May Italy give a bit of beauty to the world

You all are so hardly imagining a more viable future, a world in which everyone can be freely follow their unique path.

I try with my little contribution. Nothing so big, and after all who, sincerely, wouldn't like?

I would have liked to say, "oh, Italy has given her contribution", too. Then I read the newspaper and watch television, and see a depressing "reality".

One would cry the whole day and night.

How many signs... A political party trying to ban mosques in name of the "christian roots of Europe" - the same party whose message is a blasphemous and systematic contradiction of the Holy Gospel. Hasty, unreflective and desperate decisions to privatize water. Attempts to "simplify" justice so that we'll be sure it will not function - but very efficiently. An urge to construct and waste arable and natural land, even though almost all these new house will never be sold. Scandals so "private" according to some, yet so revealing of what the women worth is in the mind of so many people to date. And, angry, but pointless reactions of everyone to everyone else.

Maybe allowing more women to enter the Parliament and the Government is not sufficient. We need urgently more women voices.

A lot is to be made, however. These voices, although powerful, are really few.

We can see: what Italy now expresses so harshly to the World, is a culture in which there are too few women voices. And where the terror for a changing World, the hard will to conserve waning privileges, the "me against anyone else" still prevails.

Look, what the actual image and role of women in Italy is. A "category", when asking and demanding. Still today (December 2009) "roles", pretty young shells the human being behind of no one really cares of. And when no longer young and pretty, just useful commodities, disposable.

Will Italy return to be herself? Let me say, I hope.
Can do nothing different, however: I live here.
But I also know positive forces abound - only, they are not visible. They are the myriad of people who, privately or in very small associations, pursue the good and maintain this country alive, after all. So, my hope is not founded on just nothing.

Meanwhile, we may try doing something positive.

At her minimum, in my opinion Italy may give the World one tiny, yet so important thing: a bit of true beauty.

Not the "beauty" of the top-models glaring annoyed at you from some unlikely glamorous car advertising poster.

I'd like this: the beauty of souls open to the World and the future. Beauty of courage and passion, for one's own ideas, and yes, for work. The deep, timeless beauty in the eyes of children, the very same you can find in nature. And, art, our heritage. And the landscapes this art was designed to be in.

May we begin from here?

From my own little side, I have not many things, but I share with you a tiny flower. It's alive, in an almost inaccessible place where no one else can stay. I wish my country, and all of us, this tiny savage flower be a symbol. To start again.