(by Rossella Daverio) The old piacione male power that ruined Italy. And keep doing it. What is being told here is pure truth, but it looks like a film. And so as if it were a film we present it: characters and performers, subject, dialogues, conclusion (which will not necessarily be in "Happy End" mode). Characters: A young woman and a middle-aged man.
The woman, brunette, graceful, determined and in her thirties, is called Julia Presutti. He works as a professional journalist. After graduating from the school of radio and television journalism in Perugia, she worked in Italy for the broadcast Nemo on RAI 2, then in London for NBC News. He won the Roberto Morrione Prize for investigative journalism with an investigation into criminal organizations dealing with trafficking in human beings. Since June 2018, the RAI 3 broadcast has been sent Report. In short, papers in order.
The man, graying, round in the face, with a pretendly peaceful air, a croaking and arrogant voice, is 57 years old and his name is Dominic Arcuri. Always high salaries, always few results, always "adaptable" personality, to quote what he says about L'Espresso. Today he has two parallel jobs: he remains president of Invitalia (national agency for the attraction of investments and business development) even though he has been appointed extraordinary commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency. How he can take on both responsibilities is unknown. In short, hidden cards.
The subject
Bologna, March 17th: a vast consignment of medical devices destined for South Africa is requisitioned by the Customs of the Emilian capital and is promptly redistributed to the hospitals in the region. It is in fact a crime, in times of pandemic, to export materials for intensive care of primary necessity for the Italian hospitals that are lacking them. The Bolognese prosecutor opens an investigation.
Genoa, March 27: a shipment abroad of endotracheal tubes, fundamental parts of the respirators, is blocked at the port of Prà, always by the Customs, and immediately delivered to the San Martino Hospital. All these instruments are signed by Medtronic, an American multinational medical technology company with many offices in Italy. The respiratory systems are produced in that of Mirandola (Modena).
Rome, April 1st: Commissioner Domenico Arcuri reacts to the aforementioned seizures perpetrated by zealous customs officials (who do nothing but do their job correctly, applying the law). First try to unlock personally the material seized in Genoa. But it is too late. From the port of Prà, the aforementioned officials sent him very quickly to San Martino, knowing that the doctors of the largest Ligurian hospital needed it like bread. Spied on the times, he then takes the pen and writes to Marcello Minenna, director of the Customs Agency. The text is short and reads as follows:
"Dear Marcello,
"Following the previous discussions (...) for indifferent and superior national interests, please do not proceed with any requisition for the future of goods imported and exported in the name and on behalf of the company Medtronic Italia SpA (...), as well as to unlock , as soon as possible, any operations currently in progress and not yet communicated to me.
«The extraordinary commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency - Dr. Domenico Arcuri».
As a precaution, the petitioner also copies the obviously strategic letter of the secretary general of the Prime Minister and the heads of cabinet of the ministers for foreign affairs and infrastructure and transport. Have you ever seen that Minenna does not know how to read or, worse, you keep doing your own thing?
The dialogues
About a month after the events mentioned above - that is, on May 2 around noon - the woman and man protagonists of the story meet at a press conference.
Their dialogue - broadcast by Report May 3, 2020 - deserves to be transcribed and read by those who have not listened to it or want to remember it. Scripta manent. It deserves it because it is, in many ways, so incredible that it becomes surreal.
- Julia Presutti: «The Italian Customs have carried out several seizures of essential material for our hospitals, for example spare parts for respirators. And they did it because Medtronic wanted to sell these precious spare parts abroad. Now you, as an extraordinary commissioner for the emergency, have sent a letter saying that you will not proceed with any requisition for the future for indifferent and superior national interests. Can you explain which interests are superior to the life of the citizens of the nation that you represent at the moment? ».
- Dominic Arcuri (patiently didactic tone but a little tense, as can be seen from the consecutive temporum very uncertain): «The spare parts of the fans are pieces of absolute importance for the fans to work in Italy. And I have a duty to verify that these spare parts in our area exist and exist in a sufficient quantity to make the fans work. It will mean that I will be sure that from April 1st those quantities are available in the Italian territory sufficient to guarantee the functioning of these important devices ".
- GP: «Excuse me, but you ask not to kidnap for the future ...».
- DA (Kim Jong-un North Korean tone): "In the meantime I would like to ask you how you manage to have a letter that I wrote to customs that is not public, unless I publish things ...".
