Benigni’s honeyed rhetoric seriously harms the Constitution
Italian politics has spent thirty years preventing the Constitution from being implemented and Benigni's rhetoric does not prevent this siege, on the contrary, it legitimizes it because it conveys the (false) idea that no one will ever dare to question the pillars of the democratic order. The comment by Stefano Feltri, director of Domani Quotidiano
Roberto Benigni's honeyed rhetoric is one of the many threats that our Constitution has been facing every day for 75 years. First, because Benigni can't even correctly quote the articles he praises worldwide in Sanremo.
Article 11 says that Italy repudiates war, but only as an instrument for settling international disputes (as is obvious for a Constitution that emerged from a civil war and of resistance to a foreign invader).
He also says that the country's sovereignty can be limited by joining international organizations, such as NATO and the European Union, in order to ensure "peace", of course, but also "justice" between nations.
Understand well the different implications in the context of the Russian aggression on Ukraine of the non-existent article 11 imagined by Benigni and the real one.
Benigni's exaggerated enthusiasms also create the illusion of a general agreement on the founding principles of the charter that doesn't exist.
Article 21 on freedom of expression, which moves Benigni so much, is violated every day by the reckless lawsuits of politicians and companies against newspapers and journalists and by the balance of power in a sector hostage to precariousness and large publishers with often opaque interests.
I have never heard Benigni spend a fraction of his popularity defending a threatened or intimidated journalist.
The institutional form of Italy itself, as a «one and indivisible republic» ( article 5 ) is under attack by the bill on differentiated autonomy just approved by the Meloni government: a process that will have to be monitored, fortunately, not by Benigni but by the president Sergio Mattarella, much more cautious in taking for granted the foundations of the state he watches over.
Italian politics has spent thirty years preventing the Constitution from being implemented, with regions, the Constitutional Court, referendums and much more being introduced only gradually into the democratic process. In the last thirty years the commitment has been above all to dismantle it.
The willing executioners of the centre-left have done more and better than the aspiring secessionists of the centre-right: first with the reform of the fifth title of the Constitution, in 2001, then with the great mess of the Renzian referendum in 2016 (when Benigni was lined up to overturn the Constitution which today celebrates ) and finally in 2017, when the future secretary of the Democratic Party Stefano Bonaccini also asked for differentiated autonomy for Emilia-Romagna, appending the region symbol of the left to the "secession of the rich" of the League.
Benigni-style rhetoric on the Constitution does not prevent this siege, on the contrary, it legitimizes it because it conveys the (false) idea that no one will ever dare to question the pillars of the democratic order.
( Here the article published in Domani Quotidiano)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/la-retorica-mielosa-di-benigni-nuoce-gravemente-alla-costituzione/ on Sat, 11 Feb 2023 06:22:24 +0000.