Zoro’s perfect partisan lesson on Ukraine for deserters and Putin-aligned Italy

During the usual charade hosted by the ostensibly impartial Lilli Gruber (“Bersani, you must say that if they don’t get a move on for the country’s sake, there will be serious problems”), significant events do occasionally occur. As occurred during a recent broadcast, the spectacle was observing the suddenly pale faces of Virginia Libero—the facile prophecy of a regular talk-show guest has already come true—and Pier Luigi Bersani. Bersani, who shortly before (or perhaps after) had been explaining that the programme is already set out “in three lines”: Just don’t spend five billion on weapons and the health service will be sorted. It was Diego Bianchi, better known as Zoro, who for a few moments stripped their faces of all expression – or perhaps revealed them for what they really are.

While Gruber pressed the young Democrat, “the young partisans who chose to join the Resistance did not desert”, and Bersani, on the other hand, went out of his way to defend her, “but that’s not true, many partisans deserted the Social Republic”, Zoro stepped in. On the subject of defending Ukraine, of partisans, of the anti-fascism that liberated Italy—even through the use of arms—and of that section of the Left that no longer knows its own history, he delivered a splendid, simple, powerful lesson in style and intelligence. Words to be committed to memory, from someone who certainly cannot be labelled a warmonger: “When the conflict broke out, Ukraine’s history was one of resistance, so a person on the left saw in that history the story of other partisans.” To clarify: “I was fortunate enough to interview some partisans who told me how pleased they were with the airdrops from the Americans and the British, who supplied them with weapons. To do what? Yes, to bring about peace… Peace came later; first they used those weapons to go and shoot at the Nazis and the Fascists. The peaceful history of this country also stems from there. And is that a story – shall we say – of the left? No, it’s an Italian story”. And the stinging retort: “Today we are in a completely different situation. I don’t know who’s winning in Ukraine, but I get the impression that in Italy, Putin has won”.