Who reevaluates and why the figure of Bettino Craxi
From Tunis, Tajani speaks of the revaluation of Bettino Craxi, "a great protagonist of politics" who "gave prestige to our country". Paola Sacchi's note
“Bettino Craxi was a great protagonist of Italian politics, of our republican history, of foreign policy, one of the great politicians who fortunately has been re-evaluated today. It has given prestige to our country and made it count again on the international stage".
Clear words, in recognition of the role that Craxi, "long unjustly criticized and condemned", occupies in the history of our country and in international politics. It is Antonio Tajani, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister, coordinator of Forza Italia and Vice President of the EPP, who pronounces them from Tunis (yesterday on an official visit, with Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, by Tunisian President Saied on economic relations and migration issues ), in that land which was the final destination of the socialist statesman, where 23 years ago, on January 19, he died in Hammamet , aged 65.
Words, those of the head of our diplomacy, which, despite the steps forward in public opinion, tend to shorten the gap in the political sea that still today divides the fate, unprecedented in the world of Western democracies, from Italy of the prime minister who he led the longest-lived government of the First Republic, author of historic reforms and far-sighted modernizing visions and intuitions. To that former premier, insulted as a "fugitive", while it was public news where he was, with the status of political refugee in Tunisia on the basis of a treaty between the two countries of the 1960s, which, submerged by guarantees without yet convictions he left Italy with two valid passports (Italian and of the UN for which he was the representative of the Secretary General), he was not even allowed to be able to be treated in Italy, despite his serious illness, without suspension of arrest.
The Craxi case, or the sea of disproportion between judicial fury, endorsed primarily by the justicialist left (the same then Head of State Giorgio Napolitano, former "improvist" leader of the PCI, recognized in retrospect, on the tenth anniversary, that there was "a harshness without equal", two sentences were also annulled by the European Court of Strasbourg because without due process) and on the other hand the relief of the figure and the work of Craxi. It ranges from the decree of S. Valentino which saved Italy from galloping inflation, the intuition of "Merits and needs", or the liberal value of individual merit, growth combined with the defense of the weakest groups, to the Euromissiles which put an end to the Cold War, to the State-Church Agreement, to his convinced Atlanticism but without subordination, the lesson of national sovereignty, which is not "sovereignty", with Sigonella, up to the lucid prediction on the epochal drama of immigration: "If we don't turn on the lights in their cities, they will come and seek ours.”
Here, the words of our foreign minister try to shorten that sea of persecutory persecutory media pillory and pennies so that in Italy we arrive at full recognition of the figure of Craxi. Tajani recalls: “Already as President of the European Parliament I went to pay homage to his grave in Hammamet and ideally I pay him homage once again. One can more or less agree with his political decisions, in favor or not in favor of what his party was. But no one can dispute that he was a positive protagonist in our history also for relations with Tunisia, he was unjustly, for a long time the object of prejudice, criticized, condemned, but then in the end many realized that he was a protagonist of the republican history of our country”.
Stefania Craxi, senator of Forza Italia, president of the Foreign Affairs and Defense commission of Palazzo Madama , expresses strong appreciation: "I would like to thank, as an Italian even before being a daughter, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani for the words spoken in Tunis, close to the anniversary of the death of Bettino Craxi, aimed at restoring the rightful role to the socialist leader in the history of our country".
Stefania will be in Tunisia for the initiatives of the Craxi Foundation, which she set up after the death of her father, chaired by Margherita Boniver, directed by Nicola Carnovale, general secretary. Ex militants, socialist leaders or simply friends of the statesman are departing from Italy with the Foundation who, on the morning of Saturday 21 January, at the Christian cemetery of Hammamet, will participate in a commemorative ceremony which will be followed, inside the Medina, by the inauguration of the exhibition "Pages of the history of freedom". The Socialist Pantheon, the exhibition is made up of images from the collection of 14 pictorial works that the artist Deanna Frosini – one of the leading figures in Italian painting of the second half of the twentieth century – dedicated to the emblematic figures of the history of reformist socialism, from Turati to Matteotti , passing through the Rosselli and Pertini brothers, up to Craxi.
"That day in New York" will then be screened at the Hotel Bel Azur in Hammamet, a short film that "traces the salient phases of a great commitment that, as Personal Representative of the Secretary General of the UN, Bettino Craxi made in the fight against hunger in the world and in the reduction of inequalities between rich and poor countries, a theme that today retains great and intense relevance", writes the Foundation in a note, which returns to Hammamet with a delegation after the suspension of initiatives in Tunisia due to the pandemic. Destination "Tunis-Chartage", the airport with white marbles, with writings in Arabic and French, junction of the Mediterranean and the extreme southern tip of Europe, junction also of our political history.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/bettino-craxi-tunisia-tajani/ on Thu, 19 Jan 2023 06:20:18 +0000.