'Terra nostra' the new book by Antonio Bassolino

As part of the activities of the Piazze del Sapere to restart with culture, on Thursday 9 June 2022 at 18,00 pm the new book by Antonio Bassolino will be presented “our land”, in Feltrinelli in Caserta, with contributions from Carlo Marino, Luigi Carrino and Carlo De Michele, coordinated by M. Beatrice Crisci.

As emerges from the various chapters of the book, a long relationship ties Antonio Bassolino to Naples and Campania, a history made of fruitful periods and difficult moments, which continues and renews itself. Having become an adult before his time, a member of the PCI at the age of sixteen, he was elected secretary of a workers' section, where he learned the passion for real politics, capable of influencing people's lives.

From various periods of his career, these pages recount events and figures from the Italian public scene. The author today chooses to inaugurate a new phase of his commitment to the city, addressing the many challenges he has encountered since his early days in public administration (as mayor of Naples and president of the Campania Region) and those posed by the current emergency.

Between battles fought on the ground and perspectives on the future, the author addresses many ideas and themes: from the budget to the structure of the Municipality, from the urban landscape to the revitalization of the port, from the long-standing issue of waste management to the delicate balance between central and local powers, so that the resources offered by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan are not wasted.

Even as the means by which politics operates and engages with citizens change, Bassolino's enthusiasm remains unchanged. Drawing on his experience leading the Municipality and the Region, and having overcome the long legal battle that saw him at the center of 19 trials ending in as many acquittals, he presents projects and plans to address, using today's tools, the issues plaguing a rich but challenging land.

A choice in which, he underlines, "there is no nostalgia or desire for personal revenge", but the awareness that "It is around a battle for Naples that we must gather forces.

Of the many episodes that Bassolino reconstructs in his fluid narration, there are some that I would like to revisit, as they struck me greatly for their symbolic value of a culture and a certain conception of political militancy, of those who once defined themselves as “professional revolutionaries”.

The first refers to his transfer from Naples to the Avellino federation to allow him, of “workerist” extraction, to broaden his political and social vision with knowledge of the world of the countryside and of the peasants (as Giorgio Amendola solemnly told him).

The second episode dates back to his election as regional councilor in 1970 when he was faced with the choice of being able to continue to remain in the national leadership of the party to which he had recently been elected. Naturally he chose the second path, even if it was more tiring and led him to give up the undoubted advantages that the institutional position offered.

Thirdly, there are the pages very close to us Caserta residents of the memory of the hard fight against the Camorra, in which political and social commitment entailed many risks, even personal ones – as witnessed by the many victims of terrorism, which in those years marked the political life of our country.

After the killing of Don Peppe Diana on the altar of his church, a strong popular mobilization – primarily of young people – allowed in some municipalities and areas in the Aversa area to start a process of renewal, also with the nomination of Renato Natale as mayor of Casal di Principe – as the author recalls in a chapter of the book.