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constitution and unity of Ita lia
The Charter sees the center of the system, not the State but the person
On March 17, 1861 V ittorio Emanuele II, King of Sardinia became - by the grace of God and the will of the nation - the king of Italy, beginning the long path as the unification of Italy. They are now going there ntocinquanta years and we are preparing to celebrate the anniversary: \u200b\u200bwhat is the best way to remember an event properly so important to the history of our country?
First, I believe that the anniversary should be celebrated trying to avoid the rhetoric to usually, unfortunately, customary on such occasions, but also trying to avoid approaching or extremism that is what happened in these one hundred and fifty years is all beautiful and positive (ignoring the errors and ambiguities) or, conversely, is all wrong and reject (ignoring the successes and achievements). Reflecting on the current situation with a critical spirit, someone even asks whether it still makes sense to talk about unification of Italy, and is it still possible and useful to look at the past in order to draw some lessons for the present and the future, according to the that is written on the input of the concentration camp at Dachau: "Those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it."
To answer these questions, it is worthwhile to take a look back at one hundred and fifty years after: a parable that has as its central point that the Constitution is now the foundation of our way of life together. It was preceded by a unification that has been articulated through four wars of independence, three had built, while the fourth (the war of 1915-1918) had established, completing the first Risorgimento. But in that same dish also fit fascism, the Second World War, the defeat, the loss of national unity, when the country returned to divide between the United South and the Social Republic in the North. Finally, in the parable of this, there is resistance, civil war, the second Risorgimento, to the choice and the Republican Constitution, which is - chronologically also - and today the central moment of our experience and our life unit. Especially with the Constitution - its origins, its writing, its implementation (certainly incomplete) - then we must look back, to celebrate these one hundred and fifty years, and I try to do it with words - so actual - of two of my predecessors authoritative .
The first of these, Enrico De Nicola, was a liberal monarch, who became interim head of state and then first president of the Constitutional Court. At the first hearing of Qu est'ultima in 1956, said: "The Constitution is not widely known even by those who talk saccenza. Must be promptly disclosed before it is too late." The second, Leopoldo Elia, also President of the Court in 2008 on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Constitution, pointed out that "it is deeply relevant, has been able to understand new phenomena, not foreseen when it was written." He was referring to issues like the environment, privacy, the market and competition, the European dimension, issues that the Constitution has certainly been able to grasp, allowing the development, implementation and protection, while not explicitly provided for them. These two statements - significant in times wondering if he struggles on the Constitution is outdated and if, therefore, should be changed - I would add a third. Today, the Constitution not only is little known, even by experts; not only is present, sixty years after its birth, but it is also the key to understanding the significance of the unification of Italy and its continuation on a new basis and present, through the continuation and evolution of patriotism, in step from first to second Risorgimento.
is a building, the one proposed by the Constitution, which sees the core of our system is no longer the state as under fascism, but the person. It stretches the definition of a series of civil relations, social, economic and political, where the Constitution develops the rights and duties which are closely linked. I believe that the values \u200b\u200bcontained in the fundamental principles which opens our Constitution, can be effectively summarized in the principle of equal social dignity and the principle of secularism.
The first is a value in the content, which is what the article 3 of the Constitution, stressing the relationship between the formal equality of all before the law and substantial equality, which must be achieved by removing existing inequalities that prevent full participation of all (not just citizens) in public and social life. The same social dignity is the key link between equality and diversity (pluralism), which is another of the fundamental values \u200b\u200bof our Constitution, through solidarity.
beside the value of dignity, of content, placing the value of secularism, a value method (the method Democratic), not mentioned explicitly in the Constitution, but the Constitutional Court has derived from it by a ruling of 1989, after the amendments to the Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1984. Secularism must be understood not only by reference to the relationship between church and state and the religious dimension, but also with regard to mutual respect - in the knowledge of their values \u200b\u200bwhile respecting the values \u200b\u200bof the other - and dialogue, in contrast to overwhelm. It is, in short, what Bobbio called "accept the other for what it is." This value comes dall'eguaglianza and religious freedom, the rejection of secularism, but also in terms of radicalism, fanaticism and intolerance, is the prospect of dialogue in mutual respect. In the first
Risorgimento the nation has made reference to the state through a series of values \u200b\u200bsuch as history, culture, language, territory, although at a later time, this sense of belonging to the nation was troubled by centralism, bureaucracy, from what has been called the "piemontesizzazione" South, by the shortcomings of the state, up to the risk of separation between nation and state. In the second Risorgimento, the theme of home was expressed by reference to common and shared values \u200b\u200band belonging to the community: a constitutional patriotism that is based on new values, more current than those on which he first played the patriotism, therefore, able to manage our coexistence in the future and tackle the problems of globalization.
values \u200b\u200bare an asset of the first Renaissance elitist - especially given to intellectuals, through culture, history, traditions, language - which was mostly extraneous or indifferent to the people, except for some isolated experience: the popular participation in the Expedition of the Thousand, for Five Days of Milan, in riots. The second Risorgimento proposes, instead, another set of values: the formal and substantive equality, solidarity, democracy, popular sovereignty, pluralism, pacifism, unity and indivisibility of Italy and at the same time autonomy.
The Constitution was created with the second Risorgimento, after the dictatorship, the defeat and the division has arisen again in 1943 in Italy between the Kingdom of the South, where the state continued to exist thanks to an ally, and the Social Republic North, what has been called the death of the country, but in fact was the reason for its rebirth.
One of the phenomena on which I think is fair to think more, to better understand the current situation, is the resistance: a global phenomenon, characterized by partisan armed struggle, by the faithfulness and witness of the military (think of those who died on Cephalonia and those who refused to swear in the concentration camps) and the participation of the civilian population. We can not certainly ignore the fighting, the violence, the reciprocal wrongs that have characterized the Resistance. Some skeptical of - if not the possibility - of having a shared memory. I believe we need to reach at least the awareness of diversity and contrast between the memories, notwithstanding the awareness of what was to be the "right" with host, in the name of freedom and against dictatorship and oppression. But we must also try to come not so much to share, but rather to the understanding of who was wrong in good faith.
After the resistance, followed by other crucial events. First, there was the choice of 2 June 1946, with the referendum and the transition from monarchy to republic, moments of tension, accusations of fraud and renewed conflict between the North and South republican monarchy, which they fear again (as De Gasperi) for the moral unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The referendum was a form of respect for the will of the people, while leaving the people to choose between the Republic and Monarchy. The referendum was followed by the Constituent Assembly, which represented the first opportunity for universal suffrage and votes for women, and came to write and agree - with a huge majority - the Constitution in force since 1? January 1948: a constitution, a compromise "high" between the liberal and elitist component, the component of the Catholic component of the social-communist.
A constitution that focuses on the person, in his individual value and its social projection, and that had a double, a very important meaning. On the one hand, represents the rejection of the past, dictatorship, fascism and its reference values \u200b\u200b(corporatism, the warmongering, self-sufficiency, racism) and on the other hand, represents the renewal through a deal for the future, where they hoped to reach a new climate that would allow co-existence of our people.
After the entry into force of the Constitution, the parties that had played a key role in connecting civil society to revive from a state, then they finished the deal with the state and institutions, both have returned the office centralism and bureaucracy, which had been one of the vices of the first unified state. The Constitution, in part has not been implemented, in part, was implemented very late, so that someone spoke of the Constitution betrayed. Those defects, those ambiguity, those vices that had marked the first Renaissance, also marked the second.
Giovanni Maria Flick
( L'Osservatore Romano, 14 to 15 March 2011)