Yesterday Catanzaro was struck by a tragedy that left an entire community in shock: the sudden and dramatic death of a father and his young underage daughter.
Two lives cut short in heartbreaking circumstances that deserved silence, respect, and true mourning. Faced with such a tragedy, the heart of a city should stop. The institutions should gather in silence around the pain of the affected families and show a sense of responsibility and humanity. But instead, no.
The Mayor of Catanzaro, Nicola Fiorita, and his council decided to look the other way. They allowed, despite everything, the Eman concert in Piazza Garibaldi in Marina di Catanzaro to go ahead as planned. They set off fireworks for the celebrations of the Madonna di Porto Salvo. They chose spectacle over respect.
It is behavior that leaves one stunned. Not only because it is completely out of tune with the pain that has struck our city, but because it represents a culpable lack of institutional sensitivity. A Mayor, who is the first moral and civil authority of the community, should have canceled all celebrations. There was no need to think about it: there was only one answer.
Stop. And instead, in the face of death, they decided to play music. To sing. To shoot fireworks into the sky, while the earth mourned two of its children. As President of the Nuova Genesi Political Movement, but first of all as a citizen of this land, I am speechless. What happened last night is not just a lack of common sense.
It is a betrayal of collective feeling, of memory, of dignity.
I ask myself: what idea of community does Mayor Fiorita have? What value does he give to human life and civic mourning? What is expected of citizens, when it is the institutions themselves that fail in the most difficult moments?
Catanzaro deserved a gesture of humanity. It deserved silence. It deserved respect.
Instead, it got music and fireworks. And it is a wound that cannot be erased with a belated statement or a circumstantial justification. I publicly invite the Mayor and the council to reflect on what was done or rather, on what was not done. To apologize. Not to me, but to Catanzaro, to the families, to every citizen who yesterday felt alone, abandoned, forgotten.
With pain and indignation,
Bruno Gallo
President of the Nuova Genesi Political Movement