J ' accuse, June 2, 2023 on Republic Day - Brief reflection on the Republican democracy, case of Italy

J ' accuse, June 2, 2023 on Republic Day - Brief reflection on the Republican democracy, case of Italy

 

 

Today we celebrate the birth of our Republic. An anniversary full of meanings and challenges still alive and important for our nation. Precisely, nation, because we will never leave to the right the instrumental use of this word so dear to Giorgia Meloni and her party Fratelli d'Italia. For those who really love this country, ideologies don't matter and shouldn't represent that wall and that political and institutional reference, as often happens in our republican institutions. But the problem is not of a political or ideological order, it's of a purely democratic nature. Let us all ask ourselves two questions: is our republic really founded on equal rights and opportunities? Is it representative of all citizens? The answer is clear: It is on the level of the constitution but not on the factual level. I would give an example to be clearer: do the parties and those who have been chosen to represent the Italian people really represent the nation, a word so praised by Meloni? In our opinion, our democracy is still census-based, as was the case in past centuries, where the census is the ability offered by the legal system to the wealthy few introduced into power to grab and manage political power. This great game in which economic and media power plays a fundamental role is presented, or I would say simulated, as an exercise of democracy. Just think of Silvio Berlusconi's entry into the field, as he said one time, and the role he played in the political history of our country over the last thirty years, to better understand that Italian citizens are indeed equal on the basis of the constitutional charter but not in terms of political rights and the opportunities that any authentic democratic system must guarantee its citizens. All the laws ad personam laws passed, all the offenses that have been time-barred or never ascertained because the system itself is full of holes. A republican institutional system as it has developed in recent decades, in some way, with the practices and degeneration introduced, has distanced itself from the republican constitutional spirit which places a particular emphasis on equal rights. Whose fault is it then? Why do we have so much disaffection with politics and participation in it through elections today? If half of the compatriots do not go to the polls, an answer must be given: the truth is that the parties that are foreseen as tools for exercising democracy have turned into usurpers and occupiers of it, interpreting it according to their particular and selfish and ideological approaches . In addition, in this historical and economic phase, they are subservient to the diktats and imperatives of strong powers (financial and supranational) which condition the development and course of history of our nation- (nation?)- We have said well, nation, so as not to leave to whom from its partisan and instrumental point of view, it insists on its use, when it interprets roles and policies that are not nationalistic and not in defense of nations. In this brief reflection I would like to dwell on the major problem of our republican democracy: the role of parties in restricting the sphere of constitutional rights to the prerogative of their privileges and above all of the privileged who are within our republican institutions. Long live the republic and equality among citizens.