Piero Calamandrei
Article. 34 states: "The capable and deserving students, even if without financial resources, have the right to attain the highest levels of education." Eh! And if you do not have the means? So in our constitution there is an article that is the most important of all creation, the most challenging for us that we are declining, but especially to you young people who have the future ahead of you. Says: "It is the responsibility of the Republic to remove those barriers ordine economico e sociale, che, limitando di fatto la libertà e la eguaglianza dei cittadini, impediscono il pieno sviluppo della persona umana e l’effettiva partecipazione di tutti i lavoratori all’organizzazione politica, economica e sociale del Paese». È compito di rimuovere gli ostacoli che impediscono il pieno sviluppo della persona umana: quindi dare lavoro a tutti, dare una giusta retribuzione a tutti, dare la scuola a tutti, dare a tutti gli uomini dignità di uomo. Soltanto quando questo sarà raggiunto, si potrà veramente dire che la formula contenuta nell’art. primo – «L’Italia è una Repubblica democratica fondata sul lavoro» – corrisponderà alla realtà. Perché fino a che non c’è questa possibilità per ogni uomo di lavorare e di studiare e di trarre con sicurezza dal proprio lavoro i mezzi per vivere da uomo, non solo la nostra Repubblica non si potrà chiamare fondata sul lavoro, ma non si potrà chiamare neanche democratica perché una democrazia in cui non ci sia questa uguaglianza di fatto, in cui ci sia soltanto un’uguaglianza di diritto, è una democrazia puramente formale, non è una democrazia in cui tutti i cittadini veramente siano messi in grado di concorrere alla vita della società, di portare il loro miglior contributo, in cui tutte le forze spirituali di tutti i cittadini siano messe a contribuire a questo cammino, This continued progress of society.And then you understand from this that our constitution is in part a reality, but only in part, is a reality. Part of it is still a program, an ideal, a hope, a commitment of a job to do. How much work you have to be done! How much work lies before you!
has been rightly said that the constitutions of the controversy, in which articles of the constitution is always there, even if disguised by cold formulation of the rules, a polemic. This controversy is usually a polemic against the past, against the recent past, the regime fell from which it came out of the new regime.
If you read the part of the constitution that refers to the relations of civil and political rights of freedom, you constantly hear the argument against what was the situation before the Republic, when all of these freedoms, which are currently listed and re-affirmed solemnly, were systematically disregarded. Then, in the controversy of the rights of man and citizen with the past.
But there is a part of our constitution which is a polemic against the present, against the present society. Because when the art. 3 says, "It is the responsibility of the Republic to remove those obstacles of an economic and social obstacles to the full development of the human person recognizes that these obstacles there are in fact today and that we must remove them. It gives a view, the constitution, a controversial opinion, an adverse opinion against the current social order, that must change through this instrument of legality, gradual transformation, the constitution has made available to Italian citizens.
But property is not a constitution which has defined a fixed point, it is a constitution that opens the way to the future. Not to say revolutionary, because revolution means in everyday language anything that subverts violently, but it is a renewed constitution, progressive, aiming at transformation of this society in which it is possible that, even when there are legal and political freedoms are made useless by economic inequality and the inability of many citizens of be people and to realize that within them there is a spiritual flame which, if developed in an economic compensation system, could also contribute to the progress of society. So, the argument against this that we live in and commitment to do what is in us to transform this situation.
But You see, the constitution is not a machine that once set in motion goes without saying. The constitution is a piece of paper and dropped it does not move. Why you should move every day in the fuel lose, you put in the commitment, spirit, the will to keep these promises, his responsibility. That is one of the offenses that are made to the constitution is the indifference to politics, political indifference that is - not here, thankfully, in this audience, but often in large groups of young people - a disease of young people.
