The first experiment of a new history had collapsed on itself after holding the rest of the world in suspense for seventy-odd years.
The vote for EU Parliament next June takes place while the Union is affected by a severe crisis, from which no way out is foreseen. Voters will be faced with the choice between only two possible majorities, according to all the main political figures and the most influential media: confirmation of the current one or a shift to the right with the inclusion of conservatives and the exclusion of socialists/democrats.
That is, the choice between confirming the political structure that led to the current crisis or falling back on a desperate entrenchment, in the illusion that could be possible to resist staying locked in a bastion and leaving the rest of the world to its fate. As if today's Europe could exist without the rest of the world and as if the heart of the crisis to escape, between the southern shore of the Black Sea and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, does not touch Europe.
The voters who don't buy this talk are mainly taking the "exit" route towards abstention, except for that part, unfortunately a minority, who rather than giving up will make their protest "voice" heard. But, with little clarity on the alternative that should be built, the right one.
There isn't much to complain about the lack of clarity. It is a work in progress, there is a culture to be rebuilt before even planning a future. And we have to clear the ground from the pile of rubble that has accumulated, after some herald storyteller came to announce the end of history and the triumph of the West, only because the first experiment of a new history had collapsed on itself after holding the rest of the world in suspense for seventy-odd years.
Time is running out, catastrophic events follow one another dangerously, but a new culture cannot be created in an instant. And there are no longer any village elders, who should cultivate culture and instill wisdom. We are in the hands of helmsmen who are concerned with tackling the most threatening waves as best as possible in the “gran tempesta” (big storm) but do not ask themselves which route to follow and have no "nocchiere" (coxswain) at their side who is able to indicate it.
Now that we have evoked Dante Alighieri we arrive at Italy, "servant" and "hostel of pain". How surprisingly timely these words are! As for servitude, Italy bows to the White House, where supremacists and militarists dominate, and to the other two founding countries of the EU that have decided to decide without having to listen to the opinion of the third, an Italy that has no opinion. And, as regards pain, Italians have chosen to be guided by a government to which pain is indifferent. Worse still, it is a nuisance, it must be punished, exacerbating it and marginalizing it. Get angry, people, we'll get you far from our sight.
Italy is at the bottom of almost all the rankings, but if some commission of experts suggests that it should try to improve at least some performances, it rebels against the insults. The list of the failures is becoming impossible to reconstruct, being so many, almost innumerable. Young people run away, older people get depressed, men get angry and women try to defend themselves and resist but they are exhausted.
If that wasn't enough, the part of the people that in the rest of Europe works on a new culture and an alternative future, in Italy is in dire straits, and in the minority. A multitude of soloists who are unable to form an orchestra, while younger people, without a guide, have to dig with their bare hands a passage in the wall that confines them outside the enclosure where the game that decides their future is played.
Therefore, there will be no Italian representative of this political world in the European Parliament unless some sensational event happens that transforms the multitude into a community. Otherwise, three or four lists will compete, aiming only to count themselves, without any regard for what is at stake. The appeals that follow one another from many people of good will to avoid this outcome fall into indifference or arouse annoyance.
Europe collapses: if it ends badly, on the lower floors, inhabited by Italy, there will be no escape under the rubble.