. Often the good and courageous magistrates who operate in Calabria are ‘scientifically eliminated’. The true caste is that of the magistrates.”
For Mario Murone, professor of criminal procedure at the Magna Graecia University of Catanzaro, “the greater the political deficiency, the greater the judicial prejudice. Everyone – he observed – opposes the Cartabia reform, in reality I am convinced that it would work. Judicial populism – Murone pointed out – occurs because the judge thinks he is interpreting popular sentiment; but, the power is not divine. In the specific case of Oliverio, the ‘justice system’ did not work. In Italy we record record figures for the number of unjust detentions and for the millions in compensation due to those who have suffered a judicial injustice.”
The mayor of Lamezia, Paolo Mascaro, also brought his greetings to the conference, who recalled the story of the dissolution of the city council in 2017 in which he was the protagonist and which he defined as “shameful. Calabria – stated the mayor of Lamezia – has been massacred by the commissioners. Politics is weak because it is only interested in consensus. Certainly the magistrate should not be criminalized but even in the judiciary lurks the criminal enchanted by power and money. Legislation is needed to regulate the intervention of the judiciary in the massacre of human lives.”
The meeting concluded with a passionate speech by Mario Oliverio, former governor of Calabria, who stated: “I have never given up and will never give up the ethical dimension; the damage you suffer when you are involved in events that later turn out to be unjust are irreparable. Politics is weak for many reasons, because there is a cultural lowering of sensitivity. The parliamentarians are only interested in being re-elected in the next elections; no glance, no concern for the society around. In Parliament – stated Oliverio – there are vassals subordinate to the castes, this is the crisis of politics”.
The initiative is part of the cycle of meetings foreseen by the cultural project “The rose in the glass” inspired by the poetics and thought of Franco Costabile, Calabrian author among the most illustrious exponents of Italian hermeticism. The project (Business brand of the Ministry of Economic Development) is conceived and promoted by the journalist Maria Scaramuzzino from Lamezia, and aims to contextualize Costabile’s thought in our times: the poet’s legacy, what remains of his thought, what it is its relevance, this is the common thread of the design process which is interfacing with the various realities of the territory and the many complex dynamics of the social context of reference.
