"There is to be proud to be European". Share of 28% for Benigni’s intervention on Ventotene

There were 4 million 396 thousand spectators who followed last night, Wednesday 19 March, Roberto Benigni’s “The dream” on Rai 1: the event, broadcast in Eurovision live on Rai 1, recorded 28.1% of share.

What Benigni said

“While everything around there were ruins, dead, corpses, in 1941, in the small island of Ventotenethree men, three heroes, Spinelli, reds and colors, They had a flash, an idea of ​​changing everything, shooting the page: the idea of ​​European unity. They are heroes of our history, the pioneers. On this small island, in Ventotene, they wrote a document that was also a dream “. Roberto Benigniduring his show on Rai 1, ‘Il Dream’, celebrated the European Union remembering the importance of that very important political act. Benigni stressed that the manifesto was born on an island where the fascists sent political opponents, including also Sandro Pertini. “You couldn’t say anything, and now how I am happy to be able to say what I want … otherwise with this show here they would have sent me into exile to Sant’Elena,” he ironized.

Warning on nationalism

During the show, Benigni launched a warning on nationalism: “Nationalism hates the worldits engine is fear and it wants that we are afraid all of us “and when this happens” peace is in danger “. And then again:” Be careful, because the path is not concluded, in the history of Europe the very rare thing is peace: it is enough that he snaps problems because nationalism rises, which in history has caused millions of deaths, It is the fuel of all wars. It is an fundamentalist faith, an obsession with the nation above everything, also of God, is a disease, which masks itself from patriotism, but you never confuse it. And I say that I am the greatest patriot, whom I love Italy like my mom “.

Benigni then underlined the topicality of the central idea of ​​the Ventotene manifesto: “In the Manifesto of Ventotene there was the idea of ​​a united, federal Europe, which for the first time becomes a political project to be carried out. Certainly It contains some outdated ideas linked to that historical period, but this does not remove its size. The central idea of ​​the manifesto is very current “, based on” social justice, where no one remained behind “.

Finally, the artist enhanced the pride of being European: “It is right to remember who we are, There is to be proud to be European: Europe is the smallest continent in the world that has lit the fuse of all the revolutions, has transformed the planet, for three thousand years it has been the forge where some of the greatest thoughts of humanity have been forged “.