Time to write "The End".

[kasche]

Per quanto mi riguarda (e non ho alcuna pretesa di ritenermi un paradigma), domani saprò in che paese vivo. Se in un paese nel quale sentirmi ancora a casa mia, oppure un paese nel quale sentirmi straniero, e nel quale vivere da straniero. Non so se questo mio sentimento sia più o meno condiviso, ma so che è profondamente mio, e che è sincero. Se la maggioranza degli italiani dovesse rieleggere Silvio Berlusconi, significherebbe che ciò che in quelli come me suscita ostilità e perfino repulsione, inquietudine e perfino paura, per loro è del tutto accettabile e normale, o perfino positivo. Non ho nessunissima voglia di dirmi migliore o peggiore di questi altri italiani. So solo che la diversità di punti di vista, di ambizioni, di stili, di speranze, di cultura civile, di tabù, oggi è molto più radicata di quanto accadesse nei tempi arcaici della Politica e delle Ideologie. Perfino quando ci si odiava e ci si picchiava, si era pur sempre consci di essere cittadini dello stesso paese, e di stare vivendo la stessa storia. Ora non è più così. E' un'eccellente ragione per sperare con tutte le forze che quel signore se ne torni a casa sua, è che soprattutto per colpa sua che andremo a votare, dalle due parti, non per due schieramenti diversi, ma per due paesi diversi.

As far as I'm concerned (and I have no pretense to consider myself a paradigm), tomorrow I will know what country I'm living in. Whether I'm in a country where I can still feel at home, or a country where I'll feel like a stranger, and where I'll live as a stranger. I don't know if this feeling of mine is more or less shared, but I know that it's deeply mine, and that it's honest. Were the majority of Italians to rielect Silvio Berlusconi, it would mean that everything that, in people like me, elicit hostility and even repulsion, anxiety and even fear, for them it's completely acceptable and normal, or even positive. I haven't got the slightest desire to call myself better or worse than those other Italians. I only know that the diversity in points of view, ambitions, styles, hopes, civil culture, taboos, today is much more deep rooted than what it was in the oldest times of Politic and Ideologies. Even when Italians hated each other and came to blows, they were still aware of being citizens of the same country, of being part of the same history. Now it's not like this anymore. It's an excellent reason to hope with all our might that that mister will go back home, as it's mostly because of him that we will go to vote, on both sides, not for two different forces, but for two different countries.

These were not my words, obviously enough. It's a short article published today on our newspaper La Repubblica, and written by the journalist Michele Serra. I've been thinking on what I could or should write on the matter, and in the end this is what I've chosen.

I just... I don't want to be ashamed anymore to say that I'm Italian, you know?

Anyway: one day is over, one more to go.



Good night, and good luck.

Comments

[kasche.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, your icon! :D Ah yes, the boat is probably much more similar than what I'd thought at first. ...although I hope that, were students there to complain about an awful school reform, an exponent of the government wouldn't answer like this (http://www.megachip.info/fotop/santanche.jpg). (God's truth. She did.)

Oh, I've been meaning to ask you for the longest time - where did you get all those smilies? :D Did you make them yourself? In that case I would worship you something awful, you're warned. :D I've been using the wrappingarmshug for a while, I hope you don't mind. :)

MANY MANY HUGS BACK!

[midnitemaraud-r.livejournal.com]

Heh - Me? I wish I was that talented. I can barely make icons, much less smiley face graphics. I am a shameless thief and I nick them from around the web, but my favorite site where I've got most of the cool ones from is Planet Smilies. (Heh, my secret is out *g*)

And even if I had made them, I wouldn't mind people using them. :)