- GP: «I am a journalist, I do not reveal the source and this is a matter of extreme public interest. So I don't think we're talking about our business. She asked not to kidnap for the future, as if she already knew at that moment that Italy would never need this material ".
- DA (embarrassed and nervous tone, conditionals absent from the appeal):«If I were to find that this material is scarce tomorrow, tomorrow I will make an order and seize the goods again. Evidently this moment has not yet happened because these spare parts are available enough on the national territory ».
- GP: «You wrote this letter to customs, but you have copied Palazzo Chigi and the Farnesina. So I ask you: who asked you to intervene? ».
- DA (increasingly North Korean tone): «I have already replied. It seems enough to me ».
- GP: "Was there pressure from the American embassy to unlock Medtronic material?"
- DA (sarcastic tone of lese majesty): «I have already replied. It seems to me that you can be satisfied. Other questions?".
The scene moves from the room where the press conference takes place to another place and the dialogue resumes in a more informal way. It is Arcuri who starts it.
- DA (piacione tone): "Which part of Italy are you from?"
- GP: "From Rome".
- DA (winking tone): «Are you supporting Roma or Lazio?».
- GP: «The question is: she thought on April 1st that we had so many ... ».
- DA (funny tone): «Do you think Totti is stronger? Totti is stronger than Correa or Correa is stronger ... ».
- GP: "Did you already know on April 1 that we had so many intensive care respirators that Medtronic was not supposed to provide us with any?"
- DA (vague and bored tone): "Maybe we had enough spare parts not to block production abroad".
- GP: "But you can't say" maybe ". Tell me that we "surely" had enough respirators and enough spare parts ... ».
- DA (tone from fallen from the clouds): "When did I say" maybe "?"
- GP: "Now. Now he said "maybe" ».
- DA (nervously friendly tone): "It's because you're cheering for Lazio and me for Roma."
- GP: "No, look, I'm cheering for Roma."
- DA (tone "let's end it here I have enough"): «And I for Lazio».
- GP: "We will never get along."
The End
What to say? Honor to the merit of the journalist, who does not flex and keeps the point despite the behavior of her interlocutor.
As for the latter, first of all either he is incapable or lies. In real time, in the same television broadcast, with beautiful Ligurian accent and beautiful honest face, Mr. Salvatore Giuffrida, administration officer of the San Martino Hospital of Genoa, when he remembers that the ICU materials had been ordered and they came with the dropper. And he does not hesitate to say that the fate of the hospital and its patients have been saved by the requisitions made by the Customs Agency.
To move on to the North Korean answers, Arcuri seems to forget, simply, that he lives in democracy and is paid for what he does (or does not do or hurts) by Italian citizens. And he also seems not to know that, in democracy, good journalists have qualified sources from which they receive documents that have not only the right, but the duty to disseminate if in the public interest.
We suggest that you watch the movie All the President's Men. Thus he will learn that even a president of the United States had to resign just and only because of two very good journalists with excellent sources. They were called Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, just for his general culture. And because it is always worth remembering by name who does his job well.
As for the pathetic attempt to talk about football to try to divert the journalist's attention from its goal, it can only qualify as indecent. At this stage of the conversation, Arcuri underestimates the interlocutor, perhaps because she is a woman, pretty and young. He takes it from above, as if his persuasive tone were enough to avoid uncomfortable questions. In short, he employs those half-wiles of old Roman male power that ruined Italy. And they continue to do so.
Finally, the extraordinary commissioner is very rude. It is worth reminding him, and passant, a minimum of etiquette that, given the role it plays, it should know by heart. Point 1: it is never a man who uses the you with a woman first, especially if the latter continues, in an elegantly undeterred way, to answer him with her. Point 2: who signs himself by stating his academic title in front of the name is a bifolco. Remember, dear Dr. Arcuri, that good education is not formalism, but respect.
The only one Happy End possible of this event would therefore be its departure from the role it plays, accompanied by a clear explanation by the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister to Italian citizens (and to the Parliament that represents them) of why Medtronic medical devices cannot be requisite . Perhaps your parent company and the United States government, as the journalist suggested, are more important and influential than our health?
In fact, we remind you, in case you forgot it, as it is to discuss Totti and Correa, that almost 30 thousand people died of coronaviruses in Italy, often because it was not possible to cure them in the absence of respirators and places in therapy intensive.
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