our father used as a brand – Corriere.it

The communist leader reduced to a brand, this – in summary – the accusation that the sons of Enrico Berlinguer, historic secretary of the Italian Communist Party address a the Unit reported on newsstands for a few weeks by Piero Sansonetti. The case is linked to the image chosen for the launch of the new version of the Italian left-wing newspaper founded by Antonio Gramsci in 1924: it is the historic photo of Enrico Berlinguer at the 1984 demonstration against cuts to the escalator. A photo that – wrote Bianca, Maria, Marco and Laura Berlinguer a Republic – «we have recently used a magazine, used as an advertising spot, to promote the release on newsstands of a new newspaper that has taken on an old name, the Unit, now directed by Piero Sansonetti. Our bewilderment was great and, even more, our bitterness».

«Only the name of the newspaper that was»

«Since that first page, almost forty years have passed, just like since our father’s death, and in the meantime the world has totally changed – they continue – Since then the Unit it has had numerous directors until definitively concluding its history now six years ago. What returns to newsstands today is an entirely new newspaper that retains only the name of the ancient and glorious newspaper. And only because when it was put up for auction, one businessman managed to acquire the property faster than others. But of the previous story, nothing remains: not even one of those editors who kept the newspaper alive until 2017». «Certainly the historical memory belongs to everyone – they conclude – and for us it is a source of joy to know that the life and activity of our father are felt and experienced by those who still love him each according to their own subjectivity, but another thing is to transform his memory in an advertising brand. Please leave him alone.”

The accusations of the historical workers

It is not the first dough for the director Sansonetti, author of the umpteenth rebirth of the historic magazine. On the eve of the release of the first issue, on May 16, the “workers of the unit founded by Antonio Gramsci” who accused the director of also for the choice of that image as well as the reference to Gramsci’s “return”. “But this Unit has nothing to do with the newspaper founded in 1924, nor with the battles of the PCI secretary – the note read – because with scientific, bossy arrogance it tramples every right of its workers: the journalists and kept the newspaper alive they were excluded, cancelled, even vilified».

Furthermore, what had triggered an uproar against Sansonetti and his newspaper was the choice to host articles by Valerio Fioravanti, the black terrorist of the Nar, the Revolutionary Armed Nuclei, today free thanks to the Gozzini law despite the dozens of convictions received: in all eight life sentences, 134 years and 8 months in prison for 95 murders of which he was definitively found guilty. A choice contested primarily by the association of families of the victims of Bologna (the massacre of 2 August 18980 which Fioravanti has always denied having committed despite the convictions) and which Sansonetti defended by writing «that Fioravanti has written in recent weeks on the page we have contracted to “Hands Off Cain”. I can tell you that I am very, very proud to host the work of “Hands Off Cain” on Unity just as I hosted it up until a couple of months ago – with many articles by Fioravanti – on the Riformista. Then I tell you that in the next few days and weeks, if the opportunity arises, I will ask Fioravanti to write about the Unit as well. Why? For a million reasons. I tell you the simplest. Because Fioravanti is Cain. Because Fioravanti is a person. Because Fioravanti is a human being…».

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