SANREMO. The civil prayer makes its entrance in Sanremo 2022. And it does so with Roberto Saviano. The Ariston audience stands up when Amadeus reads the names of the victims of the Capaci and Via d’Amelio massacres, in which the mafia killed the magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, before announcing Roberto Saviano. The writer’s monologue traces the killings of anti-Mafia magistrates at the hands of the Cosa Nostra and focuses on Rita Atria, the first witness of justice and suicide at 17 years after the massacre in via D’Amelio in which Borsellino lost his life.
Sanremo 2022, The List Representative: “After Saviano’s monologue on Falcone and Borsellino I was crying”
“Remembering is not a passive act. It comes from “recordari”, which means putting back in the heart because for the ancients the heart is the seat of memory “, thus begins Saviano’s speech, reminding us that” Courage is always a choice and not choosing does not mean being neutral but being accomplices. “The story of Falcone and Borsellini, who are just two of the many judges that the mafia has cut, is that of” those who choose while knowing they are risking. “Saviano recalled that the two magistrates, accused of seeking notoriety, were victims of “delegitimization to create distrust in those who were on their side.” However, he added, “the mafia has not managed to soil the example of their courageous choices.”
“Many of us – says the writer – were not there yet, yet their history is part of our collective memory, for all of us they are symbols of courage, which is always a choice, in the face of the need to change things you can to choose or to let go, but not to choose is to become an accomplice ». Their story “is the story of those who choose even though they know they are taking risks”, underlines Saviano, citing the examples of Chinnici, Terranova, Saetta, Costa, Giacomelli, Livatino, “men and women of justice who ended up under the blows of the mafia”. Falcone and Borsellino today “celebrated as heroes”, underwent delegitimization, “they were accused of making their work spectacular, Falcone went so far as to say that the bag with 58 candelotti all’Addaura was put alone: there were no social media but there were haters “, recalls the writer, and that mud” had isolated them and made them easy targets, but it failed to soil their example “.
He then recalls the story of Rita Atria, who at 17 became the first witness of justice in Italy thanks to the help of Paolo Borsellino and who took her own life after the death of the judge, but “her testimony led to the conviction of many mafia. The courage of the witnesses of justice belongs to those who know that they will change their lives and to those close to them “. «Neutrality – Saviano points his finger – does not keep us safe, it forces us to renounce freedom, dignity, the right to seek happiness. Silence favors the mafias and leaves only those who oppose them “, but Falcone and Borsellino and Rita Atria” are seeds that have sprouted, seeds that can become roots “. The writer’s monologue – which from 12 February will lead on Rai3 Insider – ends with a passage from a theme by Rita Atria: “If each of us tries to change, maybe we will succeed.”
Warns the writer, author of Gomorrah: “Whenever civil society and politics do not deal with the mafia, they create a silence that ends up favoring the mafias and hindering those who oppose them,” he accuses. “Perhaps an honest world will never exist, but no one prevents us from dreaming it: we will make it.” Amadeus dismisses him amid applause: “This is Sanremo too.”