It happened on March 19, 2002. Marco Biagi, full professor of labor law in the Faculty of Economics of the University of Modena, had stayed longer than usual in his office that evening and had warned his family in Bologna that he would arrive later for dinner. Once at the station he had immediately found the train which in about twenty minutes had taken him to Bologna, where one of the many bicycles was waiting for him which Marco used to move more quickly in the traffic (often without taking into account the road signs), but above all to "do some movement" and keep the slender physique that Mother Nature had given him and contain that cholesterol rate which was always higher than normal, despite a very rigorous lifestyle.
During the summer, Biagi dressed up as a Martian (this is how his wife Marina described her sports equipment) and, getting on his racing bicycle, he joined Romano Prodi's team in an up and down through the hills of Bologna, sometimes going even on the hairpin bends of the Futa. In time, however, to go to the Stadium in the early afternoon, together with his children, to support Bologna, where he met Pierferdinando Casini and other more or less illustrious fellow citizens. On the evening of that March 19 – a day that still retained the reputation of Father's Day, even though it had been abolished several years earlier – Marco pedaled without knowing that death was waiting for him. My friend had considered this possibility. And he feared her, because he felt around him a climate of hatred that was all the more extensive and resolute the more unmotivated it was.
In this context he had received explicit threats, as if sooner or later he had to atone for who knows what crimes committed against the workers, he, a consultant to the Minister of Labour, coordinator of the group that had drafted the White Paper, curator in the technical section of the draft law which was later baptized with his name. With regard to the professor's work, the manifestations of a normal dissent on the merits, otherwise legitimate and useful, were surrounded by a contextual climate of unpleasant ethical reprobations which resulted in a substantial accusation of treason. An accusation that it can only be tolerated if one has great moral strength, because the left is relentless with those who, in its sole judgment, betray the fundamental rule of belonging.
Biagi, therefore, felt this hostile climate firsthand and was very worried about it decision of the Security Committee to deprive him of the escort. Also at the request of the family he had turned to anyone who could help him to regain that minimum protection that would have saved his life. It is no coincidence that, after his killing and the arrest of his assassins, it became known that the terrorist group had ascertained that the professor was not protected, because they believed they were not in a position to withstand a possible firefight with a carabiniere or an armed policeman. There is a letter from him to Pierferdinando Casini, then president of the Chamber, which is proof of that state of anguish.
“I have to ask you for help for my personal safety – wrote Marco Biagi on 15 July 2001 in the third state office with which he shared the same family roots in Lizzano in Belvedere on the Emilian Apennines -. I have been subject to the protection-escort regime for a year. Since I collaborate with the Giunta Albertini in Milan e I am the technical drafter of the "Milan Job Pact", the Digos of various cities took over me against the risk of possible terrorist attacks. The fear is that it will repeat itself like the D'Antona case. I let you imagine how peaceful my family can live. Now I also collaborate with Confindustria and CISL, as well as with Minister Maroni himself, implementing a strategy of flexibility at work on a technical level. I am very worried because the opponents (Cofferati in the first place) are criminalizing my figure".
“For reasons that I don't know, the security guard was revoked in Rome for ten days and every time I come to the capital I am very alarmed. I would ask you to kindly do everything possible to ensure that, by continuing my technical commitment, mentioned above, I am protected in Rome as well as in Milan, Bologna, Modena and throughout Italy in general. I'd like to talk to you for ten minutesI would be very grateful if your secretary could arrange a meeting for us, even a very short one. Please don't say a word to Mom (how delicacy to use capital letters to indicate the president's mother! ed) of the confidential question that I presented to you – concluded Biagi – because my mother is unaware of it”.
A few months later Biagi returned to office with the minister Roberto Maroni with whom he was a close collaborator: "I wish to inform you - wrote the professor - that today I received another threatening phone call from an anonymous person who even claimed to be aware of my trips to Rome without any protection, once again trying to intimidate me in relation to my planning activities carried out on behalf of you and Undersecretary Sacconi. I wish to assure you – he added – that I do not intend to desist from my activity of collaboration with you and with the Ministry. At the same time, I would like to convey to you all the urgency so that adequate measures are taken. I am also sending the letter to the Prefect of Bologna as these telephone calls follow one another in this city where I live. Should something unfortunately happen to me, I want it to be known that I had unsuccessfully informed the authorities of these repeated threatening phone calls without consequent measures being taken".
The content of this letter is dramatic, because it is written by a desperate man, haunted by anonymous phone calls that threatened its existence. But he was still a militant who never abandons his combat post. However, the answer that was given by the authorities, to President Casini himself, was the usual one: there are no dangers. And yet, I remember very well that the previous Friday the Panorama magazine had anticipated a report by the Intelligence Services in which a probable attack was hypothesized against people who played key roles in shaping government policies. Era basically an identikit of Marco Biagi, for some time at the center of harsh controversies due to his professional contribution: controversies to which he responded as a "Rinaldo in chief", personally refuting the accusations of his opponents, among whom were also friends, colleagues, fellow students.
What can I say, eighteen years later? Right now Biagi's world - which is mine too - is upset by an obsessive and devastating pandemic, from which we will emerge - if we emerge from it - profoundly changed. The sirens of these days foreshadow that we will become better. Unfortunately that will not be the case. We - until it is possible - have the mission that the Benedictine friars carried out in the Middle Ages. To become the scribes of the memory of the people who were dear to us.
