What is the point of FAI's Culture Primary?

by Federico Giannini (Instagram: @federicogiannini1), published on 15/01/2013
Categories: News Focus / Disclaimer

Already on January 6, when FAI(Fondo Ambiente Italiano) launched its Culture Primaries, I had turned my nose up at it. I would like to point out that we very much support and appreciate all FAI activities, and moreover we have two FAI members, Riccardo Zironi and Chiara Zucchellini, among our collaborators.

But frankly, I don’t feel at all comfortable with the decision to launch these Culture Primaries. First, because the issues that can be voted on in the list available online should all be priorities for a country that wants to call itself civilized. And then because the website www.primariedellacultura.it is unclear: indeed, under the heading"Culture Primaries“ it says that ”since they cannot choose the candidates, citizens should at least have the opportunity to choose the ideas they would like to see supported by the next rulers." Put in this way, it would almost seem that the FAI is inviting people to make a selection among the fifteen themes proposed in the list, themes that, we repeat, in our opinion at Finestre Sull’Arte should all have equal priority. And that this is not easily interpreted is also shown by an article in the Corriere della Sera of January 8 in which it says that "the five most voted ideas will be presented to the candidates in the next elections for them to take charge.^"1 Well, what about the other ten, which are equally important? Should we not deal with them just because they did not make it to the top five in an online consultation? It is true that the Culture Primary website says that the data collected “is used to rank the top-rated issues” without any mention of “top five” or choices, but it is equally true that there is a lack of clarity if a newspaper like the Courier provided the above interpretation just above.

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Not to mention the banner stunt featuring Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Dante Alighieri, Giuseppe Verdi and Federico Fellini engaged in an election rally. A stunt already called “quite embarrassing” by Tomaso^Montanari2, and in my opinion Montanari was even kind. And as icing on the cake, the photo, behind Giotto, of the Duomo and Campanile of Pisa. So five names that even stones know and what is perhaps the most well-known Italian monument in the world: the exact opposite of our principle that culture is not made up of big names and those two or three masterpieces that everyone knows. So if one of the intentions of the Culture Primaries is to reform the kind of policy carried out in recent years by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, at least visually I would say that the goal has been fully missed. Moreover, one of the themes of the Primaries is Less Italialand, More Italy: integrated policies for tourism, and the fact that the Tower of Pisa is one of the symbols of Italialand makes this online consultation much less credible.

And finally, there would then be a discussion about the third party nature of the initiative in light of the candidacy of Ilaria Borletti Buitoni, President of the FAI, in the upcoming ^political elections3 and moreover with the list of Mario Monti, i.e., a Prime Minister who, in the words of Salvatore Settis, “has not shown the slightest sensitivity to the problems of the environment, cultural heritage, schools, universities research, culture,” and who "has shown no attention to these problems even in his Agenda, thereby confirming that, should he return to the leadership of the government, he would continue the work of systematic dismantling of state structures of protection and privatization of public heritage begun by the Berlusconi government and in fact also pursued by the ’technical’ government.^"4 So much so that in the aftermath of Ilaria Borletti Buitoni’s candidacy, Salvatore Settis resigned from his position as FAI board member. The launching of the primaries on January 7 and Ilaria Borletti Buitoni’s candidacy that was announced on January 8 at least raises some doubts. So again, great respect for FAI, but in the face of all this, what is the point of the Culture Primary?

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Notes

1. Angelo Crespi, Il Fai and the "Culture Primaries." Five concrete things to do now, from Corriere della Sera, January 8, 2013. ↑

2. Tomaso Montanari, Culture primaries: laudable initiative but not enough, from Fatto Quotidiano, January 8, 2013. ↑

3. Cf. Monti nominates Bombassei, Sechi and Vezzali, from ADN Kronos, January 8, 2013. ↑

4. Cf. Letter of resignation of Salvatore Settis from FAI, text available online at Patrimonio sos, January 9, 2013. ↑

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