These were the years of my youth when, first and foremost, I heard from my friend, Hon. Pippo Gugliemino, otherwise known as a Member of Parliament and perpetually in opposition, that the Strait of Messina Bridge was at an advanced stage of completion. I must say that the news astonished me, for a geographical, insular reason, because Sicily (where I was born) would cease to be an island and would become attached to the mainland, the mythical mainland...
I thought about the end of the lovely ferry crossings between Messina and Villa San Giovanni, with the legendary Freccia del Sud train, full of tears and cardboard suitcases, with Marie, eyes full of jealousy, with proud people, born among the olive trees, but searching for warm bread... up there in the north. Then, as always happens, time, it doesn't tell you, but it passes and passes and arrives to whiten hair and slow down your step.
However, the bridge, always on the horizon… has never launched, due to laziness, incompetence, or foolishness, which can no longer continue today, in the name of the Italian economy and genius, which widens Suez, widens Panama, carries out colossal works around the world, and in our country grinds to a halt in the name of a stagnant "whataboutism", which risks consigning the land of Columbus and Michelangelo, and still today of Giò Ponti and Renzo Piano, to a demagogic counting of nothing. If we want resilience, but also a relaunch, we must build the bridge, because with it we shall transform the clichés that are accumulating about us, as if we are doomed to decline. We are (we are, not we were) great artists, great scientists, great visionaries, and we must enter the field, ceasing to merely observe, because we have a history to honour, and we shall honour it by re-establishing a great present, which is within reach, with many names: one of these is Ponte.
KLESSIDRA | EDITED BY FRANCESCO GALLO MAZZEO
Italiano 
English (UK)