"Today, the Croatian and Italian peoples have a common future in a Europe united on a democratic basis. Soon there will be no borders between our two countries. "It’s September 3, 2011, and the heads of state of Italy and Croatia, Giorgio Napolitano and Ivo Josipovic, celebrate with a common discourse, read in both languages, the end of the negotiations for the accession of Croatia to the European Union. The scenario is the Roman Arena in Pula, Istria, now an officially bilingual (Croatian and Italian) municipality in Croatia.
The speech of the two presidents recalls both the historical chapters of the dispute between the two countries: the fascist occupation and attempts at forced Italianization, as well as the Yugoslav partisan vendettas and the tragedy of the ‘foibe’, sinkholes: "We condemn once again the totalitarian ideologies that have suppressed cruelly freedoms and trampled upon the individual's right to be different, by birth or by choice. "
It is not by chance that such a mutual recognition is possible only today. By one side stands an Italian President who comes from the best part of the history of the Italian Communist Party, far from any claim of the nationalist right, but also skeptical about the uncritical brotherhood of most of his own former party with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. By the other side stands a Croatian president that, although much younger, has gone through the same path in the reformist faction of the Croatian communists, working for their transformation in the current Social Democratic Party, and after the independence remained for a decade out of politics, away from the sirens of the authoritarian nationalism of the "Father of the Nation" Tudjman.
"We cultivate the memory of the victims and we are close to the pain of the survivors. In forgiving one another our wrongdoings, let us turn our gaze to the future ". As Marzio Breda wrote on Corriere, the two presidents have shown the courage to say together important words, whose future credibility is based on the open recognition of the reciprocal wrongs of the past.
The speech of the two presidents recalls both the historical chapters of the dispute between the two countries: the fascist occupation and attempts at forced Italianization, as well as the Yugoslav partisan vendettas and the tragedy of the ‘foibe’, sinkholes: "We condemn once again the totalitarian ideologies that have suppressed cruelly freedoms and trampled upon the individual's right to be different, by birth or by choice. "
It is not by chance that such a mutual recognition is possible only today. By one side stands an Italian President who comes from the best part of the history of the Italian Communist Party, far from any claim of the nationalist right, but also skeptical about the uncritical brotherhood of most of his own former party with the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. By the other side stands a Croatian president that, although much younger, has gone through the same path in the reformist faction of the Croatian communists, working for their transformation in the current Social Democratic Party, and after the independence remained for a decade out of politics, away from the sirens of the authoritarian nationalism of the "Father of the Nation" Tudjman.
"We cultivate the memory of the victims and we are close to the pain of the survivors. In forgiving one another our wrongdoings, let us turn our gaze to the future ". As Marzio Breda wrote on Corriere, the two presidents have shown the courage to say together important words, whose future credibility is based on the open recognition of the reciprocal wrongs of the past.
Actions like these create commonalities, and cut the grass under the feet of those political entrepreneurs in history and fear, that live upon the exploitation of a memory still brooding like embers. In 2013, Croatia will join the EU, and exactly in that moment the attention will have to remain high, so that the nationalist discourses in the two countries do not regain a foothold. Just as happened in the case of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it is after the EU accession that political actors, on both sides of the border, might find in Europe a new arena, where to use for political purposes a memory not yet reconciled and ready to be revived. Likewise happened for the Germans expelled from Poland and Bohemia, likewise for the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania.
The fundamental error in these cases is to apply to yesterday the categories of today, asking for an impossible reparation from the children and grandchildren of the leaders of that time. Only a reconciliation based on the mutual recognition of the wrongdoings, the impossibility to repair them, and the will to live together in a "common European home", to use the definition of Gorbachev (yet another communist!) recalled by Napolitano and Josipovic, will ensure the common life of the different peoples of the Adriatic basin within the European Union, without turning this last into a new arena of confrontation. In this sense, the words of Josipovic and Napolitano have shown the way, as two presidents should do, "in the name of our states and our peoples."
The fundamental error in these cases is to apply to yesterday the categories of today, asking for an impossible reparation from the children and grandchildren of the leaders of that time. Only a reconciliation based on the mutual recognition of the wrongdoings, the impossibility to repair them, and the will to live together in a "common European home", to use the definition of Gorbachev (yet another communist!) recalled by Napolitano and Josipovic, will ensure the common life of the different peoples of the Adriatic basin within the European Union, without turning this last into a new arena of confrontation. In this sense, the words of Josipovic and Napolitano have shown the way, as two presidents should do, "in the name of our states and our peoples."
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