Three proposals for the Montanelli statue in Milan. Vote for your favorite

In an unbelievable wave of collective awakening, the world has realized that there are objects called monuments and, more importantly, has suddenly realized that these objects might tell stories that most people don’t really like. Or at least if you are an African American who has been brutalized for centuries by white Europeans and yet you continue to see yourself depicted everywhere as a slave chained at the feet of a dominant white male or, if you are lucky, as a naked savage useful only to ensure the colonizer’s lavish supply of pineapples and bananas. Understandable, then, that someone would have something to object to if in the cities of the civilized world of 2020 these monuments continue to be displayed as if nothing happened: hence, a worldwide debate on the role of monuments and memory has begun, with moments of reflection being seized upon everywhere in the world as a way of understanding how one might evolve the matter and share a memory that is inclusive to all and that is able to represent the current world, which is obviously not the world of the 1800s.

Everywhere in the world except Italy: here no public discussion about monuments, but everything came down to a single question, namely: but should we keep the monument to Montanelli or should we remove it? Not even about Mussolini’slobelisk was discussed as much as about that ugly statue at the Porta Venezia gardens in Milan, and yes, Italy would have plenty of controversial monuments (for example, ask the south what they think of Enrico Cialdini). And so, since this monument is a stumbling block to a serious and peaceful discussion on the role of monuments in Italy, since the discussion can never progress until a solution to the problem is found (because every time there is talk about monuments someone will always jump up and make a fuss with so what about Montanelli’s statue?!?!?!??), since the left also wants to leave the statue where it is (and then you wonder why it loses elections), since therefore that ugly and useless statue must stay where it is, and since Montanelli can be considered as the most overrated journalist in the history of the country, I propose three possible ideas to finally solve the problem and reconcile the needs of those who do not want to remove the statue with those who want to honor Montanelli’s memory in his own way.

First idea: let’s be inspired by a very famous song by Georges Brassens (revisited in an Italian version by De Andrè) and behind Montanelli’s statue let’s add a sculpture of a big, horny gorilla, as he is about to pounce on the journalist who is typing, so as to give vent to his own libidonisian instincts. Imagine Montanelli’s surprise as he turns his head and sees lenormous and imperious quadrumane preparing to return the favor daver with impunity as he did his business with a 12-year-old African girl. It would become a sculptural group to be included in art history textbooks.

Second idea: let’s hire a squadron of fighting pigeons and train them to drop a shower of guano bombs on the statue every day in order to offer a scatological tribute to Montanelli’s memory that is sure to be appreciated by many. In this way we would also solve the problem of the Milanese who park near the gardens and find their cars invariably soiled.

Third idea: we take a cue from what has been happening for years to the statue of the Duke of Wellington in Glasgow. For those of you who don’t know the history of this work: one fine day in the 1980s, a good-hearted person got up and decided to put a traffic signal cone (you know the orange and white ones) as a hat on the duke. And since then it has become a tradition to leave it there. Or rather: the city administration tried hard to get it removed, but the mocking pin every day reappeared. For example, they tried to raise the base of the statue to make dinstallation operations more difficult: but William Wallace’s descendants are not intimidated by the higher altitude. And so in the end, since paying a guy who every day rides the horse and removes the pin was deemed too expensive for the City’s coffers, the mayor of Glasgow sanctioned the do whatever the fuck you want (maybe not quite in those words but that’s the gist) and since then the cone has not left the statue. Here, with Montanelli we could do something similar, only instead of the traffic cone we could put maybe other objects on it. Someone will say a condom, as suggested last week by a guy who at the streetcar stop in Piazza Cavour attached a poster with Montanelli’s statue inserted under a giant condom: that way, every time the municipality removes it, residents will go and reinstall it.

The proposal will be strictly chosen by televoting from home, which is also open to non-Milanese. After that we can finally file the matter away and take care of serious business.

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