On the eve of April 25 Silvio Berlusconi makes his voice heard again, with a written message, for the first time from the San Raffaele hospital in Milan where he has been hospitalized for several weeks now. “Long live April 25, the feast of freedom, peace and democracy”, writes the head of Forza Italia in a note, “the feast of all Italians who love freedom and want to remain free!”. Words that come in days of the heated debate on Liberation Day, especially following some statements made by the president of the Senate Ignazio La Russa. After the leader of the League Matteo Salvini, the Speaker of the Chamber Lorenzo Fontana and the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio, Berlusconi too has decided to reiterate his position on the celebration of April 25: «In 2009, a few weeks after the terrible earthquake that struck the ‘Aquila, I went to Onna to celebrate Liberation Day,’ says the former Knight in the note. «I had chosen that small town in Abruzzo, which had been the scene of a terrible massacre carried out by the Nazis during the war and which had suffered profound damage and serious losses from the earthquake, because I had seen in the impulse of solidarity which had united all Italians to the affected populations, the same spirit that many years before had allowed Italy to rise again from the ruins of war”. From the intensive care unit where he has been hospitalized for some complications related to the leukemia he has been suffering from for two years, Berlusconi recalls one of the most significant moments of celebration on April 25 for him: «On that occasion I recalled the spirit of national unity which animated everyone the protagonists of the resistance who knew how to set aside the deepest differences, political, religious, social, to fight together a battle of civilization and freedom for themselves and for their children», he explains.
“The Italians are a great people capable of overcoming any division”
The ex premier’s message is that of unity in the face of one of the most important passages in Italian history: “Catholics and communists, liberals and socialists, monarchists and shareholders, and with them the soldiers who have remained faithful not to a political idea but in the honor of the country, although moved by profoundly different ideals and a different vision of the future of the nation, faced with a common drama, they wrote, each for his own part, but with equal dignity and passion, a great page of our history”. The invitation is to remain united: «It is an extraordinary page on which our Constitution is based, a bulwark of our freedoms and our rights. We are a great people, capable of remaining united in the face of emergencies and which, if necessary, today as yesterday, is capable of overcoming any division and any contrast to achieve the good of Italy and the Italians”. The former Knight concludes: «This is a heritage, a founding principle of our civil coexistence, which belongs to all Italians, without exception. The anniversary of April 25, 1945 is therefore an opportunity to reflect on the past, but also to think about the present and the future of our wonderful country”.