If we can’t see it on Rai, let’s watch it “on” Rai.
With this slogan, yesterday evening in Turin Acmos and Articolo 21 together with a large network of associations (Benvenuti in Italia, Anpi, Generazione Ponte, Sinistra Ecologista, Run PoliTo, Giovani Democrati and UGS) arranged to meet in front of the Rai headquarters for the public screening of the first and second episodes of Melonian Youth, the documentary produced by Fanpage and ignored by the public service.
An action of civil conscientious objection to break the encirclement that threatens freedom of information and therefore democracy.
A nonviolent way to reaffirm both Rai’s advertising and the centrality of public space as a place and experience of democracy.
An event that brought to mind, in spirit and practice, the “roundabouts” which in 2002 animated Italian public opinion against Berlusconi’s forcing.
Then the words spoken by the Milan Prosecutor were the trigger Saverio Borrelli on 12 January at the opening of the judicial year: “To the failure of a dangerous crumbling of the general will, to the shipwreck of civic conscience in the loss of the sense of right, the last, extreme bastion of the moral question, it is the duty of the community to resist, resist, resist as if on an indispensable line of the Piave”.
Today, twenty-two years later, with the “heirs-to-the-square” (of the Duce and Berlusconi) in government, perhaps we could symbolically attribute that same function to the words that Liliana Segre pronounced in the Senate on May 14 against the “premiered”: I cannot and will not remain silent. Well, neither do we! Then, in 2002, the arrogance of the illiberal and anti-democratic power was manifested in the so-called “Bulgarian Edict” with which Berlusconi demanded and obtained the purge of Biagi, Luttazzi and Santoro from RAI.
Today the attack on freedom of the press takes the form of censorship Saviano, at the Bortone, to Darken up, takes the form of the Rai appointments against which an urgent appeal is pending before the Council of State (also promoted by Article 21), of the summons to the Supervisory Commission of Sigfrido Ranucci, of that (if possible even more serious) of Emiliano Fittipaldi in the Anti-Mafia Commission, called to answer for the “morality” of the work of the journalist who reveals true facts and of general interest by President Colosimo, who should answer for the “morality” of his garrulous embrace with the former Nar Ciavardini. He takes the form of reckless complaints and civil actions for damages that aim to intimidate journalists, especially those with less covered backs. It takes the form of further editorial concentration in clear confusion and conflict of interest in the AGI-Angelucci affair.
So this sort of self-managed counter-programming of the “Rai schedule” with the screening of the excellent work of Fanpage on the “Meloniana” Youth is welcome. A re-creative embrace that is all the more urgent because some do not escape other disturbing signs.
The first: that this compression of freedom of information occurs in parallel with the compression of the independence and effectiveness of judiciarywhich together with free journalism creplaces the second great “union” on the exercise of power, occurs in parallel with the compression of the legitimate expression of dissent (see the rules contained in the Nordio bill on “Security”), occurs in parallel with the compression of the role of Parliament and that of the President of Republic through the “premiere”, occurs in parallel with the acceleration of the disintegration of national unity through the rules on autonomy.
The second one: that this compression of freedom of information occurs in a very different national and international historical context compared to that of the early 2000s. Today public opinion seems increasingly resigned to the reactionary recipes of the right, less and less willing to bet on freedom and equality for all , on the strength of law as a way to resolve conflicts. In short, it seems increasingly willing to normalize war as a tool for asserting its needs and war, as we knowis always prepared with lies (even the subtle one, which in the last few hours has led some Italian “journalists” to talk about Assange’s release as a “computer scientist (sic!) guilty of conspiracy”).
The third: that this compression of freedom of information occurs at a time in which a certain intolerance towards democratic criticism comes even from where you don’t expect it, as in the case of Barbacetto brought to trial for damages by the Municipality of Milan.
Come on, therefore: we will continue to project on Rai the Rai that we would like to see or the Republic that we want to continue to inhabit.
