It is really true that wisdom, like intelligence, has no age. Franco Ferrarotti, 91 years carried as best it could not be, he is not alone the father of sociology in Italy and an intellectual of international renown, but it is a piece of living history that knows how to read contemporary events in the light of a great culture and an inexhaustible civil passion. Only a few days ago he published a new pamphlet ("The vocation of the Mediterranean", Solfanelli editore). His words and his reasoning are impressively topical: penetrating, pungent, perhaps biased, but always direct and never trivial. The interview he gave to FIRSTonline on the political elections of next March 4 is an example of this.
Unrealistic and demagogic programs, windswept promises, disorientation and confusion, scandals and delegitimization of opponents: Professor Ferrarotti, is the current electoral campaign the worst ever seen in Italy?
"No, absolutely no. The electoral campaign that is taking place now is certainly mediocre, but it is not even remotely comparable to the entirely ideological and doctrinaire one of 1948 in which the Christian Democrats, supported by the division of the world into two blocks, imposed its dominion for almost fifty years on society, on politics, on the economy, on Italian culture, establishing itself as the party-state and excluding the workers' parties from the Government for a long time also due to a division on the left between the Social Democrats of Saragat and the PSI of Nenni which recalls very closely the split between Bersani and D'Alema from the Pd”.
Nonetheless, as you said, this campaign is truly mediocre and disappointing.
“Yes, this is the case for the mediocrity of the leading political groups who are unable to indicate clear and, if necessary, difficult choices for citizens who are often pushed towards inconclusive rebellious and populist tendencies or end up swelling the army of abstention. However, even with all the criticisms that to varying degrees can be directed at political forces, going to vote is a right and also a duty and I hope that in the end the younger generations will also understand this, who are the ones most interested in Italy's future ”.
The director of Corriere della Sera, Luciano Fontana, has just published a book, entitled "A country without a leader", in which he argues that one of the elements that weakens our democracy is the crisis of leadership: do you also think so?
“No, I think the opposite. There is no lack of leaders in Italy. Indeed, there are far too many leaders. But there is an excess of personalism which is accompanied by an absence of innovative ideas capable of correctly interpreting today's Italian society. I'm not saying this out of professional deformation, but today's politics lack a sociological approach that doesn't tell you which choices to make but forces you to clarify them, see their costs and analyze their effects”.
Professor, let's review today's leaders. Let's start with the centre-right: what is the effect of seeing Silvio Berlusconi back on the crest of a wave? What is his opinion of the leader of Forza Italia and that of the League, Matteo Salvini?
“It's the past that doesn't pass. There is a buffoonish red thread, but with tragic aspects, which runs through Italian history from Marinetti's Manifesto of the Futurists of 1909 to today, up to Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo. Berlusconi has already failed three times in government, why should he succeed this time? He can win the elections, but selling smoke isn't enough to govern. As for Salvini, it seems to me that he embodies not even populist but pre-political drives, all based on emotions and fears. It's a big step backwards compared to Bossi's League which, despite all its errors, expressed a need for autonomy that has gone astray. Today, however, Salvini's League operates a reductionist simplification of contemporary problems, starting with those of Europe, with miraculous solutions that have no chance of being realised".
And what do you think of the centre-left and its two leaders – Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni?
“Despite all the mistakes that the centre-left has made, in my eyes Renzi and Gentiloni, so different and yet so convergent, have the merit of not promising adventures and of having made the reforms and wanting to continue them, also paying the cost as is which took place with the unfortunate referendum on the constitutional reform of 4 December 2016. I hope that even after the vote of 4 March Renzi and Gentiloni will continue to work together to support a modern reformist and pro-European perspective".
Then there are Di Maio and the Five Stars: what is your opinion?
“They are the heirs of a comedian who turned into a political leader. We are in the commedia dell'arte which, as we know, did not have a plot but was entrusted to the actor who improvised. It seems to me that the Cinque Stelle and Di Maio do the same, proposing unrealistic and demagogic solutions - such as the basic income - for dramatic problems such as that of youth unemployment".
Beyond the controversies and the smokescreens that envelop this electoral campaign, don't you think that the real watershed of 4 March is the orientation of the different alignments on two crucial points: Europe and reforms?
“Yes, I agree: Europe and reforms are the real watershed of the March 4 elections. On the one hand there are those who hide behind an impossible sovereign closure and on the other those who know perfectly well that Italy can have no other place than within Europe and that for this reason they are committed to change and democratize the European Union . On the one hand there are those who want to cancel the reforms of recent years and play in shambles and on the other there are those who instead want to continue the path of reforms to modernize the country on the push of a new social reformism that knows how to respond to old needs and newcomers to the community in small steps but with great ideals. On March 4, it will be necessary to choose whether to get by or reform Italy. This is why we need to go and vote and this is why I have no hesitation in saying that I will personally vote for Pd and that I will do it without holding my nose but with full conviction".
