Economics, talent of thinking

 https://youtu.be/ZS6muBIjvpg 

“My name is Marina Bilotta Membretti. I’m graduated in Economics and I work in industry since forty years. I’m editor of www.tutorsalus.net which in Latin language is who cares of one’s own well-being, primary human safeguard, but so often removed.

TutorSalus.net is also an European registered brand for online publishing. I’d like to share the empowerment for individuals, and then society, of a proper and primary safeguard, that is a proper sanction – rewarding or not – to any offer we receive : it seems difficult among people all over the times, and expecially in authoritarian communities, as cultural habits freeze any sanction – beginning from the new-born babies – and feed resentful gradges up to encouraging aggression and violence. We can then see profitable to get in touch with people who are successful in keeping each other able to evaluate and communicate their own thinking really, to whom offering, and not just in words.

Digital culture can even improve ‘ad hoc’ sanctions, but after amending an ancient mistake. It’s not just a responsibility for institutions, as any slightest relation can be corrupted when the urge for pleasure does compel a conservative, or on the opposite, a rising reaction instead of favouring a well thought solution.”

                                         Bilotta Membretti, Cernusco sul Naviglio 19 marzo 2021

A ‘transference’ that is not.

In the picture, my first school book, “Roselline”[1] in a very recent edition : a patient, enjoyed work when children can discover unpredictable details in a drawing, or text, or even a speech.

In 1910, during the 'Psychoanalysis Congress' in Nuremberg Sigmund Freud explained an affection as far as an analyst is concerned, when meeting and listening to the patient : Freud used the same term 'übertragung', but giving it an opposite direction.

‘Gegenübertragung’ was then the name of an item, the ‘counter-transference’, by means of which an analyst could stand side by side to his patient pathology being aware of it but without been catched : any neurosis infact, if also silent, is quite a a virus and not sensitive to medicines. Editing the Cases was to Freud an opportunity to point the profitability other than the conspicuous labour for the analyst, to work on his own life experience.

Jacques Lacan did not add much more, on that rough ground and staying at a distance : his formal defence of the ‘language’ even exposed it to an almost behavioral method, which can favour a mind-laziness in patients, also strengthening their inhibitions.

Just in a few words[2] Lacan says about an unpredictable and well accepted fall of pathological repetition, which previously was hiding an individual competence : that was also a professional experience in Freud.

However it is only in “Il pensiero di natura”[3] that the appointment between patient and analyst comes out from a mystical and obscure ‘transference’, accepting the elaboration itself between two conscious partners in well different positions : without the availability to one’s own competence, no work can proceed, neither analytical work and its rules[4].

Mainly, the availability to be recalled by competence makes unuseful ‘transference’ or ‘counter-transference’ as rejecting work, neither of the patient nor of the analyst.

Without this (technical ?) passage, a coming back to ‘transference’ is just a risky regress and obstacles indeed any individual cure.

                                                  Marina Bilotta Membretti, Cernusco sul Naviglio March 10, 2021.

[1] “Roselline. Per muovere i primi passi nel disegno”, Rosella Banzi Monti – Edizioni Larus Srl.

[2] “Il rovescio della psicoanalisi – Il seminario Libro XVII. Jacques Lacan”, by Jacques-Alain Miller – Antonio Di Ciaccia, Giulio Einaudi editore Spa (2001).

[3] “Il pensiero di natura. Dalla psicoanalisi al pensiero giuridico”, Giacomo B. Contri (1994 e 1998) SIC Edizioni.

[4] “La formazione dello psicoanalista”, Giacomo B. Contri in ‘THINK!’ 2014, May 10-11, 12, 15, 17-18, 19, 21.

“Kant with Sade”[1], by Jacques Lacan.

Original painting by Stefano Frassetto[2].

The unconscious Freud opened does conceive ‘memory’ rather than ‘imagination’[3] : here it is the most interesting conclusion Lacan offers to Freud and maybe hinge of his own analytical resumption, as the conscience has been built on thinking representations, instead of being a constituent of human nature, and the ‘object’ itself being built[4] and not set up.

“Kant with Sade” was published seven years after the “Seminar on ‘The stolen letter’” where Jacques Lacan was noting that maybe, as Freud did put forward, a ‘repetition automatism’ could be present, in which – still by Lacan – the language would bring in the possibility of subtraction[5] up to the betraying of memory[6].

