The restaurateurs have protested in front of the Parliament for the restrictions they are forced by the pandemic. Their reasons are understandable, even if nothing justifies the violent aspects that punctuated the demonstration and the failure to respect the distancing rules (it is not by putting one’s own and others’ health at risk that something is resolved). But at the same time it is necessary that the authorities offer a view on a more reassuring future, in order to give the strength to resist for a period that will hopefully be short. More generally, it should be a common commitment to all representative, political and social forces, respect for the rules and the construction of a perspective.
The left that presents the anxiety of recovery as a sort of cynical maneuver of the right is wrong, gives those who do not deserve the representation of widespread, real and well-founded feelings and beliefs. The political exploitation of this anxiety is made possible by attitudes that tend to demonize it or even not understand it. The balance between the primary need to protect health today and the less immediate but equally fundamental one of seeing a less black future is difficult and it is up to politics as a whole to find solutions that hold these needs together. It takes rigor but also imagination to prevent these needs from being radically opposed. The strength to bear the restrictions, the courage to plan a future even in this situation are necessary and common virtues, which must be promoted and developed in a rational way but also with the necessary passion for those who have to face a difficult battle. They are indivisible virtues, a policy that holds them together is what is needed and that corresponds to profound popular sentiment, which is why it must be pursued without useless and counterproductive exploitation or demonization.