Inconsistency and lack of authenticity, this is why politics no longer attracts young people who are thirsty for truth

If there was any need, we have seen in recent days how much enthusiasm and dedication young people can demonstrate . The election of Pope Leo XIV and before that the death and funeral of Pope Francis have reiterated that the young generations are just waiting for a good motivation to be shown, for a broad and engaging horizon to be proposed. Young people themselves – at least the Italian ones – are accused of tepidity and disinterest in their own world and the society in which they live. We judge them to be “choosy” or “big babies” as two protagonists of Italian political life defined them at different and close times.

One might ask: what example have they received and are receiving from those who govern the Institutions? Among the many things that we can point to in the Church, there is also that of being an Institution . If the beginning and end of the mandate of its highest representative can shake up young people in this way, it means that young people can be shaken up even by an “old” Institution of two thousand years. Provided that they receive a strong and suggestive example.

Far from the temptations of moralism, there is a serious problem of values ​​and witnesses. Also and above all in civil and political life, not only in Italy. Young people do not vote? But it would be astonishing if they did. Young people are ready to believe, if someone shows them that they really believe in something. If they only receive testimonies of cynicism, they become champions of cynicism.

Consistency may not be an absolute value, but it is an important sieve in the face of the values ​​that are proposed and indicated. Of course, one can change one’s mind, but there must be the strength and motivation that explains and justifies it. Young people are implacable in the childish but essential question: “Why?”.

What serious political commitment can be asked of young Italians, faced with the choices of the Institutions and their representatives? The merciless review concerns everyone . But to get out of the perimeter of religion, our political scene, in recent years has been populated by parties that have declared everlasting hatred, one against the other: "Never in Government with the Bibbiano party", thundered from the M5S against the PD, which in turn assured "If the Government falls, no agreements with the Five Stars". We saw how it went.

It will be said that politics is a slippery slope . Of course, but the credibility of those who practice it and the hope of those who would like to approach it are slipping. And then they avoid it. But let us also remember that, despite the deferential vulgate - which we do not want to escape for the simple spirit of Pierino - even from the Quirinale in recent years there have been no univocal and reassuring signals. If after seven years of mandate it is reiterated that the Constitution does not allow for others, and then one ventures into a second seven-year term - without the hesitations and resignations "à la Napolitano" - it means that once again the rules are uncertain. And how important are certain rules for the construction of a young person's personality?

The same electoral method leads to a growing disaffection, on the part of those who, young, would like to exercise their right of veto, as well as of vote: if I did not like a politician, I should be free not to vote for him, determining the "end of his career". Instead , the blocked lists established by the secretariats and the "magic circles" exclude the voters from this fundamental exercise of democracy.

For Italian politics, young people are a bit like Ennio Flaiano's Kunt, the Martian in Rome . At first, as happens with young people, he is cajoled, questioned, asked for company and the recipient of attention. Then, once the novelty has worn off, he is ignored, excluded, set aside. Invited to return to Mars. But young Italians do not have another planet to go to. They do have other countries, where they can take refuge, that's for sure. And are we surprised why so many young Italians choose to go abroad? It's a bit like their way to Mars. Their spaceships are ready to land again on Earth, even in Rome, where we have seen many of them in recent days around St. Peter's and Santa Maria Maggiore.

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