"Politics is an ugly thing," 'I care policy ": when I do this speech, I always reminded of that old little story, that someone you know, those two immigrants, two farmers, who crossed the ocean on a rickety ship. One of these farmers slept in the hold and the other was on the bridge and noticed that there was a large storm with high waves and the ship rocked. So this farmer afraid to question a sailor: "But we are in danger?" And says this: "If he continues this sea, the ship sank in half an hour." Then he runs into the hold to awaken his companion and says, "Beppe, Beppe, Beppe, if it continues this sea, the ship in half an hour sinks. " What he says: "What do I care, it's not mine." This indifference to politics.
is so beautiful, it is so easy: there is freedom. We live under the freedom, there other things to do than care about politics. And I know too! The world is so beautiful, there are many beautiful things to see and enjoy, as well as involved in politics. Politics is not a pleasant thing. But freedom is like air: you realize what it's worth when it begins to fail, when you hear that sense of asphyxiation men of my generation have felt for twenty years, and I wish you young people do not feel anything, and I hope you will not find you never feel this sense of anxiety, because you hope you manage to create the conditions for this sense of anxiety do not have to prove anything, remembering that each day we must take care about freedom, making its contribution to political life.
The constitution, you see, is the statement written in these articles, from the literary point of view that are not beautiful, but it is the solemn affirmation of social solidarity, human solidarity, of common fate, that if he goes to the bottom , goes to fund all this ship. It is the paper of their freedom, the paper for each of us the dignity of man.
I remember the first elections after the fall of fascism, June 2, 1946: 25 years from these people who had not enjoyed the civil and political liberties, the first time I went to the polls after a period of horrors - chaos , civil war, struggles, wars, fires. I remember - I was in Florence, the same has happened here - these lines of people in front of the covered sections, disciplined and happy because they had the feeling of having found their own dignity, that given the vote, bring your own review for this help to create This review of the community, this to be in control of us, their country, our country, our country, our land, we have our destiny, the destiny of our country.
So, you young people to have to give up your spirit, your youth, bring it to life, like what you hear, put in the public spirit, civic awareness, to realize - this is one of the joys of life - to realize that everyone in the world is not just that we are more, that we are part of a whole, within the limits of Italy and the world.
Now, you see - I have little else to tell you - in this constitution, which do feel the comment in the next conference is in all our history, our whole past. All our pains, our tragedies, our glories are all resulted in these articles. And learn to understand, we feel behind these articles of distant voices.
When I read, in art. 2, "the fulfillment of the mandatory duties of political solidarity, economic and social," or when I read, in art. 11, "Italy repudiates war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples', the Italian homeland in the midst of the other homelands, I say, but this is Mazzini, this is the voice of Mazzini; or when I read, in art. 8, "all religious confessions are equally free before the law," but this is Cavour, or when I read, in art. 5, "the Republic one and indivisible, recognizes and promotes local autonomy," but this is Cattaneo, or when, art. 52, I read, about the armed forces, "the ordering of the armed forces on the democratic spirit of the Republic," army of people, but this is Garibaldi, and when I read, art. 27, "is not permitted the death penalty," but this, or students from Milan, and Beccaria. Large distant voices, big names away.
But there are also humble names, recent entries. How much blood and how much pain to get to this constitution! Behind every article of this constitution, or young, you have to see young people like you, who fell in battle, shot, hanged, tortured, starved to death in concentration camps, died in Russia, died in Africa, died on the streets of Milan, the streets of Florence, who gave their lives for freedom and justice could be written on this card.
So when I told you that this is a dead paper, no, not a dead paper, this is a will, a will of a hundred thousand deaths.
If you want to go on pilgrimage to the birthplace of our Constitution, go to the partisans in the mountains where they fell, in prisons where they were imprisoned in camps where they were hanged. Wherever an Italian died to redeem the freedom and dignity, go there, or young, with the thought that there was born our constitution.
Pietro Calamandrei (Firenze,21 aprile 1889 – 27 settembre 1956) fu grande giurista, politico e letterato. Tra i fondatori del Partito d’Azione, fu membro della Consulta Nazionale e fece parte, all’Assemblea Costituente, della Commissione dei Settantacinque incaricata di redigere il testo della Costituzione della Repubblica.
Piero Calamandrei nel ricordo della nipote Silvia
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