If you want to go on a pilgrimage to where our Constitution was born, go on a yacht in the port of Genoa…
No! Calamandrei did not write this, but perhaps the founding fathers and mothers didn’t even imagine celebrating for a Republic that has been supporting wars for thirty years or more; it makes work varied: from precarious to deadly; health from a right for everyone, to a business for those who are “straight”… okay the list is long… and while the “founders” have put so much of theirs and their stories of struggle, resistance, refusal to mark a path away from the twenty years and from the war (and who tells them that we are still at war and that the Roman salute can be done if it is a celebration?), the “sinkers” are at work to recycle the Constitutional Charter. They don’t even remember June 2nd anymore, maybe they have a new date in mind where they can “celebrate on June 2nd” and they’re making a big deal (or maybe not!). Just look around, you don’t need to go far: Art. 3 Equal social dignity; Art. 9 Protection of the environment; Art. 10 Right of asylum… A Constitutional Charter written thanks to the Liberation from the fascist yoke but which appears constantly under attack. Rights enshrined and systematically trampled upon, violated or, even worse, ignored.
After 85 years of monarchy, of which twenty of fascist dictatorship, today we celebrate 78 years of our Republic. A Republic that day after day finds itself increasingly fragile and needs men and women capable of protecting it from attempts to centralize power in the hands of just one.
Let us therefore celebrate that glorious 2nd June, but let us do so with an eye towards the present, aware that democracy and the republican order represent not a given but an achievement to be defended at all costs.
ANPI Fagnano Olona section
Anti-fascist Committee of Busto Arsizio
Il Quadrifoglio Association
