Let us remember that we are all Italian even when freedom is at stake, not just an Olympic gold medal
It's a hot Sunday in August, and two young men, Marcell Jacobs and Gaianmarco Tamberi give Italy two Olympic gold medals in Tokyo within a few minutes of each other.
Had my grandfather still been alive, passionate, sick, maniac of Olympic competitions, who followed for whole days without coming off his chair sweating like a rag, in perennial danger of pleurisy as he was positioned, in a tank top and Bermuda shorts in front of the fan of the house by the sea – a fetish engraved in the memory and legacy of his campaign in Libya in search of the oil he never found – would have jumped for joy.
Here, that generation there, that of our grandparents who waged war without any anti-Italian spirit, no longer exists and instead it is the one we should look at.
It's true, let's face it, we are the country of rhetoric and football coaches, today all coaches of centometrists and pole vaulters, yesterday virologists and the day after tomorrow experts in summer fires and Canadair : the Italian cannot resist the temptation to have his say on everything, and this is probably what makes us so hateful and pompous and incomprehensible individualists in the eyes of the French or the Germans or the English, always, perennially, cold and sober and extremely nationalist.
My boyfriend's phone yesterday was all a dlon dlon of messages from friends from abroad that "oh, but this year you Italians are winning everything", with a hint of envy – which is our strength, as the truck drivers would say . And I have a little pleasure, honestly I have tried it.
Yet, from this morning the usual routine of the pre-packaged print is back: and that was born in the United States, and the percentage of athletes of mixed origins with foreigners, and who is "the real Italian" and who is not. To then move on – expire – to investigate the heart-breaking stories: fathers, children, grandchildren, accidents and the inevitable thing they ate for breakfast today (no, seriously: an article has come out in which Tamberi makes fun of more Barshim gold for its sweet-salty mixture).
Not a line, one, on that embrace that encompasses the sense of sport, the sense of human solidarity, the sense of the greatness of an individual and his example, which should then be the true message of sport, Olympic or not: that nobility of soul and brotherhood even between rivals, in a not so broad sense. We all have stories, we all have sacrifices, a past, defeats, retaliations, each of us has his own history and his own dignity, we are all different but equal.
A gold medal ex aequo is a rare thing but, even rarer these days, especially for the aforementioned individualist Italian, it is accepting to equalize something, anything. Someone will say that they could not do otherwise because they would have turned out to be mean, but in fact they were not.
They were not petty like all those who are instead unleashing a hunt for the unvaccinated with that index aimed at those who want to keep their free choice about their body and family, even taking the risks for themselves and others and accepting even to limit oneself in one's rights to protect those of another. The logical hazard, perhaps a paradox perhaps, also legal, at the basis of my reflection is that the philosophical position is the same as that of that Olympic embrace for the same medal: both, vaccinated and not, give up something to have everything for everyone . And that everything is called freedom.
President Mattarella rightly emphasized the point that choices in private contexts are one thing and choices in public contexts are another, but, in so doing, instead of inviting national unity, he has once again created a sense of division. , of non-acceptance and non-sharing of a common feeling, which should primarily be that of being able to live in a social context that truly protects and promotes freedom. Limiting some places and some activities to some citizens is undoubtedly a choice of institutional responsibility and we do not discuss it, just as we do not argue that the invitation not to get vaccinated is an invitation – clearly hyperbolic – to die, however, perhaps, it should be emphasized that millions of citizens are excluded from this way of thinking.
President Draghi called the new champions on the phone yesterday and said “we are proud of you”. Here, we too are proud of you and of what you represent dear Olympic athletes, that value of individual and group excellence united for a goal, that spirit of national unity that you manage to evoke despite the dark times, that sense of community that it reminds us, from time to time, that we are all Italian citizens, that we are united also in differences thanks to the founding values of our Constitution. We should all have the same value as people and not be divided into people of series a and series b, we are proud to be Italian, it will not be a disease or worse a cure to empty our precious individuality or to downgrade our right to freedom until we will be proud of us, but of all of us.
The post Let's remember that we are all Italian even when freedom is at stake, not just an Olympic gold medal appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/ricordiamoci-di-essere-tutti-italiani-anche-quando-e-in-gioco-la-liberta-non-solo-un-oro-olimpico/ on Tue, 03 Aug 2021 03:52:00 +0000.