FdI proposal. But we need to change the law – Corriere.it

Difficult to fix the story, even when you are animated by the best intentions. The parliamentary group of Brothers of Italy has formalized the request for revoke the title of Knight Grand Crosshighest honor of the Italian Republic, to Marshal Tito, former leader of Yugoslavia because he was responsible for the tragedy of the sinkholes and the exodus of the inhabitants of Istria and Dalmatia. But the request has a long road ahead of it as it will be necessary to change the law. That today prevents the removal of the honor from a deceased.

The faults and responsibilities of Marshal Tito for the atrocities suffered by the Italians who inhabited the territories occupied by Yugoslav communists at the end of the war are the subject of a decades-long historical debate. And still today I am an unhealed wound despite the fact that the topic is no longer taboo and despite the rapprochement between Italy and Slovenia in the name of all the victims of the war promoted first by Giorgio Napolitano and then by Sergio Mattarella.

To bring it back up to date is the initiative of the deputies of Giorgia Meloni who, coinciding with Remembrance Day they filed a request to revoke the title of Knight conferred on Tito by Italy. «For decades – says a note signed by the deputy Nicole Matteini – the facts have been hidden and excluded from the historical and public narration linked to those who lost their lives in the sinkholes, but today that the historical truth has been re-established, it is absurd that the Italian Republic, on the one hand, recognizes the drama of the sinkholes and celebrates the memory of its victims on the occasion of Remembrance Day and, on the other, it counts among its most illustrious recipients those who ordered the ethnic cleansing of Italians in Istria and in the eastern Adriatic».

As said though a stroke of the pen will not suffice to correct history. In fact, Italian law does not allow the honor to be revoked from a deceased person. FdI’s proposal takes this obstacle into account and in fact calls for the modification of the law. Which it risks though lengthen the time of the procedure.

Josip Broz known as Tito was honored with the title of Knight Grand Cross on the occasion of a visit to Italy in 1969 by the then head of state Giuseppe Saragat. The title is awarded to personalities who have emerged in the world of culture, art and politics; other times, another political climate: the sinkholes and the Julian Dalmatian exodus was not even mentioned in the history books.

The revocation request is not new but it certainly belongs to years closer to us than 1969. For example it was theNational Association of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia to urge a step in 2013 to the then president of the trepublic Girgio Napolitano. It was on that occasion that the Quirinale responded with a letter signed by the secretary general of the Quirinale Donato Marra in which it was underlined that «the possibility of proceeding with the revocation of Omri honors to persons, such as former president Josip Broz Tito, no longer alive”.