Francesco Rutelli organizes a meeting to mark thirty years since his election

Let’s first say what it won’t be. It will not be an amarcord. Francesco Rutelli wouldn’t like that. A birthday to live by letting yourself be carried away by the pain of nostalgia. Among those present will be excellent names, each with their own past, victims and perpetrators of that pathological narcissism that has infected so many center-left leaders. And it won’t even be one of those conventions where people gossip backstage and acquittals are handed out on stage. In fact, irony, fun, the desire not to take everything seriously by inviting actors and comedians to the stage. The scenography has already been set up, the script studied, a civil breviary without accusations and low blows. The former radical who gave up the blue car and arrived at the Capitol escorted by pizzardoni will play at home: in the Sala Petrassi of the Auditorium, a public meeting in the place where the first stone of what would become Renzo Piano’s Cockroach was laid. A place that Francesco also feels a little “his” to celebrate next Monday, December 4th, the 30th anniversary of the first direct election of the mayor. Cake and candles for a symbolic date: that day he won and meant a turning point for the country that from that day on would elect its mayors from below. It was also a turning point for Silvio Berlusconi, who stood out and decided to take the field – he used these powerful words – to support his rival Gianfranco Fini. Then came Forza Italia, the «Azzurri», Cavaliere’s «selection» that stole the new language of football and the hegemony of the left. This choice of positioning himself in the other half of the field would persist to this day.

Rutelli wrote a letter to his “friends” of yesterday and today. Warn. Each reference is a mere coincidence, no “political exploration” is intended. For example, it is prohibited to link the direct election of the President of the Chamber with President Casellati’s bill on the Prime Minister, which is about to reach the Constitutional Affairs Committee of Palazzo Madama. The next event on December 4th was born from a series of “informal exchanges”, “proposals from several of our colleagues in light of this deadline that happens precisely every thirty years…”. Texts, testimonials, videos, in which the experience of governing the city will be told, the “teamwork” of a thirty-year-old generation. People like Pannella, Fini, Frattini, etc., etc. they sat in the Sala Giulio Cesare. Other times. But remembering certain figures and certain profiles, the noblest trait of politics, regretting times gone by, is precisely what Rutelli – 69 years old, former Minister of the Environment in the Ciampi government and now president of Anica – would like to avoid. In his letter, he asked everyone to gather the proposals in two folders, also making published and unpublished materials available, if necessary. Not just the “successes”, but also those projects that were not successful. Above all: the bid for the Olympics that was then awarded to Athens. A digital map will be shown to locate the impact that the administration has had on the city, the experience of yesterday’s Jubilee will be remembered so as not to repeat the same mistakes in tomorrow’s Jubilee.

An organizing committee composed of Claudio Rosi, Luigi Zanda, Michele Civita, Riccardo Milana and Maurizio Venafro has already collected ideas, contributions, suggestions, «significant elements of work that lasted 7 years». Walter Veltroni, Goffredo Bettini, Paolo Gentiloni, Walter Tocci, Esterino Montino, Loredana De Petris, Linda Lanzillotta have already signed up. And obviously Mayor Roberto Gualtieri will also be present. We said it will not be a meeting between veterans. Scenes of great cold and self-celebratory displays by smoking intellectuals and former leaders who fell from grace. None of that. The task of historical contextualization will be entrusted to Corrado Augias. Francesca Reggiani is expected to participate while Massimo Wertmuller will recite a poem by Belli and there will be other surprises. From 10 am to 4:30 pm every day “with a structural but synthetic, lively and even joyful character”. In the audience will be students from the School of Civic Service founded by the former mayor of Ostiense. A subscription for financing has been opened. He, Rutelli, paid the first 1,000 euros. And he already knows “that they won’t be the last…”. When it comes to experience.