EDITORIAL
from issue no. 05 - 2006
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For real development
The fiftieth anniversary has passed, without due acknowledgement, of the sudden death, in the Senate, of the minister Ezio Vanoni, whose name remains linked both to the modernization of the tax system (with the declaration of income and sliding scale of tax demands) and to the working out of a Scheme of Development that got rid of a great many fads of economic planning, in altogether necessary fashion. Both then - but now in very much more pressing terms - the doubt arises about the fundamental axis on which development is to be hinged
Giulio Andreotti
Via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome
Scrutiny of the specific condition of Italy is therefore required. I put the question at a meeting in Calabria in 1972, stressing the presence in Italy – according to UNESCO figures – of more than half the world’s art masterpieces. Furthermore, locally, between the Sila and the sea, there was a potential for tourism on which could be hung a very positive future. They treated me badly. The myth of industrialization, indeed of large-scale industry, was dominant. Progress – in imitation of the North – was seen in that precise direction. Perhaps the trade-unions also favored the conception which gave them importance and offered them the bases to count.
The battles for the Gioia Tauro steel-making center are known, with the destruction of important agricultural areas and a subsequent partial remedy with harborage planning. On the other hand a chemical industry enterprise, planned and built and ready “keys in hand”, was blocked by the strange question put to the health authorities on the possible cancerogenous effects of the product (bio-protein).
I returned to the issue, not restricted to the Region of Calabria, twenty-five years later, in asking for the contribution of an important figure in Italian culture, Professor Federico Zeri. I transcribe my letter and his disappointing reply.
15 May 1997
Dear Professor,
reflecting on what might be Italian economic progress, I am deeply convinced that for the future we can only be saved by wholesale exploitation of our artistic heritage and of our landscape/nature resources. For the rest competition will be ever more penalizing. Until some time ago it was impossible for a dominant industrialist culture to affirm this.
I would very much like to be able to publish some considerations of yours on the subject. We shall permit you all the space you desire.
With best wishes.
The response was prompt, but disappointing.
22 May 1997
Federico Zeri
I thank for your letter, that I read with interest, even if still under the effect of drugs taken for an operation undergone some days ago.
I have always thought that a rational exploitation of the immense artistic heritage and of the landscape/nature resources of Italy could constitute a very important economic resource. I thought so for a long time; today I believe it is too late. The Italian landscape is in large part devastated and irremediably scarred: suffice to look at the Calabrian coast, the Ligurian, the outskirts of Rome, Rimini, etc. I mention only some places that come to mind.
As for the artistic heritage, I am very sceptical about its survival. Italy is heading for a sort of “anthologization”, and very many things (also of great importance) are destined to disappear rapidly, out of bureaucratic ineptitude, out of wrong use (see the Royal Palace of Turin), out of ignorance and indifference (see Villas of Rome). I don’t believe that, by itself, Italy is any longer capable of a remedy: I rather see an Anglo-French-German administration, to deal with at least the more pressing cases. Perhaps I’m pessimistic, I think I’m being coldly realist.
As for considerations of mine to be published in 30Days, it can be discussed when I am recovered; for now, please accept my best wishes.
Federico Zeri
Nine years have passed, but I haven’t resigned myself. Perhaps in a climate of political extension of regionalism – indeed of federalism – this planning for a Tourist Italy (with capital T) might start off from the grassroots, to assure us a future.
In publishing this correspondence I want to stir further debate. We would need an Ezio Vanoni.
For my part I can only plead for it to get talked about.
