Masterbate With Lube And Ham

150 years: what are we celebrating?

of Luca Torre

What Italians celebrate the upcoming March 17 ? seems that this anniversary is an opportunity to rethink, or even the justification of national unification beyond the rhetoric of each matrix, but is really an opportunity to amplify these rhetorical stress and the lack of a shared national history. It 'obvious that Italians do not identify with a common history. Perhaps because they are too full of history, too clever by a knowledge mediated by in-depth historical and political reflection of Guicciardini, Machiavelli, until Botero, Mosca and Pareto, or simply a kind of "anthropological data now" love to divide as in the times of the medieval communes. So March 17 is an opportunity for them to pick out old and new flags of every color and type and stage shows such as and just the "style curved-south (or north), from complete fans, shouting slogans as if they were, their own truths (or vice versa, shouting their slogans as solemn truth.)

I've seen people defend the temporal power of popes, Pius IX and the Syllabus, and reject religious pluralism and the liberal state in the middle of 2011 and, with the same security, proposing to demolish the statues of Garibaldi and "revise" the history of the Risorgimento . I saw people of a certain political party (but immediately disclaimed) burning in effigy of the hero Garibaldi called foul because, after long and extensive studies, it was discovered that the unification would not have been a good deal for the North of Italy and - one might add, because now is a conditioned reflex - the small and medium-sized enterprises which make up the backbone of the Italian economy. Mirror image: I saw other people in the name of historical truth, proposing the thesis that, in essence, the Bourbon Kingdom was neither outstanding nor poor and that the problems of the South started with its unification. And in a demonstration organized by a local chapter of the Society of National History in Italy for the 150th anniversary of the unitary state, one of the speakers argued that: a) Naples - the capital of the Bourbon kingdom, not the entire kingdom - ; had six million inhabitants and was one of the largest cities and important in Europe (the latter made true, but definitely the first fake), b) that the South "was better economically under the Bourbons" (imagine that the speaker was unaware of the investigation Franchetti on the conditions of the Neapolitan Province, Abruzzo, Molise, Basilicata and Calabria again in 1873 / 74). One could continue the list with a number of facts, sometimes widely known by historians, taken out of context and passed off as truth that even unheard of Fortunato and Gramsci had the courage to write and distribute, as he said in an interview with public issued at the withdrawal of a literary prize in the city of Bari, the author of best-selling book on the topic of the moment.

What then Italians will celebrate the 17th March? Should we worry about the lack of a shared national history? Perhaps there is no need to worry because the divisions of the Italians are the only indicator of their scrupulous. Then there are more immediate things to think about, like the economic crisis and the reform of justice. Finally, politics will intervene again to solve any problem and dispute, interpreting the best the sense of cultural diversity through the establishment of a Bourbon day of remembrance and celebration of the Battle of Legnano . Who knows.