Any not allowed discomfort of a betrayed memory does open to the disease[7] and Lacan can well assert : “You are well in evil or, if you like, the eternal feminine cannot draw upward…”[8], where ‘feminine’ is not ‘female’ and the despising sound does beat the hearing though written, so burying any individual difference beginning to sexes[9].

Just a simple subtraction to our memory – in the very accounting terms, other than economical – is then a real lie, or better a ‘slander’[10] – says Lacan – towards our own memory, maybe not yet distinguished or singled out : but that opens to a generalized untruthful thinking, as ‘de Sade’ can propose ‘a republic’ where ‘the slander’ is rising to virtue. On the other hand, can we ask naive peple for making a judgement ?

“Let us limit ourselves to come back, just to assert his prospect, to the theory by which de Sade has established the kingdom of his own principle. The one of human rights. That is : no one man, due to the sole fact he cannot at all be property, or prerogative of another man or woman, could therefore demand to suspend the right of anyone to enjoy himself – or herself - each one to his own, or her, liking.”[11]

“(Kant’s – editor’s note) moral law is not then representing the desire when, not the subject but the object  fails ?”[12]

“It emerges that sadic people deny the life of people themselves.“[13]

A memory betrayed, lost his or her own sense of direction, can go mad : so that is asking for a pilot, even if outside and unrelated. And here it is the overturning by ‘de Sade’, which Kant theory made practicable indeed, turning at that point[14].

“…Non bisogna dire piuttosto che il sadico rigetta nell’Altro il dolore di esistere, ma senza vedere che per questa via egli si muta in un ‘oggetto eterno’… ?”[15]  

“In Sade we can see a test, crucial in our eyes, when he rejects the death penalty… Sade then stopped here, just where the desire link with the (individual – editor’s note) law… The apology of crime only pushes him to confess just sideways the Law. The Supreme Being has been re-established in the Evil”.[16] So what ?

But here Lacan lets that any imprudent reader can venture among the brambles of a deadly research, going away – even dizzily but as he himself, or she herself likes – from that ‘fundamental link from memory to (individual – editor’s note) law’ which the ‘removal’ denies, and denies.

                                Marina Bilotta Membretti, Cernusco sul Naviglio - February 12, 2021

[1] “This writing had to serve as a preface to ‘La Philosophie dans le boudoir’. It has been appearing in the magazine ‘Critique’ (n.191, April 1963), like a report of the edition of works by Sade to whom was addressed. Ed. du Cercle du Livre Précieux, 1963, 15 voll”, in “Kant con Sade” p.764 in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. 1974 e 2002, ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’. Titolo originale : ‘Écrits’ (1966) ‘Éditions du Seuil’, Paris.

[2] Stefano Frassetto is born in Turin in 1968. After his degree in Architecture at ‘Politecnico’ he begun as graphic novelist for local magazines. In the ‘90s he edited in France, on ‘Le Réverbère’ and on ‘Libération’ : then he created ‘Ippo’ for ‘Il Giornalino’ and then the stripe ‘35MQ’ for the swiss magazine ‘20 Minuti’. In 2000 he came into ‘La Stampa’ newspaper as portraitist for cultural page and the insert ‘Tuttolibri’, then for the weekly ‘Origami’. Today he works also for the swiss magazine ‘Le Temps’.

[3] “The repetition automatism (Wiederholungszwang) – notwithstanding its notion in that work is addressed to meet a few paradoxes in the clinic, like the dreams in the traumatic neurosis or the negative therapeutic reaction – couldn’t be conceived as an addition, even crowning, the whole doctrinal building. Here it is Freud inaugural discovery : that is a conceiving memory envolving one’s own unconscious.”, p.42 “Il Seminario su ‘La lettera rubata’” in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.I, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974 e 2002).

