Letters
letters to the editor •
A new programme championing civil liberties. We suggest a title: “Non è Report”
Who wrote to the editor, Claudio Cerasa
27 AUG 26
Translated by AI
Valter Lavitola arrives at the Piazzale Clodio courthouse to be questioned by the Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding the attack on Sigfrido Ranucci (photo by Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse)
To the Editor – To find out how things turn out for the ‘campolarghisti’, you need to do two things: first, read Salvatore Merlo in "Il Foglio" on Wednesday 26 August; second, re-read the lyrics of Fabrizio de André’s "Guerra di Piero". For those unfamiliar with Faber’s song, here is the opening line: “You lie buried in a field of wheat; it’s not the rose, nor the tulip that keeps vigil over you from the shadows of the ditches, but a thousand red poppies”. Now mix Merlo’s “vegetable secretary” with the “wheat field” – taking care to replace “wheat” with “square” (oh well, the rhyme’s lost) – and it all becomes clear.
Valerio Gironi
To the editor – You may not care for “Report”, but seizing the opportunity to attack it is still a despicable act. That said, as a former RAI employee with over twenty years’ service in news reporting: what sort of world does Ranucci live in to describe “Report” as the best programme in the history of television? He ought to spend a few hours perusing the company’s archives. He’ll have a chance to change his mind.
Valter Vecellio
Speaking of Ranucci. The argument put forward two days ago was interesting. “My friendship with Lavitola? For my job, I’d even go for dinner with Riina if I could.” If memory serves, in 2014 Ranucci dedicated a famous investigative piece to Flavio Tosi. It was called “L’Arena”. One of the key passages in the investigation was a dinner in Crotone, hosted by the businessman Raffaele Vrenna, which Tosi attended alongside individuals implicated in mafia investigations. Ranucci recalled that Vrenna – who had been convicted at first instance for aiding and abetting and subsequently acquitted – had been described by the Anti-Mafia Directorate (DDA) as a ‘borderline businessman’, and he framed that dinner as evidence of Tosi’s guilt. The lawsuits were dismissed. The investigating judge found that the facts recounted about the dinner were true. This demonstrates that Ranucci, during these months of ‘love bombs’, is rediscovering a vein that we hope will be preserved in his future work: daily injections of due process, inspired by his association with Valter Lavitola. We suggest a title, one that champions due process, for a future programme: “Non è Report”.
To the Editor – There is an invisible yet very clear thread linking two recent images of Giorgia Meloni. The first is a poster featuring the phrase submitted to the New York Times: “True equality is not being called “the Prime Minister” but being able to become one”. The second is a private photograph taken on the state flight, with her daughter in tow and a defiant comment: “If this image tells a young woman that it is not true she has to choose between being a mother and having a career, then I am pleased.” It is the counter-current approach to the gender gap that we outlined in the pages of this newspaper on 8 March and which seems, at last, to be making inroads into the government’s narrative. A genuine, pragmatic shift in paradigm, free both from the symbolic confines of a certain ideological feminism that for decades has become entangled in linguistic nuances, and from the convenient solutions of gender quotas and gender certifications, which overlook the real structures of society. Showing that power does not require the renunciation of motherhood shatters our country’s greatest cultural taboo. It is a positive political sign, but precisely for this reason the next step is now needed. The risk, in the face of the emotional and dramatic shockwave caused by recent news reports on femicides, is that the government will fall back into the usual patterns of Italian politics: the shortcut of ‘pan-penalism’ or the usual, consolatory ‘hour of education’ introduced in schools. Reacting to the emergency with yet another symbolic increase in penalties will not bring women back to life, nor will it deter those driven by toxic violence; just as a formal classroom exercise will not re-educate a generation if there remains a void around them, often (all too) filled by smartphones and social media. Equality is built by guaranteeing nurseries, workplace welfare, genuine work-life balance and structural equality that makes women culturally unassailable. The government has taken the right path in terms of public perception: now it must find the courage not to veer off towards the usual legislative illusions.
Erminia Giorno