editorial
twelve o’clock, July 8, 2021 – 08:10 am
of Procolo Mirabella
With the imprimatur via telephone by Berlusconi in person who dissolved the residual reserves of Catello Maresca, the last catchphrase of the candidacies in the field in Naples would have been resolved positively. The magistrate on leave will benefit from the explicit support of the center-right for his Project for Naples. The question of party symbols somehow fades from the substance. The approval of Maresca di Lega, Forza Italia and Fratelli d’Italia, focuses on substance rather than form. What matters is that the alternative alliance to Manfredi can count on a name, however, of prestige, capable of exhibiting its authoritative, civic and autonomous profile, to catalyze consensus of opinion in an electoral audience potentially even wider than its own. traditional borders. Penetrating into unprecedented territories, looking at the discontented, the dissatisfied and that indistinct magma represented by abstention, after all, the goal that all the contenders in the running are aiming for. And from this point of view, the explicit support of large parties of national caliber can at the same time be a force, but also a constraint that must be overcome. The uncertainty up to the last of the former magistrate to be supported, in the round, by the parties, complete with symbols, is explained in this way.
The genesis of Manfredi’s candidacy is different. The ex-rector was, from the beginning, the name determined with determination by the big group of the center-left parties, allied to the 5-star, with the Deluchian lists and a series of civics. And starting from this broad, but well-characterized basic nucleus that Manfredi will have to try to speak to everyone, without settling on the presumption of an advantage to be demonstrated. What, for his part, Antonio Bassolino, who has been on the field for months, can and is doing hands-free from any party conditioning. The former mayor and governor, for a life as a party man, can now really move independently. A paradox, which is its strength and its weakness.
But which undoubtedly also represents the most attractive and unpredictable element of his initiative. A bet of which Bassolino himself says he is more than satisfied, confirming his intention to address all citizens of the left, center and right, exclusively in the name and on behalf of the interests of Naples. But beyond the authentic or tactical intentions of each candidate, the real point is that, for now, either for the still long time that separates us from the vote, or for the still very open wounds of the interminable paralysis from Covid, the city appears still distracted, cold, folded in on itself. A sort of indifference accentuated by the fact that everyone, long-time politicians and aspiring new leaders, end up declining more or less the same things: from the leveling of the budget chasm to that of road holes, from the revival of tourism or the port, the rehabilitation, after lost thirty years, of Bagnoli; from the always invoked strengthening of the buses to the completion of the subways and parking lots, from the adjustment of the waste cycle that still lacks many pieces and choices, too long, postponed, to the infrastructural interventions on the sewerage network and on the water cycle, to restore the sea and the coast and allow its use for tourists and residents. We stop here, but, of course, this sort of nine times table could go on and on. Except that no one, after years, believes that something, really, will ever change, except in biblical times. And star, precisely, in convincing the Neapolitans to overcome this widespread mistrust, the real challenge, the real mountain stage that the running candidates will have to climb to win the Giro. But to do so, we need to speak to the deep spirit of the city, and have the courage to face problems and questions that have been neglected or overlooked for too long. Starting from the indissoluble, decisive link, to outline a truly credible future: the link between ordinary livability and strategic vision for the city. Of course, in Naples, as in Rome we have degraded to the minimum terms of garbage on the street and holes in the ground. But in order to govern large metropolises like these, in addition to ordinary administration (and it would be no small matter), it is necessary to indicate the role that they must play in Italy, in Europe and in the world, and to ask why in recent years, these boundless urban realities have lost positions. Not a haughty claim to rank. Understanding and denouncing the reasons for the decline is the only way to take a possible revival. For Naples, just one example. That of the progressive dismantling of its industrial crown and the liquidation of its credit and financial assets. A dry loss of autonomy and of the productive and directional muscles of the city. Today we talk about tourism and culture.
All right? That’s fine. But as Ernesto Mazzetti clearly explained some time ago on these columns in an illuminating excursus on the socio-economic history of the city, from unity to today, betting everything on tourism has not always paid off. Here, metropolitan Naples is one with its region and with the South. And a mayor who wants to be mayor not contenting himself (even if it would be not easy) to plug the holes in the streets, must ask for an account of what happened in the last thirty years old, in Rome and Brussels. Otherwise what Recovery are we talking about? What digitization or fourth industrial revolution are we talking about? Do we digitize after having sold Ansaldo Trasporti to the Japanese of Hitachi? To warm the hearts of the Neapolitans and bring them back, perhaps, to the streets, questions like these from the candidate mayors would be needed: the reason for the productive desertification of the South, with the consequent loss of role of the South and the country on the great political and economic tables that they decide and count in Europe and in the world. Here lies the link, which has been neglected for too many years, between ordinary administration and the necessary capacity for strategic vision. The link between the great Naples, city-region, capital of the South and the rest of Italy and between Italy and the rest of Europe. Otherwise, really, we will have to settle for a few baths of the crowd or find ourselves in a pizzeria, margherita and beer, in Casalino style. And not a question of analogical or telematic language, a question of substance. what the Neapolitans expect to hear from those who aspire to guide them tomorrow. It happens that Naples, and it would not be the first time, anticipates, for better or for worse, trends that then manifest themselves on the social, economic and political terrain, at a national level. A mayor, a government team, a large metropolis that would put these nodes back into play, reformulating, in other words, also on the basis of the logic and funds of the Recovery plan, a possible modern resolution of the South-North dualisms of Italy and ‘Europe would be a convincing reason to go back to believing and becoming passionate about public affairs. To keep silent, on the other hand, would favor that indistinguishable molasses of neo-civicism and transformations of anti-politics and small administrative cabotage which are, in hindsight, the induced effect of a deconstructed and directionless society.
July 8, 2021 | 08:10
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