[4] “Some voice phenomena, particularly those ones in psychosis, have precisely this aspect of the ‘object’…” p.772 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[5] “We can see here again (in ‘Critica alla Ragion pratica’ di Kant – editor’s note) what can lead Kant to express regret that no intuition can offer a phenomenal object to the experience of the moral law. We agree that along all the ‘Critica’ this object does escape. But you can hit it in the trace left by the relentless coherence Kant is using in demonstrating its escaping…”, p.767 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[6] “…A structure, even if still transparent to its data, shows then the fundamental link of memory with (individua - editor’s note) law”, p.45 “Il Seminario su ‘La lettera rubata’” in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.I, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[7] “ ‘La Filosofia nel boudoir’ (‘Marchese de Sade’ – editor’s note) arrives eight years after the ‘Critica della ragion pratica’ (Immanuel Kant – editor’s note)… We can say that the vigour of factum comes from the saying proposing its  rule to the jouissance, unusual in terms of law in the habit of Kant, as that is asking itself as a rule. Let us state the saying : ‘I’ve the right to enjoy your body, anyone can tell me, and that right I’ll exercise without any limit can stop me in the caprice of the collections I can have the pleasure of satisfying’. Here it is the rule to which they pretend to submit everyone will, as little as a society can make it effective with their restrictions…”, p.765 - 768 in “Kant con Sade”, ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[8] p.765 and a little further, p.788 “…the work never offers to us the success of a seduction where its spectre could as well find a crowning : the one (seduction – editor’s note) to which the victim… would agree with his/her torturer, or would enlist on his/her side due to a burst in the approval.”in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[9] ‘La questione economica del masochismo’, S.Freud (1924) OSF Bollati Boringhieri (2012) Vol.10 p.7-8 : “I’ve named it ‘feminine’ even if many of its elements defers to childhood life…”

[10] “From Sade’s point of view you are anyway on the same side, good and bad; the insults couldn’t change anything… You need a firm heart to follow Sade when he extols slander, first article of the morality to be established in his republic”, p.788 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[11] p.770 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[12] p.781 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[13] p.778 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[14] “If Freud could assert ‘his’ principle of pleasure without even caring to outline what distinguishes it from its function in the tradizional ethics, … echoing to the undisputed prejudice of two millennia, to remember the appeal prearrangingthe creature to his/her benefit with psychology which enrols itself in a few myths of indulgence, we can only be grateful to the slipping rising, through the XIX century, of the item of ‘happiness in evil’. Here Sade is the inaugural step of an overturning of which, strange as it may seem if we compare it to the coldness of the man, Kant is the turning point and, as far as we know, never identified before.”, p.764-765 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[15] p.778 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

[16] p.790 in “Kant con Sade”, in ‘Jacques Lacan. Scritti’ Vol.II, a cura di Giacomo B. Contri/ ‘Biblioteca Einaudi’ - Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. (1974, 2002).

Eros without body[1] ?

Original painting by Jacopo Ricci[2] and an excellent interpretation of Freud lesson in “Humour” (1927). Just for a moment – the time of a flash in thinking – conscience lets itself be represented as clung like an octopus on a skull that falls apart, then showing to the Subject how copable really is the anguish, as it doesn’t allow thinking. Humour is, by Freud, the willingness of a Subject to find an opening to a supposed ‘lack’, while when you fixate on a lack, you incur the disease, so weakening and disabling.

(Lou Andreas Salomè) : “…it is an exquisitely human fact that the man is - and at the same time is not - his own body, i.e. his body, despite it all, is a part like any other of the external reality. He can so externally be referred, with the help of his sensory organs, driving him back to an addiction which makes any other almost insignificant, like a children’s game, and lacking in tragedy. For that reason it is precisely the disease that makes us remember all that is innocent and touching in a man; but also, for the same reason, all this gives rise to feeling that someone is suffering because of all of us, and his own way of suffering becomes for us a symbol of what man is capable of.

(Sigmund Freud) : …Thinking over the interesting, but not always acceptable, observations you made on the relationship between man and his own bodily support, I wonder how you conceive the same relationship with such a surrogate which tries to be ‘I’ and yeti t may not be; an existing problem for our glasses, or dentures or wig, but not as intrusive as in the case of a bone prosthesis.”[3]

(Lou Andreas Salomè) : “…For example, in the erotic sphere, which touches a woman closely, I feared just about that my old age could enter too late (…) and that, as a consequence it could have deprived me of what most specific it has to give us, precisely as old age. …Because, together with the erotic experience, strictly speaking, we leave behind a dead end… where there’s only room for two people side by side, to enter an immeasurable expanse…”[4]

(Lou Andreas Salomè) : “…On the other hand, your essay on ‘Humour’[5] doesn’t convince me as much : I’ll briefly try to explain why. The reason is that the issue of relatives, whose backdated effects would condition the superiority of humour, basically is the same issue which trained us to take seriously all the data of reality which we, when children, preferred to bypass and which, due to all its rules and prohibitions, awfully deprived our connection to the reality of humour[6]…”

(Sigmund Freud) : …”Our mutual disagreement about humour, reminds me that I couldn’t solve one of your puzzles : why women much less nourish, and appreciate, humour than men.”[7] 

                                                             Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – November 14, 2020

[1] Quotes by “Eros e conoscenza. Lettere 1912-1936”, Ed. ‘Universale Bollati Boringhieri’ 2010.

