There are a couple of things in the video of the mayor of Reggio Emilia, mr. Marco Massari, being challenged during the ceremony for the awarding of the First Tricolour to mrs. Francesca Albanese that make me feel sad.
First of all, the outspoken intolerance of that audience, which in its heart believes to be democratic, and the rudeness of mrs. Francesca Albanese, who does not respect either the place or the ceremony where she was invited.

First scene

The poor mayor seems to beg the audience to let him finish his speech, because the ‘right’ part has yet to come even for those who are shouting: the part in which he explains the symbolic and historical value of the Three-color flag.

A useless attempt, anyway: that audience does not care about Risorgimento values (assuming they know them). At most, they dust them off every 7 January, when the Flag Day becomes a good occasion to exploit to attack ‘the right-wingers’.

Second scene

The mayor says all the watchwords he thinks will suffice to pander to that audience excited by the apocalyptic clash against the forces of darkness: ‘massacre’, ‘genocide ‘, ‘Palestinian state’, ‘7 October does not justify what is happening in Gaza’.
The whole rosary is poured out as the Rite dictates.

But all this was not enough, because Massari also dared to speak of ‘release of hostages‘ and ‘conditions for peace’.
Grave blasphemy in the temple of the democrats-every-other-day, in the sect of the no-ifs-and-buts.

In the meantime, after the awardee (probably excited to be on a stage) started the buzz with the first grimaces, she was counter-singing the awarder with facial expressions worthy of a seventh-grade bully and even miming the self-flailing to which the mayor, according to her, was subjecting himself.

Not content, she also pronounced the public excommunication, the fatwa: ‘The mayor was wrong: peace needs no conditions’.
The audience applauded, in an increasingly agonistic trance.
(I will return to the issue of peace conditions later, because these are precisely the hours in which we may be close to a breakthrough).

Repent and you will be spared

And then came the final lecture, in full delusion of omnipotence: ‘I forgive the mayor, but he has to promiseme, [winking at the audience] he has to promise us that he won’t say that again‘.
More applause.
All while receiving an award on behalf of the host city.
Yet another fall in style, disrespectful of the Flag and the City.

I won’t even mention the ex officio defence of Hamas and the trivialisation of the massacre, complete with the shouted outburst of ‘how many times will we have to condemn 7 October!?
As many times as it takes, mrs. Albanese.
As many times as it takes.
And if possible once more.

“In the end, history will remember this: they succeeded in bringing Palestine back to the centre of the discussion. The terrorists are animating a global revolution that is making us think’.
In the dark days of the Red Brigades, some Italians was said that terrorists were ‘comrades who make mistakes’.
Today they are ‘comrades who make us think’.

The Mayor’s real mistake

The poor mayor -also him- made a mistake, it is true, but his mistake was not leaving that stage: he should have left Mufti Francesca Albanese to sing and play it alone.
Alone and without the First Tricolour of course, which should be given to those who deserve it and recognise its value.

It should be awarded to civic personalities who contribute to the common good, who promote republican values and who ‘distinguish themselves through solidarity, altruism, social commitment, inclusiveness and legality’.
All qualities that are hard to find in those who bully and humiliate a mayor just to satisfy their ego.

Massari was wrong, in this perhaps not alone (I do not know who decides who is entitled to the award), to give the Flag to a person who on too many occasions appears to behave like an exalted fanatic.

Evidently he was convinced that this would make him more ‘left-wing’, or -worse still- more in line with the spirit of the times.
It was the municipal administration that first misrepresented the meaning of the ceremony. Everything that happened afterwards was the consequence of that initial mistake.

Massari deluded himself that he could ride the tiger and ended up being mauled by it.
This, alas, is the spirit of the times: good people who in good faith delude themselves and then get swept away by events.

The fatigue of compromise

Speaking of the rock of scandal: ‘peace needs no conditions’, said the Holder of the Word, but history should have taught us that unconditional peace is never a good deal for the weaker side in any conflict.

A just peace always starts with a compromise.

And, as Amos Oz brilliantly observed, ‘The opposite of the word compromise is not idealism, truth, integrity. No: the opposite of compromise is death, fanaticism, hatred’.

Mrs. Albanese and her fanatical supporters will excuse me for quoting an Israeli writer.