A surprising demonstration of civil society has been brewing in the last three weeks in Italy, following an article by a newspaper of the newspaper The repubblicaand has overflowed this Saturday the Plaza del Popolo of Rome, with more than 50,000 people, according to the organizers, to claim the pride of being European. Artists, writers, intellectuals, scientists, organizations, unions, several parties and, above all, dozens of mayors of every political sign have been added to the initiative, who proposed to go out with the street with flags of Europe, beyond the political affiliation, with a simple motto: “A place for Europe.”
Hundreds of blue flags of the European Union, along with others from La Paz and Ukraine, have filled the square, where the accesses have had to be cut because there were no more people. A giant screen was enabled in another nearby space, which was also filled, and we had to close the nearest subway stop exit, in Piazza Di Spagna, due to the excessive influx of public. The average age of the attendees has been high. In the stage installed in the square, half a hundred personalities have intervened, such as the writer Antonio Scurati, the architect Renzo Piano, the French writer Daniel Pennac. Also singers Roberto Vecchioni and Jovanotti; The writers Dacia Maraini, Silvia Avallone, Maurizio de Giovanni and Gianrico Carofiglio. It has been a moment of communion, almost a festival, with music, speeches, criticism, testimonies. It was going to last two hours, but the ladder began to jump immediately, it became night and thousands of people continued in the square, following the succession of known and beloved characters in Italy. It has ended shortly before seven in the afternoon, after four hours.
Antonio Masiello (El País)
Giuseppe Lami (EFE)
Among the guests, two Spaniards, the writer Javier Cercas, who on Saturday has published an article in the country supporting the initiative and has participated with a video message, and the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni. He has come on behalf of other European cities, invited by his counterpart in Rome, because they keep friendship through a network of capital that work against the housing crisis. “Hopefully Italy, like other times, is a model for all of Europe,” said Javier Cercas in his message, in Italian. “It is essential to go outside to tell the world very important things. That we want to be Europeans, that this is our project, which Europe is also our homeland. (…) Europe today is not an elitist project, it is a popular project. We Europeans want to be united, we want a united Europe. This is the most important political project of our century, truly revolutionary. It is our project. So,Avanti Popolo!
One of the most symbolic moments has been when more than fifty mayors, of all the large Italian capitals, and also of small municipalities, of various parties, have taken the stage: “each with their own ideas, but all with the flag of Europe,” said the mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri. Refugees and students have also spoken in an act that aspires to be imitated in other cities from now on and make a simultaneous demonstration possible throughout Europe.
The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, has spoken in Italian: “Europe is not an abstract entity, it is not a distant bureaucracy, Europe is us. Citizens of Europe, let’s join! Visca Roma, Visca Barcelona, Long live Europe! ” Before the act, talking to the Spanish press, he reflected: “In a hundred days more things have happened than in the last 25 years. (…) We must all make an effort to unite in the minimum common denominator that unites us to the Democrats, we are already more progressive, more conservative or more liberal. The great Europeanist family must highlight its common values, because it is what we will have to defend in the coming months and years. ” Collboni was hopeful that in Spain a similar initiative can be forged.
The Plaza del Popolo, “town” in Italian, is one of the historical gates to Rome, to the idea of citizenship, 20 meters from two paintings from Caravaggio, in one of the churches of the square, and the act has begun at three in the afternoon with the Hymn to joyfrom Beethoven, played by a string quartet. Michele Serra, the journalist who launched the idea with an article on February 21, has opened to give an answer to the distressing news of these weeks, to Donald Trump’s decisions, to attacks on European values. “Our true enemies are ourselves when we forget our fortune. For those who cross the Mediterranean to come here, and for those who wave this flag in the east, Europe is not an abstract concept. It is salvation, ”he said in his speech.
In his article, Serra thought that going out in a moment of fear and disorientation, would have for citizens “a deep and reassuring meaning, and they would feel less alone and less impotent in the event of events”, in addition to constituting a signal to politicians that “there is also a European identity ‘from below'”. Upon receiving more than half a thousand messages the next day, in addition to calls from personalities of all kinds, Serra thought he had touched a diffuse and latent feeling. Then the main center-left formation, the Democratic Party (PD), along with others from the center, left and green was adhered. All unions, groups and associations of all kinds followed. The government forces, led by the ultra -rightist Giorgia Meloni, have remained out. Also the 5 stars movement (M5S), considering that, after the rearme plan approved by the twenty -seven, the demonstration should reject it and considered it too ambiguous.
“Something does not work if this is organized by a pringo like me”
“We are many because we are people. People is a word that in recent years has moved away from democracy and kindness. And instead it is the most democratic of words (…) in a world that seems to be in pieces, a place that unites different people and ideas is a scandal. This scandal has a name. It’s called democracy, ”said Serra.
The journalist explained on Thursday, in a conversation with foreign media, including the country, which sees “a desperate need for representation ”. “There is something that does not work if this is organized by a pringo like me, which does not work in the relationship between parties and citizens. Politics fails to represent citizens’ feelings. When I was a child, politics also represented people’s feelings, you have to return to that, ”he reflected.
In the demonstration many people carried in their hand the Ventotene manifestoEU foundational document, which was written in 1941 by three anti -fascist dissidents locked by Mussolini on the island of Ventotene, on the coast between Rome and Naples. And in the event he has spoken, exciting himself at many times, an 85 -year -old woman, Renata Colorni Spinelli, daughter of one of the authors of the document, Eugenio Colorni, killed in 1944 with 35 years, and who grew adopted by another of them, Altiero Spinelli. “I am here because I feel nostalgia of the European ideals that my politicians no longer transmit,” he lamented.
Serra has also addressed politicians, present and not present: “You are too intelligent. Please try to be a bit more stupid, like the people of this square, which has not made calculations, who does not know exactly what to do, but tries to do it anyway. Please try to talk to you and even listen to you. We are here today because our loneliness and hopes have prevented us from staying at home. They have pushed us to leave and meet here. Together. I repeat it because it is the most European word: together. ”
The intervention of an Afghan refugee, Rahel Saya, has also been emotional: “You have saved me, Europe has saved me (…) In this square I feel the weight of each closed school, of each forbidden book.” Serra recalled that the hundreds of thousands of people who arrive in Europe escaping from war, oppression and hunger, “do so because for them living in peace, living in freedom and having full stomach is a great novelty.” “And it is not a lazy custom, as we have resigned to believe Europeans, vitiated for eighty years of peace and freedom. Let’s move, because otherwise we run the risk of believing that the only flag that we have left to wave is the credit card! ”He proclaimed.