[2] Jacopo Ricci, short biography. “Independent painter in Valenza-Alessandria (Italy), Jacopo Ricci is born in Milan in ‘80s (1988). He loves painting since he was a child but does turn on coloured pencils and brushes just at his Superior degree. He nowadays cooperates with online magazines, also for on demand commissions. In 2018 he illustrated ‘Dottor Tremarella’  and ‘Guarda Oltre’ (published by the author himself). In 2019 began also working on  serigraphy.”

[3] “Eros e conoscenza. Lettere 1912-1936”, Ed. ‘Universale Bollati Boringhieri’ 2010 – p.135

[4] “Eros e conoscenza. Lettere 1912-1936”, Ed. ‘Universale Bollati Boringhieri’ 2010 – p.163

[5] ‘L’umorismo’, S. Freud (1927) in “OSF” Vol.10 pp.499-508 B.Boringhieri is a short essay following ‘Il motto di spirito e la sua relazione con l’inconscio’ (1905) : Freud proved the result of his observations on patients, also anticipating his more precious what his most fruitful legacy really is : the individual competence in the care of one’s thinking, and the strenuous resistance to it.

[6] The letter by Lou Andreas Salomè is dated November 6, 1927 : the essay ‘Humour’ was read by Anna Freud during the Congress at Innsbruck in the same year, in September; it was published on ‘Almanach des Internationalen Psychoanalytischen Verlags für das Jahre 1928’.

[7] “Eros e conoscenza. Lettere 1912-1936”, Ed. ‘Universale Bollati Boringhieri’ 2010 -pp.167-169

“The Case of Matilde”[1] in n. 1/2017 ‘Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane’, Franco Angeli Editore.

“My written intervention here[2] just offers a feasible path where – in the ‘Case of Matilde’ as introduced by Marta Angellini and Monica Ceccarelli – focuses on ‘the ridge between psychomotor skills analytically oriented and a psychomotor psychotherapy’ (n. 1/2017, p.143).

Referring to well-known cases treated by Freud can lead us to a re-reading maybe fruitful and also practicable nowadays.

It’s meaningful that Freud decided to publish only few cases among all those ones he was treating, maybe because the innovation which just some of them got to the rising psychoanalysis showed a fruitfulness which could be repeated time by time.

Freud himself was modifying by logic, and step by step, the original ‘setting’ to which, however, an unbeaten profit has to be ascribed in the analytical work by anyone recognizes himself, or herself, heir.

In the Case offered we hear that Matilde[3] introduces herself with a ‘not certain’ query : she offers her body ‘as she didn’t live in’ (n. 1/2017 p. 134) and that she was moving ‘round around the room with an uncertain pace and with a very unsteady balance’ (p. 133). 

We face a youngest patient who has difficulty in recognizing herself as the leading part of a care made up by her adults – parents, teachers as the Author says – whom however Matilde informed  about her uneasiness. Matilde is proving then a cooperating patient : better, she begins and undertakes a specific initiative that is ‘the play’, so replying her psychomotorist offer, but adding her specific work that is her analytical work indeed, asking her partner nothing else but replying her subject and her thought. A play which is ‘the play of Matilde herself’ – ‘a very rich play’ and ‘careful and punctual’ (p. 135) which, as the Author explained, ‘has urged her’.

Matilde easily gets her help, puts on the table and on the subject what she couldn’t start out of the therapy room and that induced her to escape any demand or offer by other partners. 

Marta Angellini has informed us that Matilde was already establishing an alliance with mom, but opposed by her grandmother who banalizes also humbling mom, not very able indeed to defende herself – ‘her pregnancy has been spangled with fits of jealousy by grandmother… and Matilde has been looking at furious arguments between mom and grandmother’ (p. 134). Better, I’d say ‘envy’ as pathogenic indeed, by grandmother towards mom, and mainly toward Matilde as the-subject-of-envy.

