EDITORIAL

T 

he starting-point provided by the magnificient review Frontiere – La prima volta, in Bari from 21st September to 1st October reminds us inevitably of the tragic, tenth anniversary of 9/11, re-evoked in the past few days by all the media with floods of words and images.
 That was, for all the generations coming after the Second World War, in the whole western world, the first time we had ever had the sensation of being at war. And it was a war which had nothing in common with previous ones, because nowhere felt safe if, in the banal routine of a sunny September morning, with no warning, in New York and in Washington, in the shiny strongholds of the planet, an inferno could suddenly break out. That was “the first time” in which “the frontiers” of the West’s certainties went to pieces. Then, in the blink of an eyelid, ten years went by, with two wars that have added the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and an unknown number of Afghans and Iraquis to the sum of the dead resulting from 9/11.

       It would be good if we could confront the hard power of weapons and of war with its toll of broken lives and bloodletting, and substitute it for ever with the soft power of culture, the power of the cinema, literature and art to penetrate into consciences and change the world. Before every revolution, before every great change, there has been a change in the minds of the “actors”, an idea that has taken shape and conquered the hearts and minds of those who have then taken action. Anyone who produces culture, at any level, has a huge responsibility in this regard. Because you can create the tiles that make up the bigger mosaic. Because by sustaining culture, cultures, cultural exchanges, multiculturalism, the overcoming of borders, including the invisible ones between wealth and poverty, between the “center” and the “outskirts” of the world, you sustain the only way possible towards a future of peace.


       I like the choice that has been finally made, decreeing that in New York, at the site of the World Trade Center, next to the skyscraper which is still being built, the Freedom Tower, that will stretch up to raise the broken dream of Americans, there be, exactly where the two towers used to stand, two spaces, which, it has been said, no architect will ever be able to fill, two large tanks full of continuously roaring water, with the names of all those who lost their lives in the “twins” engraved on them, and all surrounded by a wood of 400 oaks, the Memorial Park, in which also a museum dedicated to the tragedy will stand. The place is expected to become a magnet for domestic and international tourism and there is criticism of the already booked-up tours guided by the survivors of the tragic date and the immense apparatus of the spin-offs which is inevitably being created.

       It is banal but inevitable to realise that life goes on and that, as the diktat goes, the show must go on. This time in a place which is a little out of the ordinary for the island of Manhattan: just two tanks full of water in an oak wood, a solemn simplicity inviting us to stop and reflect.