FLASH
Shkruar nga Walter Veltroni
A modern barbarism has invaded our way of experiencing history and reacting, with haste and childish excitement, to the events of our time...
What is happening to us? What is distorting Western public opinion to the point of erasing the fundamental values that we achieved with so much effort and blood in the twentieth century? We are unrecognizable. As if the history of human progress, an expression that must include not only the calculation of profits and wealth, but above all that of human relationships, has been suddenly interrupted. As if a gloved hand, medieval and technological, has turned the system upside down. We are regressing. We refuse to coexist with others. Do we really need to return, at the beginning of the 2020s of the new millennium, to the debate about whether it is legitimate or justifiable to kill a political opponent in a democracy? Or should we return, like the Andreotian children, to the assertion that ultimately the victim "was asking for it"?
A modern barbarism has invaded our way of experiencing history and reacting, with childish haste and emotion, to the events of our time. Too many differences, too many "ifs" and "buts" and even too many crude manipulations have accompanied the horrific and violent end of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two. His death was murder; there are no other definitions and no one can make us believe again that differences of opinion can be resolved, once again, with bloodshed and that life is worthless if political opinions and attitudes change, even radically.
In the United States, where everything has been turned upside down for years, political violence, which took prominent victims in the 1960s, has returned in a long series of dramatic episodes. There were no cameras or cell phones when a MAGA militant broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic representative, and, not finding her, hit her husband in the head with a hammer. In recent months, Democratic and Republican representatives have been killed, and the home of a Democratic governor has been burned down.
There is no death of “someone.” Anyone who is attacked or killed is always, in every case, a victim of something that conflicts with freedom and democracy: violence.
In the bipartisan fury that social media has been happy to amplify. A free and democratic society, which is what America is supposed to be, is based on the fundamental assumption that people can express themselves, organize, and participate in public life without fear, without worrying that they will be killed, injured, or humiliated for expressing their political views. Indeed, that is the essence of freedom and democracy.
Every American, regardless of their political views, must condemn all forms of political violence and all forms of intimidation. We must welcome and respect diverse views. That is the meaning of our Constitution. That is the meaning of our Bill of Rights. That, in fact, is the meaning of freedom.
Nothing could be clearer, more precise, and more definitive. Having said this, with absolute clarity, it is necessary to add two general considerations.
First: we must extinguish the fire of words, because their extreme radicalization, the most practiced contemporary sport, ultimately degenerates into violence, and the United States risks plunging into the "Civil War" realistically prophesied in a recent movie. Bitter conflict is one thing, even healthy for democracy. Political violence is its opposite. There is no such thing as criticism of weapons. It is a frightening oxymoron.
Everyone must contribute to this detoxification, especially those who are most responsible. This newspaper rightly published a headline about the disturbing intentions of "revenge" expressed, after the murder of Kirk, by the president of the largest Western democracy.
Here too, if we want to be honest, we must be clear. All of us. Otherwise, hypocrisy will prevail. Trump uses tones and makes choices that exacerbate legitimate divisions, radicalize positions, and demonize those who oppose him.
Neither Reagan nor George Bush would have used such tones. Trump has in mind, it has always seemed clear to me, a major shift in the balance of American democracy. And his second presidency, a gift from confused Democrats, is being conducted under the banner of a “clear overthrow of the ruling classes,” as he put it on Capitol Hill in 2021.
Faced with the most extreme tones, incompatible even with the conscience of many Catholics, one would expect, from many quarters, words of sincere distancing. It has nothing to do with the murder of Kirk, but with the essence of this era of democratic eclipse and the affirmation of new autocracies.
Second consideration. America needs to get rid of the many guns that easily end up in the hands of extremist lunatics or the insane. Massacres in schools and universities, the widespread use of rifles and pistols by disadvantaged teenagers, sow a widespread sense of insecurity, always warning of dangerous consequences.
Democracy is a fragile creature and an exception in human history. Its main corrosive agent, we should have learned, is hatred./ Adapted from “Pamphlet” by “Corriere Della Sera”
Lini një Përgjigje