Nothing we know about the father, as a partner himself : however he introduces himself together with mom, then cooperating into a ‘parenting support path with Adriana Grotta’[4] (p. 134). It’s interesting that since the second year of therapy, around four years old, Matilde experiences her sister birth, as a goal of satisfaction for both parents.

Matilde happily utilizes that birth becoming herself partner of her father, without any evident conflict with mom –‘she is staging the marriage… also assuming often feminine roles… she has more tune… with mom’ (p. 137).

Finally is in the unknown play of the swimming-pool and of the threatening snails (third year of therapy), into which she also acknowledge the convenience of words, and in the following conclusive play of the acrobat (fourth year) that Matilde comes at her satisfaction, and any further offer of intervention is in excess from now on.

We can cite Max Graf, father of little Hans, as reported by Freud and confirming the overcoming of a pathology claimed by the child : ‘It is two days I notice that Hans disobeys to me, determined but not impudent, with some even cheerfulness.

Does it mean that he doesn’t fear me, the horse ?’ (Sigmund Freud, ‘Analysis of a fobia in a child of less than five years’/1909)…”[5]

                                                                                              Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – October 18, 2020

[1] ‘The Case of Matilde’ has been introduced by the psychomotorist Marta Angellini, with a supervision of Monica Ceccarelli for the column ‘Clinical cases’ on n. 1/2017 of ‘Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane’/ Franco Angeli Editore, (pp. 133-142).

[2] The text is citing also my written intervention to the ‘Case of Matilde” and published on n. 3/2017 of ‘Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane’ (pp. 475-476).

[3] Matilde is less than three years old at the beginning of the Case.

[4] Adriana Grotta is psychologist and psychoanalyst : she is editing with fellows the column ‘Clinical cases’ into the magazine ‘Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane’, by Franco Angeli Editore.

[5] In the Case ‘The child Hans”, Sigmund Freud describes, through the analytical method, a phobìa and its recovery in a child of less than five years,.

To invest in talent.

Original painting by Stefano Frassetto[2].

“Never again a ‘Sonderweg”[3].

It’s the assertion I’ve valued the most in public speeches of Angela Merkel who can comdemn  Hitler, as he cynically swapped a core value of dignity and honour for deutsch citizens, already involved into a hardest post-war reconstruction, to justify a policy of aggression and abuse : the word literally is translated with ‘particular way’, referring to the aristocratic attitude not accepting any agreement or alliance, but so evocative for impoverished people also favourable to authoritarian simplifications.

So that, the handshake with which Angela Merkel welcomed the election of Ursula von der Leyen on July 16, 2019 as president of European Commission[4] does remain a flash subverting the historical problem of ‘pink shares’ : and, on the other hand, speaking about Angela Merkel[5] - now at her second mandate as president of European Council – is acknowledging that ‘pink shares’ made, and make also today, smile those who can manage power.

“…For long time they went on saying : women must have courage, women must change, women must obtain jobs, sometimes you have also to give up jobs in favour of women. All of this is great. It was important and we did obtain a lot. But we can take the risk that woman has to become some ‘super human being’ who, from intellectual features up to the exterior looking, from caring family keeping in mind the needs of each up to an organizational capacity, she has to come as close to perfect as possible… We must encourage more women to dare to go out into the open field, to expose themselves to social criticism, to be able to resist that and to not lose heart…”[6]

As a matter of facts, a constant in the policy of Angela Merkel is her referring to an individual capacity of orienting which characterizes the human being, since their childhood : except to withdraw even only occasionally, as we know, and under the pressure of anguish.

“…I remember a gardener in the courtyard of the house where I grew up – my father was an evangelic pastor – a church hospice for mentally disturbed people, managed by the deaconry. The gardener’s collaborators were psychically disturbed too. Of course even other people could come to him, both as they had nothing better to do and as they had questions to ask him; among them was me.

As a child I had a lot of free time, I didn’t go to kindergarten yet. That gardener, an old quite strong man, gave me great basic confidence and great calm.

He had always time for me, which I greatly appreciated, because my mother always didn’t have time, not to mention my father; this man however, who had a lot of work to do, always made time for me. From him you could learn a lot of things about practical life. For example, I’ve learnt how flowering plants are repotted, and to recognize a good cyclamen. From him I learnt how to talk to mentally disabled people.

