Dear Director Feltri,
I read the interview with one of the evicted gentlemen a few days ago in Bologna. He lived illegally with his entire family and complained because some time ago he had been offered alternative accommodation, but in a hotel 50 km from where he was staying illegally. An offer he refused because, in his words, “if my children miss the train for a minute, then they won’t be able to get to school.” I was dumbfounded. I live in rent, I was forced to leave the center of Milan and move to the suburbs because the rent had become unsustainable. I pay out of my own pocket, like many others. My children get up early, take public transport. None of us were given a roof over our heads. If the school became too far away, we would look for a closer school. It’s life. It’s common sense. I find disconcerting this claim to live for free where it is most convenient, refusing decent and free accommodation, just because “it is not comfortable”. It is a mentality that ignores the sense of duty, respect for the rules, the effort that honest Italians make every day. I was also struck by the words of the MEP Ilaria Salis, who openly defended the illegal occupation. But the occupation is a crime, not a form of struggle. It is the violation of another’s property. And I don’t understand how anyone can be shocked by an eviction today when what should be shocked is the arrogance of those who refuse a house offered for free because it is too far from the centre.
Thank you if you want to reply.
Sofia Bianchi
Dear Sofia,
your indignation is not only understandable, but necessary. Because we live in a country where the law is applied only to those who respect it, while those who violate it also demand applause. Someone illegally occupies a house that isn’t theirs, perhaps for years, refuses decent and free accommodation and, instead of being grateful, complains because “it’s uncomfortable”. Awkward?! But what world do we live in? Perhaps these gentlemen have not realized that millions of Italians live outside the city, in the suburbs, in the provinces, because renting in the center is unaffordable. The children? They get up early. They organize themselves. They make sacrifices. It’s normal. It’s reality. The one that a certain left has decided to ignore, in the name of a new secular religion: the right without duty, the house without rent, the benefit without merit.
You, Sofia, pay rent. Like many. With effort. In silence. And no newspaper dedicates tear-jerking interviews to you. But all it takes is for someone to occupy it illegally and the media whining, the scandal and the mobilization immediately begin. The right to a home is sacrosanct, but it is not the right to live wherever you want, for free, and at the expense of others. It is a right that must be exercised within the rules, not by overriding them. Here, however, we are faced with justified anarchy, with claims elevated to virtue. And while respectable citizens make loans, sacrifices and sacrifices, others live illegally, claiming it as if it were justice.
And what about Ilaria Salis? An MEP who publicly praises illegal occupation, that is, the violation of a public or private property. A parliamentarian who should defend the rule of law, and instead blesses the crime. But do we realize it?
We have reached the point that those who demand respect for the law are the guilty ones, while those who live outside of every rule are the victims to be pitied. No, Sofia. You’re right. This country needs only one thing: to rediscover the culture of limits. The right to housing is not the right to a cool neighborhood, nor to personalized comfort.
It is a right to be exercised with dignity, within the rules. Anyone who violates them must be evicted. Point.
What if you offer him a decent solution and he rejects it? Well. At that point, he makes do. As millions of Italians do, every single day, without abusing, without occupying, without complaining. Without demanding. Without trampling on the rights of others. Without whining. And without violence.