The 2021 edition of the Giorgio Ambrosoli Award took place last night: a special edition, which merged two editions into one – the eighth and the ninth, given that last year the pandemic made organization impossible – and that was broadcast in live streaming from the Piccolo Teatro of Milan. Many guests attended joined by the memory and example of the lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli, “the bourgeois hero”, as defined in the famous book by Corrado Stajano. The man who on 11 July 1979 paid with his life for the commitment and courage with which he had completed the office of liquidator of the Italian Private Bank of Michele Sindona was remembered, among others, by National anti-mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho, by the commander general of the Carabinieri Teo Luzi, by the UIF anti-money laundering director of the Bank of Italy Claudio Clemente, by the president of Confcommercio Claudio Sangalli, by the ambassador to the UNODC-United Nations anti-crime agency Alessandro Cortese .
To open and close the meeting, greetings from the Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia and the Minister of the Interior Luciana Lamorgese. At the center of it all, a research promoted by the Giorgio Ambrosoli Prize observatory with which – with an unprecedented approach from social sciences – we wanted to study and analyze the diffusion on the Italian territory of virtuous practices of legality, that is, of all those activities that have as its objective the fight against mafias and all forms of crime: “Virtuous Italians”, this is the title of the study, presented by Toni Giorgi and Caterina Gozzoli of the Catholic University of Milan, gave comforting data: “In Italy – said the Professor Giorgi – good legal practices are growing rapidly, we have counted 831 activities throughout the country. There is a very rich heritage of commitment against illegality, creativity and desire for change, which originates above all from below: a phenomenon that makes up the great Italian map of social micro-networks, realities that are committed every day and in every form in the defense of the rule of law “.
An awareness that, as underlined by the anti-Mafia Prosecutor De Raho, “owes a lot to associations and the vitality of civil society. In fact, what is the strength of the mafias? Rely on the silence and fear of the people. Well, in recent years things have changed a lot: today there is less fear to report and therefore to expose oneself in the first person. And usually the fear disappears when the whistleblower knows they can count on a network of associations and citizens. We should also think of the role of schools, which in recent years have been fundamental in spreading awareness and culture of legality among children. The same culture and the same values to which Giorgio Ambrosoli has always been faithful ».
Values that the Giorgio Ambrosoli Prize translates each year into a special recognition, assigned “to people who are close and supportive to those who expose themselves for the protection of the rule of law”. This year the award went to the Piccolo Teatro of Milan, confirming the gaze focused on the “social micro-networks” observed in the studio; the president Salvatore Carrubba – in receiving the award from Annalori Ambrosoli, Francesca Ambrosoli and Umberto Ambrosoli – wanted to remember the origin of the theater founded by Giorgio Strehler and Paolo Grassi, “born in the post-war period precisely from a need for community and greater social participation . Il Piccolo has never been just a place of entertainment, but also a place of values and therefore of protection of democracy and the rule of law ».
Particularly significant, at the end of the evening, the intervention of Minister Lamorgese: «I wanted to participate, which I have always done in my years spent in Milan as prefect. It is important to stay close to those who commit themselves daily to respecting the law; to those who often do it in solitude, as the lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli undertook in solitude. And it is also important to underline the close relationship that must exist between legality and the Italian production system, especially in a period of pandemic crisis like the current one. In this sense, I like to recall the recent legality protocol signed by the Ministry of the Interior and Ance (National Association of Building Builders) for a common battle, also extended to the private sector, against illegality in our production system. Just think of the 191 billion euros arriving from the NRP – concluded Lamorgese – and how important it will be to avoid the risk of infiltration by mafias and crime ».