From Beatrice Venezi to Teatro di Roma, appointments are only scandalous when they are made by the right

Governments of all colors are dividing the country. A kind of Cencelli Manual applied to everything that concerns power, not only at a political level, but also at a media and cultural level because, as Andreotti said, “governing is above all naming”. An evil that should be overcome but no one ever had the will or interest to do so. And yet the Meloni government did not hesitate when making appointments. And if during the center-left governments the center-right called for subdivision, now the roles have been reversed.

First chapter: Rai. There is also a premise here. The former president of Rai, Roberto Zaccaria, highlighted some time ago how the presence of politics on public television is a failure for which both the right and the left must take responsibility. Zaccaria recalled how it was Renzi who handed the absolute power of the government over Rai into his own hands and those of his successors, that is, over a common good that the parties should not even touch. And he would have done so by revising the Gasparri law.

That said, when the government changed top management, placing Roberto Sergio as CEO and Giampaolo Rossi as general manager, an uproar ensued. Controversy to which the Prime Minister responded directly by recalling how «during the Draghi government the only opposition» that «was not present on the Board of Directors» was the FdI «and I had not heard of the regime. TeleMeloni’s accusations from a left that with 18% of the consensus expressed 70% of the positions in Rai are not sustainable, at the very least we are rebalancing in relation to those years. A Rai journalist who spoke in Atreju was asked to resign because he criticized Elly Schlein. I have been criticized by Rai journalists all my life, that’s good, should anyone who criticizes a political exponent resign?”

There was also controversy over the appointment of General Giuseppe Zafarana as president of Eni, Fabrizio D’Ascenzo at Inail and Gabriele Fava at INPS. It is clear that new appointees replace old appointees, so it is not clear where the scandal would be if it were not for an appointment mechanism that politics should leave to others. But it didn’t end here. A conductor has been the target for some time, she prefers the conductor, from the Beatrice Venezi orchestra. His fault? Being an admirer of Giorgia Meloni and having been appointed music advisor by the Minister of Culture Gennario Sangiuliano. A controversy that crossed national borders with a protest in Nice during the New Year’s concert at which she was booed. Even the unsuspecting Alessandra Gasmann came to his defense and wrote in E how to forget the protest at the Turin International Book Fair against the Minister of Equal Opportunities and the Family, Eugenia Roccella.

Invited to present her book “A Radical Family”, she was unable to complete her speech due to protests from Extinction Rebellion activists and Non Una di Meno activists. A disruptive action that Nicola Lagioia, then director of the event, was unable to prevent. There is a concept that Democrats should return to. Democracy is not what we like, democracy is the command (kraté)And of the people (demos). Our representative democracy presupposes that, through voting, citizens choose who will make choices on their behalf. So, in the face of a democratically elected government, why shout about fascism? Why create controversy about a mechanism that involved everyone? As the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall said, not Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend your right to say it to the death.” Translated: “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it to the death.” A quote that, even if falsely attributed to Voltaire, has been used and reused. But among many I remember an interview with the President of the Republic Sandro Pertini, someone who really fought against the fascists, the real ones.