5-Star Movement, triggers and culture

A few days ago, on our Facebook page, we made some timid attempts to start a discussion on the relationship between the 5 Star Movement and culture. It was our intention to delve into this topic with interviews: we therefore contacted three newly elected female Grill arians to ask, precisely, for an interview on what proposals the 5 Star Movement has to make on the subject of culture. None of the three neo-parliamentarians responded to us, indeed, all three seem to have ignored our requests: we sent messages via Facebook and from the first contact, all three had a way of reconnecting to the social network, so we deduce that either our messages were not seen (a hypothesis, however, not to be ruled out given that in the last few days the newly elected will surely be “surrounded” by the press), or that our requests were not taken into consideration. However, this is the first time we have had no response to an interview request.

Yet, there would be several reasons to debate. Beginning with the first, the thorniest one: the 5 Star Movement, in the program available on Beppe Grillo’s website, has no chapters that are devoted to culture. There is no trace of points discussing the need to protect and enhance the historic centers and museums of our cities, policies to support all those who work and operate in the field of cultural heritage, initiatives to return to giving the proper weight to art history in schools, proposals to place serious limits on land consumption, policies to make mass tourism less aggressive in our major cities, policies to enhance our excellence(restoration, craft products, etc.), measures to encourage young people who want to work in the field of culture. But also, since the Movement cares so much about the network, proposals for a concrete application of fair use that is not open to interpretation.

In the absence of programmatic points, without having the opportunity to speak with a Cricket exponent, and without therefore understanding how the 5 Star Movement will want to position itself with regard to culture, it is also impossible to conduct a reflection on these issues. Yet the Movement poses itself as thealternative, asinnovation, as different politics: but how is it possible to bring innovation to our country without talking about culture?

Searching Google for the name of the 5 Star Movement combined with the term museum (even in the plural), the first results all refer to the proposal, found on Beppe Grillo’s website, called “Immediate closure of the Lombroso Museum,” also supported by a committee with a website. A proposal that is truly frightening for its obscurantism and narrowness arising from an extremely Manichean conception of reality, society and politics, reflecting somewhat the conception of politics to which the charismatic leader of the grillini has accustomed us, a good comedian and excellent agitator who bases his communication on the abundant use of vulgarity and turpitude. A closure of which Beppe Grillo also demonstrated a few days ago, scornfully mocking the authors of the call to action and concreteness by some cultural figures (including Salvatore Settis, Tomaso Montanari and Remo Bodei) addressed precisely to Beppe Grillo and the Movement. A closure that I sincerely hope does not belong to the guys in the Movement: I hope that mine is a blunder and that in the medium term, the 5 Star Movement will also demonstrate capacity for dialogue, which is fundamental to holding up the fortunes of a nation, and that it will show that it truly cares about culture. We are no longer in an election campaign now; it is time to make concrete proposals and show openness.

However, it is true that it is not all that dark: at the local level some civic expressions of the Movement, such as the one in Florence, have drafted some guidelines such as the one you can find by clicking on this link. It is not much, it is more a list of principles than a list of concrete proposals, it is an expression of a local group (at the national level the Movement does not seem to have expressed positions on the cultural debate), but surely it can be a basis that, proposed at the national level, may trigger some much-needed deeper reflection. We calmly and without prejudice renew our invitation to the three newly elected M5S parliamentarians to answer our questions. Alternatively, we would also be content with their own handwriting, or even comments to this post.

FAI’s famous Culture Primaries, although criticized by me in another article, had the merit of drawing up an almost complete list of fields of action on which the next government should focus, and since, in the political life that will characterize the months and probably the years to come, the 5 Star Movement will play a very prominent role, what we are asking the neo-Parliamentarians, or the Cricketers who happen to pass by, is simply whether there are any concrete proposals in relation to the themes proposed by the Culture Primaries. We wait and in the meantime wish all the newly elected members well in their work.

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