The series of interesting questions posed by Councilor Saverio Pazzano were the classic stone thrown in the pond in the progressive camp and have shaken some consciences and started a minimum of debate on the present and future of the city.
Enzo Musolino, head of the “A. Capitini” Study Center of Anassilaos and city secretary of the PD of Villa San Giovanni, tried to give some answers to Pazzano’s questions. In the absence of the voice of the Reggio Pd, we listen to the Democratic voice of a neighboring and important municipality in the Strait area that offers its point of view on the unreal situation that is being experienced in Reggio.
The protection of Politics
“The issues, in my opinion – Musolino attacks -, far transcend the news of these last few days, they do not only concern the individuals involved in the “Ducale” investigation and must be understood as general ethical-political questions that go beyond any judicial drift. Politics – the center-left as well as the center-right – must be protected. The dialectic as a whole must be protected: the beneficial clash of visions, ideas, programs. The public debate must be protected, the ideal tension that cannot be reduced to the electoral moment, limited to the collection of consensus, closed in the internal struggle for who gets more votes to have a “role”. Politics is something else, it lives on passion for Public Thing and for the future, for a different, better reality! Individuals, all women and men who have the burden and honor of holding public office have the duty to preserve these “values”, to help the new generations to “believe” in Democracy, in free and opinion voting, in individual voting, not family voting, not clan voting. Losing this hope, reading about Politics in judicial chronicles, disperses this “hope”, the trust of citizens, opens the doors to that dangerous populism that would do without parties and elections, to entrust public management to the strong man, to the “Savior of the Fatherland”, to the demagogue of the moment, perhaps to a neo-inquisitor, Torquemada style».
Complex situation
“I don’t know what should be done now in Reggio, I don’t know who should resign, nor if it is right to do so now. The situation is complex – continues Musolino – and it is not up to anyone to anticipate the results of the criminal trial that has yet to begin. I know that resignations are an act of conscience, I know that the resignations of individual councilors are useless and only give rise to ungovernable surrogates, I hope that the “collective resignations” – if they are really in the field, if they are really being thought about – are explained well to the City, are politically motivated, justified. In the Reggio City Council there are capable administrators, stories of commitment and seriousness. It is not right to disperse this heritage… even in a difficult situation like the current one, Politics can be done, decisive issues can be addressed, pride in the role, in the mandate received from the voters can be exercised”.
Tired of scandals
Again Musolino: «It’s true, we are tired of scandals and missteps… and the ‘ndrangheta is the mountain of shit that we know… but we are also tired of prejudices from “irredeemable, lost land”, of hasty judgments, of commissioners and bureaucrats called to cash in, to “save” on the lives of citizens, eliminating services, increasing tariffs, without responding politically to the voters, to the citizens transformed into subjects of a failed community. To each his own, then. To the people the understandable indignation but also the effort of redemption, to the commentators the embarrassment of the confusion and complexity in progress, to the aware and active citizens the “sovereign” right to pronounce themselves quickly and well on the future of the city, to the administrators the intimate torment, the most just decision not only for them, for everyone!».
The future
“In the midst of all this, however – says the secretary of the Pd of Villa -, we must also think about the “futures”, the people of Reggio of tomorrow, the formation of consciences. And here the “real politicians” must intervene, those who reveal themselves in decisive moments with thoughtful and competent criticism, with the organization of those public spaces of debate, necessary to defeat conditioned reflexes, the legacy of a past that does not really pass, the tired habits of a mass unaccustomed to the pride of citizenship, of its rights and its duties. The themes? The issues? The ideal and programmatic terrain? They are those essential to free Reggio from its chains: the free and secret vote, the consensus of opinion and not extorted, demanded, sold off; the “open” and disinterested political participation, meritocracy in the occupied roles, a Politics that is not employment or income”.
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