(by Ruggero Parrotto Aidr Partner and President of iKairos - mentoring and social economy)
The pandemic is not just a health challenge. Made of times, strategies, analysis, choices. It is a test bed for institutional systems, for politics, for the Public Administration. And it's a great date with history. Italy has been reactive, but has been found unprepared and disorganized. As often happens, the crisis has enhanced the qualities and generosity of many of our people.
But it exposed the inadequacy of a political class that is often distracted, superficial, far from reality. The linear and indiscriminate cuts in healthcare, for example, decided in recent years, are there to prove it: as often happens in organizations, they are the signal of surrender, of the inability to choose. They are the escape from responsibilities. This is never acceptable, not even when it comes to profit organizations and systems inspired by exclusive financial advantage. Least of all when the public affairs, the collective interest, the life of the people are at stake.
With our delays, with our uncertainties and the controversies that always surround us, even Italy will eventually vaccinate the majority of the population. We will be vaccinated for several years and the pandemic will be put behind us, with its many dead and wounded, with its psychological, social and economic queues. People will gradually go back to meeting, dating. We will go back to going on vacation, to the restaurant, to the gym, to the cinema, to the theater, perhaps even more than before, because we are missing those things so much. And not surprisingly, the marketing areas of large multinationals have been working for months to find the right messages, to reverse the perspective, to bet on "collective redemption".
A plot that nourishes hope, reassuring and liberating.
But what will the future of the country be? How will we live in the next few years?
What will be the guiding values, the rules of engagement? Will there be real space for young people, for women, for those who want to do business? Will the right investments be made, in due time? Will the right space be given to respect for the environment, will the right attention be given to the vulnerable? Will we really invest in useful technology, in schools, in next-generation transport? Will smart working be really smart? Will it be possible to invest in the competence, in the seriousness, in the leadership of those who govern institutions, large companies, large organizations? And again, what concrete things will be done for those who have lost their jobs, and for those who were struggling even before the crisis? How will companies in difficulty help themselves, or who did not make it? What safeguards will be put in place to prevent organized crime or unscrupulous financial networks from acquiring excellent companies forced to bankruptcy at good prices? In summary, will we be able to take advantage of the lesson, managing the emergency and strategic choices with the same seriousness?
The vaccine will save many people and set the consumer economy back in motion. But it will not save us from cultural, social and political drift.
To seriously address these challenges, a paradigm shift is needed.
You have to heal and take care of.
Politics will have to take lessons from health. For years, doctors, nurses, health workers have been confronting and clashing around these two inseparable dimensions. And both are indispensable.
To cure you need to know and know how to do. We need competence, experience, concreteness, determination. To take care you need to know how to be. We must listen, understand, put ourselves in the shoes, interpret needs, make sense and welcome. If the life of the community passes from the choices that are made, from the decisions that are made, from the true attention to people's needs, from the ability to create opportunities for all, from the contagious passion of young people, from the example of many silent citizens do their part, then we are faced with an extraordinarily complex picture. We need an epochal change of pace.
Some cancer patients claim that the fear of not making it is as terrible as the disease that has befallen them. And that the surgeon's embrace, that moment there, was decisive. A jolt, a shiver that enters the bones, muscles, tendons, head.
We need to be more serious, more prepared, more courageous, and also more honest. But above all we have to fall in love with our future.
We must dedicate ourselves to the beauty, quality and authenticity of relationships. We need to be proud of our achievements. We must isolate the criminals, and make life easier for the many good people, who occasionally drift off and must be encouraged, embraced.
We need to make concrete things happen and tell them, devoting less precious time to controversy. We must shout by example, with exemplary behavior. We have to shake consciences.
We have to heal and take care of problems.
We have to take care of ourselves.