If Conte really does ring Putin, he’ll be in for a reality check

Dear Graziosi, surely not! Nolan’s sea is just like Mario Brega’s famous line in “Bianco, rosso e Verdone”: “This sea can be fierce or it can be as light as a feather. Today it’s been as light as a feather”. In Nolan’s version, the sea is as light as a feather when one chooses to come to terms with one’s conscience. It is as fierce as iron when one’s conscience fails to come to terms with reality. Some observers see in the sea – in Ulysses’s relationship with Zeus, with the gods, with Poseidon – a reference to international law, to the West’s sense of guilt. To me, the sea seems the perfect vehicle through which Nolan has given substance to an elusive word that has haunted students of the classics for years – and not just them: hubris, arrogance. Nolan’s sea is a mirror of hubris. It can be fierce when hubris is not tamed. It can be as light as a feather when hubris is recognised and confronted. As for Calypso: from a Palermitan to a semi-Neapolitan, is there really anyone who, given the choice, would prefer to immerse themselves in the adventures of the sea rather than surrender to the comforts of a Calypso-like beach?

To the Editor – During the campaign that saw him return to the White House, Donald Trump claimed that, once elected president, he would resolve the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours. Following the tycoon’s example and not to be outdone, Giuseppe Conte assures us that, once he arrives at Palazzo Chigi, he will ring Putin and sort things out in no time at all. And woe betide anyone, he adds, who thinks that Mario Draghi could be the European Union’s representative to push Putin towards negotiations. ‘I even told Draghi to meet Putin,’ Conte confesses, ‘but he didn’t want to; and then, when the war broke out, Draghi was head of government and was defending Ukraine.’ There is no point reminding a man obsessed with the figure of Mario Draghi that the then Prime Minister was one of the European leaders who attempted to establish contact with Putin to prevent the aggression from continuing. He achieved no better result than Macron, who travelled to Moscow two weeks before the Russian invasion, putting forward peace proposals, only to be humiliated by an arrogant Putin who had already decided on war. For four and a half years, Putin has been evading a ceasefire agreement and indiscriminately bombarding the heart of Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones, claiming civilian lives. These facts are obvious to anyone following the conflict. The truth is that Conte’s claim is not only a ridiculous presumption, but also a sign of political immaturity. Alongside his commitment to phoning Putin, Conte should be asking himself why Putin, despite the dramatic costs of the war for the young Russians sent into the fray, remains unwilling to negotiate. This is the crux of the matter. It would then become clear that the issue for Putin is not Russia’s security or the regional autonomy to be granted to Russian-speakers: the issue is Moscow’s political control over Kyiv. The Kremlin wants a vassal Ukrainian state with limited sovereignty. After all, it was this demand that led to the failure of the Minsk agreements. For Moscow, Ukraine’s destiny is to become a second Belarus. It is worth recalling that, as the process of democratisation progressed, Ukraine gradually distanced itself from the Russian authoritarian model and turned towards Europe. This prospect became unacceptable to the Kremlin. The war is therefore a clash between Ukraine’s democratic choice and Russian imperialist authoritarianism. In short, Putin is the architect of a neo-imperial project: to rebuild a European sphere of hegemony similar to that which once belonged to the USSR. For the Russian despot, this is the condition for the emergence of a world order in which the now-declining Western hegemony is replaced by a multipolar balance that grants Russia a leading role. It is the same logic that lies behind that sort of ‘crude realism of power’ embodied by Trump. These are enormous problems that challenge the political and moral conscience of those in positions of political responsibility. Support for Ukraine is not a capitulation to warmongering; it is the only way to attempt to pursue a ceasefire and a just and lasting peace. I must confess that, faced with Conte’s display of immaturity and arrogance – as he irresponsibly claims that the stance on Ukraine is not determined by the exchange of ideas but by the polling booths of the primaries – I find myself appreciating Elly Schlein’s conduct.