Dear Friends,

For the first time after a few years, I would like to write you about my country with lots of pride. The event that pushes me to do so is a referendum. Yesterday and Sunday the Italians had to answer about 4 questions: whether they wanted to restart Italy’s nuclear energy program, whether they wanted to privatize the water supply and whether they wanted to grant immunity to the Prime Minister.

La torre di Pisa. Foto: Anna Mays

Yesterday and Sunday the weather was quite nice and hot all over Italy, the kind of weather that normally pushes us to go to the beach or to the swimming pool, to relax for the beginning of the summer season. They were some of these days when you really do not want to think or talk about politics. And, in fact, in the last 16 years only once, more than half the Italian population decided to go to vote for a referendum.

But yesterday and Sunday it was different. Over 27 million people, so around 57% of the adult population, decided to go to vote and express her opinion. And around 95% of the Italians said they would like to continue to have public water supply, to support alternative energies and that all men are equal before the law.

Well, you could say, where is the news? After Fukushima, even the United States decided to suspend the construction of new nuclear power plants, the fact that all men are equal before the law is one of the basic principles of any democracy, and Italy is supposed to be a democracy, whereas keeping public the water supply will seem just absurd for a country which thinks private is always much more efficient than public.

On the contrary, this time the big news is there.

It is 17 years that any time we talk about Italian politics I can see on your face (and the face of many Westerners) a soft smile, which for a long time was dry, and recently became piteous. In the last few years nine times over ten, any time an American newspaper talks about Italy, it writes about Berlusconi, his gaffes, his illiberal laws, or his scandals. For years you asked: how is it possible? How can you tolerate someone like him represent you abroad? Until in the

United States you had Bush, you limited your smiles since you also had leader that you were not always proud of, but since Obama came into power the situation is different. And your question started to be more pressing.

Or, you stopped asking. Anyway, you probably think, Italy will always be the most beautiful country in the world, full of artistic and natural wonders, Latin lovers and fascinating women. But it will also always be a semi-serious country, where politics is often a joke and the agenda is given by the last clown or the TV. And then, everything can be accommodated, the Italian way, the rules are valid only sometimes, not always, only if there is an advantage in following them, if there are not friends to please or family members to help. And lately even prostitutes to accommodate. And who is better than Bersluconi at it?

But, paradoxically, the problem of Italy, during these years, has not been Berlusconi, because nobody alone can do anything, in politics, if he has no

supporters and voters. And, moreover, who decided that politics is all the same, that there is no need to participate because anyway nothing would ever change, and so it is better to trust a strong leader, authoritative, or, better, authoritarian.

But today, something is changing. If this referendum has seen such an important participation, it has been because the citizens have decided to restart to make democracy. The television channels almost did not talk about the referendum. But thousands of small groups, associations, individuals decided to inform the others, with plenty of initiatives from the civil society, bike rides in public squares, at sports events, conferences, and online. Even the association/magazine Il Contesto, which I have founded with some friends around ten years ago, has organized some events to debate. At the opposite, the political parties have been at the margins of the referendum campaign, whereas normal citizens rallied as they have never done in the last 20 years.

Because today Italy wants to change and get again its ownership over politics. Yesterday I was the president of a polling station, in a polling station where the average age of the poll clerks and scrutineers was 25. A 90-years old lady who came to vote, told me: “I am tired and I do not have as much to give and probably I will not be here to see neither new nuclear power plants nor alternative energies. But I came to vote for you, for the youth. I really hope something will change.”

And here we are. The wind is changing direction and in my country there is willingness to do, to participate and to build again. As for any popular movement, we of course know that hope does not automatically translate into practice. We are at the beginning and there is a lot to do. Our Tunisians, Egyptians, Syrians, Yemenis, Libyans brothers and sisters have done much more and were brave risking their life to change and to participate. But today they have difficulties in following up that energy and maybe they are even worried that some old leader will recycle him and will suffocate their energy for democracy.

Even in Italy, the youth do not want a new absolute leader; they do not want someone just more intelligent or more beautiful than Berlusconi. They do not want a new prophet with different appearance, but same arrogance. This referendum is more important than another electoral defeat for Berlusconi because with this referendum Italians did not express only their opposition to Berlusconi and his way of doing politics, but they asked for participation in the decision-making process. They said that when someone wants to decide about their life, the water they drink, the energy they use or the kind of democracy they want, there is a need to listen to them. And now let us see whether the politicians in the parliament will be able to understand that instead of discussing about absurd alliances among them, they need to be open to the civil society. And there is a more general need to open new spaces of participation. The political parties need to be open to their citizens and listen and follow their proposals and not the opposite. This is what 27 million people asked yesterday and Sunday.

Dear friends, I think this time I can write you about Italy with pride. And not only because we won the soccer world championship or because an Italian girl won Miss World. But because Italy is waking up.

I just hope the sun which will continue to warm our peninsula for the next three months, will not weaken hopes and prospects of 27 million people who yesterday went to vote and chose to change. By the opposite, hopefully the sun will push the wind of change and participation.

As a metaphor, yesterday Italy voted no to artificial nuclear energy and yes to natural energy that comes from the sun and the new wind that blows on Italy.

A presto
Francesco