There are titles and expressions that become metaphors of a historical period or a country. This is the case with Giorgio Napolitano’s book in the middle of the ford, from 1979.
A happy theological formula identifies our time as characterized by the already and the not yet. In other words: there is an anticipation that awaits its fulfillment. By reversing the meaning, we obtain the description of another situation: not anymore and not yet. In the middle of the ford, precisely: neither on the original bank of the river nor on the opposite one. Thus, the river metaphor of Heraclitus and Cratylus returns, albeit in a different way: not to say that we can bathe in the same river even once, but rather that we are suspended in a sort of no man’s land.
In those years – the second half of the Seventies – the policy of national solidarity was aimed at responding to economic and social emergencies and, within the framework of a new great historical compromise similar to that of the constituent phase, at building shared ground between the main forces policies on the most important choices, not least those relating to the economy and the international position of the country. The scenario in which this line was placed was however confusing. Few, in reality, really thought about a sort of “grand coalition” in view of the democracy of alternation. Very few in the PCI. In fact, most people in the PCI feared the democracy of alternation (also opposed by the bulk of the DC, for fear of losing the scepter), as it would have entailed social democratization. For the most part, therefore, that phase was read and experienced along the lines of Palmiro Togliatti’s progressive democracy: the gradual advancement towards socialism, within the framework of the Constitution, through harmony between the great popular forces. Napolitano himself, who was looking towards the social democratic horizon, had spoken, together with Enrico Berlinguer, of the introduction of “elements of socialism”.
And in the meantime the PCI was developing its own culture of government, also thanks to the experience of local and regional administrations, well beyond the borders of red Emilia. However, remaining suspended, precisely, between a “no longer” and a “not yet”. It was no longer simply the hegemonic opposition party, as in the post-war period; he was not yet one of the subjects of alternation in a healthy “full democracy”. He preferred the protective umbrella of NATO and, at the same time, continued to cultivate special relations with the USSR. Thus finding himself in the middle of the ford.
If we try to wear the lenses of the historian, we realize that the very long Italian transition is still ongoing, far from completed, just as the entire West is being affected by the chaos of the crisis of democracy. Napolitano himself, as Prime Minister of the Interior of communist extraction and as the first tenant of the Quirinale coming from the PCI, contributed in a formidable way to bringing us closer to a complete democracy. Yet, in this 21st century, we are learning that alternating between two sides is not enough to get us out of the shallows of incompleteness.
The illiberal regurgitations, in fact, are always ready to re-emerge and push us into that no man’s land, into that swamp. It happens in countries with a liberal democratic tradition that is less fragile than ours; it happens even more so with us. And in the middle of the ford we risk remaining for a long time, or in a sort of suspension bridge and permanent temporariness.