It was an incredibly hot environment, trusting, good where I could eat soiled carrots, where I could laze, and where I once even received a sip of black tea. It was beautiful. This man aroused in me the feeling of being connected to the earth, to the soil, to nature…”[7]

Born in Hamburg in 1954, at six months she left with her parents for Templin, at eighty kilometers from Berlin where her father had been transferred and where her younger brother and sister were born. In 1961 the construction of Berlin Wall upset the life of the family, as she herself tells about[8] : for that, maybe, in 1989 the falling of that wall appeared to her as a crossroads, and decided to give up her reserch job at the University Department of Physics, to go into politics.

“…With Michael Schindhelm[9] we’ve been working together, our desks were adjacent to the ‘Academy of Sciences’. But above all, we have been talking and talking and talking, about why in DDR[10] wasn’t possible to explore one’s borders, about why everything was so cramped, small, modest… When exactly did he give me the book I don’t remember… The dedication was decisive… He wrote : “Go outdoors!” It was one of the nicest things anyone could say to me in those years. And when I decided to leave, me like many others have gone outdoors, towards the new… Don’t ask yourself what’s not working, but ask what is working. That was the attitude with which, we East and West German people, faced the turning point of that period.”[11]

Elected to the German Parliament at the age of thirty-six, since 2000 Angela Merkel is president of Christian-Democratic Union (CDU). Appointed Chancellor[12] in 2005 she was then elected again, with a nonstop government which is today in its fourth term. But it is with involvement in European Union politics that Angela Merkel rightly entered among the founding fathers of Europe.[13]

Former president of G8[14] in 2007 and in 2015, her policy has been characterized as a matter of fact by substantial reforms in the economic and social fields, which transferred power from central government to local initiatives and authorities : a revolution which Angela Merkel describes ‘peaceful’, recalling the personal memory of the Wall destruction.

Her own guide lines immediately leveraged an increased reliability, in politics as well as in economics, starting however from human value which, until then, it had not found a hearing from the centers of Power in Germany and in Europe.[15] “…We, and this is the truth, have been living for some time consuming our heritage.”[16] “…Future cannot become the dustbin of the unsolved problems of today.”[17]

Last September 16, Ursula von der Leyen gave her first State of the Union address confirming, as a matter of fact, Angela Merkel policy in all these years of mandate : she outlined as ‘historic’ the decision of a ‘common debt’ which can even anticipate a policy of financial integration, still to be defined. This time, however, the president of the European Commission introduced the theme ‘work’ and  ‘apprenticeship’ in Politics too.

Addressing to young people, and not only to them, she referred to ‘Next Generation EU’ and to the ‘2021-2027 EU multi-annual financial framework’, which will have to make efforts to provide Europe with help needed for ‘environmental’ and ‘digital’ issues[18], crucial indeed in the next months.

What if these were real news for those who aspire to govern as an honorable and productive profession, instead of deluding themselves that there is a ‘special way’ ?

                                          Marina Bilotta Membretti / Cernusco sul Naviglio – September, 30 2020

[1] “THINK !”, by Giacomo B. Contri January 31, 2020 

[2]Stefano Frassetto is born in Turin in 1968. After his degree in Architecture at ‘Politecnico’ he begun as graphic novelist for local magazines. In the ‘90s he edited in France too, on ‘Le Réverbère’ and on ‘Libération’ : then he created ‘Ippo’ for ‘Il Giornalino’ and then the stripe ‘35MQ’ for the swiss magazine ‘20 Minuti’. In 2000 he came into ‘La Stampa’ as portraitist for cultural page and the insert ‘Tuttolibri’, then for the weekly ‘Origami’. Today he works also for the swiss magazine ‘Le Temps’. In 2022 he published  his first anthology, ‘35mq: 2012-2022 Dieci anni di inettitudine’.

[3] “Never again a ‘German Sonderweg’”, has been cited from her speech at the Bundestag on February 13, 2003 during the debate on Iraq war : Angela Merkel confirmed Germany joining to NATO and the consequent agreements, even at the cost of providing their own military contingent when required. Here she says ‘Sonderweg’ as  an ‘indifference to the agreements’ but she did know the negative accent that listeners will have perceived.// “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, at care of Robin Mishra. Edizione italiana a cura di Manuel Kromer, ‘Claudiana editore Srl’ 2012, p.186.

