Two prominent speakers, Paolo Mieli, editorialist and former editor of Corriere della Sera, and Carlo Moos, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Zurich, discussed the different perspectives of the conference, organized by the Circolo Carlo Battaglini . They retraced the history that has shaped the 800th and 900th centuries up to the present day, emphasizing values and ideas, beginning with the Risorgimento. These values and ideals have been modified and diluted over time.
What is left of it today? According to Mieli, the values of the Risorgimento remain current, something that has illuminated Italian, Swiss and European history: independence and unity, freedom, modernity, a secular state and a sense of state. It was a heroic fifteen-year period, only to leave us with unsolved problems, because the second half of the Risorgimento was missed. Europe had to deal with the wounds of the two wars and, after the second, unified itself driven rather by a state of necessity and therefore consolidated more around an economic project than a political one. From the Risorgimento it has not been possible to draw a lesson from it to cement a stable political structure for the present. A project that could have been revived with momentum after 1989 and the end of the cold war. But that's not how it went.
From the Swiss point of view, the approach of integral federalism especially of Cattaneo who laid the foundations of the modern state, as Moos explains, is inspired by Goethe and that is: unity in diversity. Even if then the organization of the unified state politically is not the organization Cattaneo hoped for, because it is a unification that follows the centralizing model, of the Mazzinian type. However, Switzerland remains an example for Europe: not idealized and sanctified, but always in the sense of Cattaneo, not arrogant and not moved only to economic powers.
Over the years, Switzerland itself has closed in on itself and has lost that momentum and the ideal of a unity of purpose and cooperation. In reality, one might say that we are not in good shape anywhere. Italy has forgotten the Risorgimento model or has never fully implemented it. Switzerland has become corrupted over time and should rediscover a federalist spirit like that of Cattaneo, respectful of diversity and cohesion, while Europe is unable to materialize an overall political vision, increasingly losing its centrality in the new geopolitical order. The United States is another world. In the east it is not encouraging. For this, we should go back to the spirit of the 800th century, go back to a situation in which the intellectual project takes precedence over today's adjustment needs for today as it is. It would therefore be necessary to stop around a constituent assembly, fielding ideas to understand if a new world is possible.
The unity that Europe is rediscovering, at this moment and with a war at the gates, is around the values imprinted in its Constitution and which, after all, are the values of humanity: the defense of freedom and the law. We should continue on this path: teasing thought and ideals, activating and evolving them. As it was precisely the era of the Risorgimento, whose values of republican roots, which belong so much to us, can and must adapt but not be forgotten; rediscover the impetus and passion of that era and of those protagonists moved by a civil commitment, made of rigor and honesty, to cement the union and the cultural, social and economic growth of the country.
Remembering that period and those passionate personalities (Battaglini, Cattaneo, Franscini, Pioda, Luvini, Mazzini, Cavour and many others), with a political vision understood as civil action aimed at the progress and growth of the country, is a more pressing need than never. Remembering and promoting it is a commitment that the Battaglini Club wants to make.
Morena Ferrari Gamba is President of the Carlo Battaglini Liberal Cultural Circle.
