THEMy thirtieth birthday was in 1995. Just before the birth of many of the young women who gave substance – looks, ideas, questions – to the free census launched by iO Donna for its anniversary (by the way: best wishes! Through this space I have come to know the competence and kindness of a team of which I feel part: from the directors, Diamante D’Alessio and Danda Santini, to my weekly allies, Luisa Brambilla and now Cristina Lacava).
Two facts, of opposite sign, still appear fundamental to me if I look at that passage of my half life so far. The entry into force of Schengen in all respects on 26 March: no more controls at the European borders, just a little blue flag with stars, the sensation of a new and yet already perfectly familiar space of belonging.
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on November 4th: the fall, in the crowded square of a rally in Tel Aviv, of the rough man who had become the face of the peace process, the anxiety that it was a final blow to the dream of a Middle East in balance between the past and a near future. In the middle, in summer, Srebrenica: the massacre of 8000 Bosnian Muslims during a bloody war, which was around the corner and yet seemed very far away, almost unreal, until it landed “with us” brought especially by children, as they would have told in beautiful novels (from Come to the World, by Margaret Mazzantini, to I limited myself to loving you, by Rosella Postorino).
Barbara Stefanelli. (Photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert)
Meanwhile, back between home and the office at the newspaper, it was time for technological euphoria: Internet, “the information highway”, it promised infinite knowledge and global democracy. We began to meet in a space that suddenly opened up and formed a common territory, at kilometer zero. In the mirror, we immediately imagined ourselves closer.
And now? Thirty-odd years later, we doubt the strength of that united Europe in documents and on trust; we find ourselves disoriented in another war that involves Israel, Iran and our daily interests; we do nothing but wonder about the disjointed flow of words and images that the web spills into the narrow groove of our days.
We have lost part of the optimism that gave strength to the second half of the twentieth century and we end up dumping insecurity on the younger generations. Trying, at the same time, to act as a shield or a cushion for them, which is a bit the same thing. But just take a year (that ’95, for example) to discover how many ruins and shortcomings and shadows accumulated in an era that remotely arouses so much nostalgia – and some self-praise.
The experience should rather push us to share the fear, without denying it, and to cross the present while holding on to all the conquests that the history of Italy has been able to weave – laboriously, often too slowly – since women finally went to express their political will directly.
On a day at the beginning of June 1946, another anniversary celebration that could restore awareness and hope.
