Tolla’s faces on the Zelensky case in Sanremo
What I think of Zelensky at the Sanremo Festival. The comment of Cazzola
Here is a new challenge for those journalists specialized in behind the scenes: was it Emmanuel Macron who did not invite Giorgia Meloni to the summit meeting with Zelenzky? Or was it up to the Ukrainian guest to tell the host which leaders he was willing to meet? The beauty is that the two, when questioned by an enraged ''I am Giorgia'', unloaded the responsibility on one another.
In truth, the thing does not have much importance in itself, in the face of the facts: whether or not it was politically correct for the statesmen of the most important countries to meet separately, Meloni was not there. And what the president said at the press conference about the missed invitation is very reminiscent of the angry reaction of the fox who can't get to the grapes.
Certainly Mario Draghi would not have happened to stay out of the door; but we shouldn't take it too much, because it is much more regrettable – of the "rain on wet" type – that Meloni's bilateral meeting with Zelensky was skipped, a fact that cannot be compensated for by a blatant embrace between the two taken by cameras promptly alerted.
It would be funny if, in a few days, someone revealed that the Ukrainian leader's coldness towards the Prime Minister was determined by the treatment that Rai reserved for Zelensky on the occasion of the Sanremo Festival. First he was invited to participate in person, then there was talk of a video that would have been subjected to a careful check by Rai's top management. A procedure at the center for days of all television talk shows and extensive consultations of the regular guests by avid hosts.
That a head of state called upon to intervene in all national and international fora, where the words spoken can affect the life and safety of millions of people, should answer for his opinions to a person named Carlo Fuortes is an outcome that we would not be able to not even to define ridiculous, because it doesn't make you smile, but only raises disturbing questions with regard to those who have positions of responsibility in the most important Italian communication company.
We would have expected Zelenzky to behave like Benedict XVI when he reacted, remaining in the Vatican, to the ignoble manifesto signed by numerous professors and intellectuals against his participation, as a professor, in a conference within the Sapienza University. Instead, they explained that the Sanremo Festival is one of the most popular shows in Russia and Ukraine and that, therefore, an authoritative presence at the event, representing the invaded country, could have played an important role in terms of propaganda, admitted or not granted that Putin had not taken countermeasures.
Then the case was resolved with the reading of a message by the conductor Amadeus today evening. It doesn't seem to me that all this fussing makes sense. Also because, following the debate of recent days, I realized that I have never met so many faces of tolla, as in this circumstance.
We have heard all sorts of things: from the principle of the free Festival in a free State to the incompatibility between entertainment and politics (and Benigni, then?) up to the aberrant consideration whereby, with the foreseen modalities, space would have been given to a only of the parties in conflict (as if Lavrov had not conversed for 45 minutes with a trepidly listening Giuseppe Brindisi, making use of the arguments, on the Bucha massacre, which had been suggested to him by former Italian war envoys). But there have not only been criticisms, disapprovals; even insults.
Some pacifist movements were determined to organize an ''anti-war'' demonstration in Sanremo for tonight; essentially as if Zelenzky was the main culprit in the conflict, in cahoots with the Americans and NATO. It seems a paradox, but the triumphant welcome bestowed on President Zelenzky in European capitals made one fact clear: the only city that would have welcomed him with bad words would have been Sanremo.
Beautiful record of a Putinian country in the soul!
I must have experienced this circumstance badly, so much so that I dreamed (I have a dream) last night that late today the presidential plane landed in Albenga to allow Sergio Mattarella to attend the Festival privately, while Amadeus read the message of discord. Obviously this will not happen, even if Mattarella is a man of spirit. Otherwise it would be interesting to meet at the Ariston ''to secretly see – as the song says – the effect it has''.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/le-facce-di-tolla-sul-caso-zelensky-a-sanremo/ on Sat, 11 Feb 2023 07:35:51 +0000.