Letters
Letters to the editor •
Well, Il Fatto has finally taken notice of the magistrates who stage media trials
Who wrote to the editor-in-chief, Claudio Cerasa
22 OCT 26
Translated by AI
Photo: ANSA
To the editor – In this era of new rights, the right to a designer sweatshirt is also essential.
Giuliano Cazzola
To the editor – We need to listen to them. But with all the racket they’re making, you can’t hear them: unfortunately, you can see them.
Valerio Gironi
To the Editor – Stefano Patuanelli says that the only way to push for ‘peace talks’ is to ‘stop sending weapons’ to Ukraine. Putin, in fact, is just waiting for this: as soon as they have accepted the invitation from the M5S vice-president and stopped arming Kyiv, he will sit down at the peace table with the best of intentions. There is little to be done; in Contian circles, Orsini and Travaglio’s Il Fatto have long since won the day. Although, to be honest, it was not exactly the toughest of matches.
Luca Rocca
On the subject of Il Fatto. It is notable to see the attempt by Travaglio’s newspaper to demonise the public prosecutor of Caltanissetta, Salvatore De Luca, whose alleged serious offence is (a) to use hearings as a platform for monologues and (b) to pass moral judgements on people who are not under investigation, even using decisions to dismiss cases to explain his views on the world. We agree: magistrates should act as magistrates and deal with evidence, not media trials. We wonder whether the principle invoked by Travaglio’s newspaper is a general one, applicable even when magistrates target individuals less favoured by Il Fatto, or whether it is a principle that applies primarily because, on this occasion, the magistrate being criticised is one favoured by Il Fatto and the M5S, whose first name is Roberto and whose surname is Scarpinato. We are simply asking on a friend’s behalf. Thank you.
To the Editor – Like everyone else, I am following the recent devastating events in Italy’s public squares with apprehension. I am following the ensuing political debate with great concern; a debate which I find lacks focus on identifying the causes. I shall not enter into – nor is it my place to do so – the rather exhausting discussion on the need to condemn violence and support the role of the police. It is abundantly clear that we must condemn those who cause damage, steal, vandalise and brutally attack the men and women responsible for maintaining public order. Although it is difficult to call for imprisonment for those responsible when one realises they are 12 or 13 years old, it is clear that immediate action is urgently required. I would like to share with you a thought that takes me back six years, to that time, well known to us all, of the Covid pandemic. It is hard to imagine that, at the time of the pandemic, some of the young people detained on Saturday in Milan were six, seven or eight years old. The oldest among those stopped in recent days and subsequently arrested were ten or eleven years old. They were children back then. We remember what it meant for the entire population to be forced to remain confined to their homes for many weeks – more than two months during the lockdown imposed on 9 March alone. When thinking about young people, we must add to the lockdown period the many weeks of school closures decided upon by individual regions. These closures were at times arbitrary, haphazard and baffling; there were no valid reasons to keep schools closed whilst, for example, keeping shopping centres open. I recall that during those months, my colleagues on the Technical-Scientific Committee and I fought to have schools reopened – safely, of course – but we urged that every effort be made to reopen them. We were all well aware that confining young people to their homes, depriving them of the daily routine of attending school and of their relationships with their classmates, would cause very serious harm. At the time, psychologists spoke of ‘cabin fever’; as a substitute for attending school, the so-called ‘DAD’ – the tragic ‘distance learning’ – was devised. Well, looking at the young people in Milan last Saturday, many of whom live in the city’s outlying areas, in ghetto-like neighbourhoods, I can only think that these very same young people, who were children at the time, spent those very weeks immersing themselves in the terrible world of social media. During those dramatic weeks of confinement, they developed a morbid curiosity about everything to do with the world of social media. They learnt all too well to embrace total socialisation – being connected to the whole world – whilst remaining alone and increasingly distant from those essential human relationships and experiences that only school is capable of providing. I am not a psychologist or a psychotherapist specialising in developmental issues; I simply recall that during those terrible months I imagined, with pain and dread, thousands of children and young people, confined to their ‘huts’, left alone for days on end with a mobile phone – their only companion to look after them and keep them company. These images underscore the need for political reflection on the issue, reminding us that neglecting the needs of life, development and the attention required by the school system always exacts a very high price.
Agostino Miozzo
It is all very interesting, dear Miozzo, and the problem is a real one. However, it should not be forgotten that young people often engage in mischief simply because they are young, because they have poor role models, and such mischief—if memory serves correctly, even more serious mischief—was also committed in the past, even without social media, without distance learning and without a mobile phone in their hands. Best wishes to you.