These are fascinating times of great
change but they are also difficult and troubled, especially for
the youngest, President Sergio Mattarella said on Wednesday.
"In one way, the times we are living through are fascinating, of
great change; but they are also difficult, troubled, in many
ways dramatic," said Mattarella during the traditional exchange
of greetings with top public officials at the Quirinale Palace
in Rome, citing the "post-pandemic, with the effects produced at
all levels in our communities, from the human to the economic,
social and psychological, especially on the youngest".
"Meanwhile, social gaps are widening: new inequalities are being
added to the old ones, in the fields of digital and knowledge,"
he continued.
"And the huge wealth of the few jars against the hardship of the
many, with a gap never before recorded in Italy or elsewhere.
"If this is the present scenario, on what assumptions can we
together look to tomorrow without giving in to anxiety but
rather recovering a feeling of confidence in the future?" he
asked.
The distorted use of technology is a phenomenon that "must be
regulated, necessarily and urgently, in the interest of the
people, of citizens, but we know that this fundamental
requirement encounters difficulties due to the size and power of
conditioning of sector operators, whose presumption of becoming
protagonists that dictate the rules, instead of being recipients
of regulation, has already manifested itself on several
occasions", continued Mattarella.
"Never as at this particular turning point in human history has
the boundary between good and evil, between justice and
injustice, between true and false, depended on our choices, on
our ability to read the change taking place in order to direct
it ... under the guidance of the inalienable principles of our
civilisation," said the head of state.
"Nothing can be taken for granted. Peace above all. But also
democracy, the values on which it is founded. Starting with the
idea of freedom," he said.
"It is to politics, to democratic representative institutions
that choices and decisions affecting the social life and freedom
of citizens must be entrusted, not to the strategies of large
financial groups based on their interests, which must be
respected, but within the framework of the rules they must
observe in order to protect the fundamental values of civil
coexistence," added Mattarella.
"The Western cultural model, particularly the European one that
has been built to safeguard these values, appears to be
challenged.
Therefore, countering that which can undermine our freedoms is,
today, the priority task before us," he continued.
"The ethical and civic foundations of democracy reside in the
feelings of the community.
"Fears can dampen the sense of solidarity and hence the desire
for participation, they can weaken the trust needed for people
to make themselves the architects of the future.
"We cannot overlook the current worrying decline in voting
participation, which is essential for the legitimacy of
institutions," added Mattarella.
The president also spoke out against gender-based violence.
"The violence of men against women is intolerable," he said,
adding that the "message of example" provided by "the many,
widespread and valuable forms and initiatives of solidarity" is
a "strong, effective contrast" but "often ends up being obscured
in the media and social narrative".
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