[4] Ursula von der Leyen, physician and member of ‘European People’s Party’ was elected president of ‘European Commission’ by the European Parliament on July 16, 2019 and she has been in office since Decembre 1, 2019 (she was preceded by president Juncker). She will act according to the ‘Lisbon Treaty’ (2007-2009), or ‘Reform Treaty’ of the previous ‘European Commission’ – project however abandoned in 2007 – which regulated the ‘transfer of sovereignty’ between Countries and Union, and vice versa. To the ‘Lisbon Treaty’ they could come thanks also to the work of those who have committed themselves to a rewriting of the Constitution : the ACED ‘Action Committee for European Democracy’, or ‘Amato Group’ from the name of the coordinator and former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, was supported by the European Commission with an unofficial mandate, and the concluding text (2007) kept the previous Constitution with the criteria that emerged during the consultations with Governments of each Country, thus remaining a reference for the negotiations on the future Treaty. 

[5] Angela Merkel is graduated in Physics and was University Researcher, before devoting to politics. Married, she is daughter of a theologian and Lutheran pastor : in 2011 she was elected Chancellor – a public office corresponding to our Italian Prime Minister – after a gradual political career in local administrations. 

[6] “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, cited above, pp.86-87. The assertion comes from Angela Merkel’ speech in Berlin, on January 26, 2009 for the 90°anniversary of granting the right to vote to women.

[7] “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, cited above, pp.199-200, from Angela Merkel’ speech in Hamburg on June 17, 1995 at  Kirchentag – biennal meeting of the Evangelical Church, promoted by lay persons and held in a number of cities in Germany.

[8] “I spent my first 35 years of life in the former DDR. I experienced on my skin that values like freedom and democracy are not at all obvious. And I also experienced how much movement can arise from the yearning for freedom…” p.165 in “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, cited above from the speech of May 1, 2008 at Aachen.

[9] Michael Schindhelm, Angela Merkel’ colleague at the University ’Academy of Sciences’, and quantum chemist.

[10] ‘DDR’, an abbreviation for ‘Deutsche Demokratische Republik’ : after the demolition of Berlin Wall in 1989, the Republic was governed by the Christian-Democratic Union CDU in which Angela Merkel enroled herself, and then elected up to the office of Chancellor.

[11] “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, cited above cit., pp.134-135, from Angela Merkel’ speech at Kiel on October 3, 2006 for the anniversary  of German reunification.

[12] Federal Chancellor is the Chief Government in Germany.

[13] “…That’s not a secret : the negotiations for ‘Lisbon Treaty’ did not always go smoothly… It would be not natural in a community of 27 Countries. However, the fact that when it comes to closing – as it happened last year – we always find unity, is a vital force of Europe. Sometimes we should ask ourselves : where does this force come from, as in any difficult moment we can agree ?”, in “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, p.163 cited above from the speech held at Aachen on May 1, 2008 after the first semester of Angela Merkel’ presidency at the European Council, characterized by conspicuous work for the ‘Lisbon Treaty’, or ‘Reform Treaty’, because it would have replaced the previous UE Constitution.

[14] ‘G8’ – preceded by ‘G6’ e ‘G7’ and now again ‘G7’ due to the exit of Russia (as EU required in 2014, together with economical sanctions, due to the illegitimate annexation of Crimea and then made definitive by Russia themselves in 2017) – is a political Forum in which Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, United Kingdom, United States of America participate : they meet also annually as an economical forum. Since 1999 ‘G20’ began to meet and, in addition to the heads of governments, also the finance ministers and central bank governors participate, with the aim of favoring an economic and international agreement : part of it are, besides ‘G8’, all the more industrialized Countries, as ‘G20’ represent more than 80% of world GDP-Gross Domestic Product.

[15] The reform of companies taxes, independently from the corporate form of companies themselves, the expansion of childcare facilities and the introduction of an income subsidy during the absence due to the birth of a child - as offered either to the father or to the mother - are political news introduced in Germany in the first government of Angela Merkel. 

[16] “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, cited above, pp.134-135, from the first Angela Merkel’ big speech, she held on October 1°, 2003 at the ‘Deutsches Historisches Museum’ in Berlin. Between 2008 and 2009, facing the financial crisis which put in difficulty also some of the biggest deutsches companies, the Chancellor Merkel approved a substantial refinancing made by the State to the companies in crisis.

[17] “Angela Merkel, parole di potere. Il pensiero della cancelliera”, cited above, p.105, from Angela Merkel’ speech held on June 13, 2006 at Köningwinter.

[18] Source : I.S.P.I. ‘Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale’, Milan.