Italy's Pandora's vase

Italy's Pandora's vase

Yesterday, our Health Minister announced yet again a package of limitations to public life spanning the festivities. As customary in Italy for decades, it is presented at the last possible minute, so that the added discomfort of haste and unpreparedness adds to the intended perception of urgency.

But apart from my usual forlorn sarcasm, something hit me this morning when I was taking four FFP2 masks out of my stash, and for once it was a serious if unwanted thought.

Our COVID frontman's and Minister's family name, Speranza, means “Hope” in English. That of course has given rise to some confusion and a series of obvious jokes, yet... my mind went back to my high school studies, in classical Greek and Latin.

Of course all the main legends of the classical world were at least discussed and I was quite interested in the subject (Robert Graves of “I, Claudius” fame wrote a wonderful book of them with commentaries and notes which is a must to those interested), and so this morning while the bubbleheads were droning about the new regulations one myth in particular came to my mind. Indeed, Hope (“Speranza”) WAS the last thing escaping Pandora's box, and the only one not straying away to ravage mankind.... or was it?

I remember discussions, at the time and later, when I found out that of course that debate is probably as ancient as the story, about the proper translation of the Greek word for “Hope” in that context. For some, it should have meant something similar to “misplaced optimism” or “willful illusion”, the kind one builds in a desperate situation to find the strength to walk one more step up a hill he can't see the top of.

But, for our original culture, hope had come to be a positive, almost festive concept: Faith, Hope and Charity are the three theological virtues Christianity recognizes in and basing its preaching, and during the battle of Malta in WW II, in the darkest hour for the Allies, a story appeared that three of the few fighter planes defending the Island from Regia Aereonautica were thus called.

But now, through no fault of his, our minister is programming citizens' minds to loathe and fear that very word, or at least to become overused and demeaned. What if months from now, when COVID becomes either defeated or commonplace and Italy will try to rebuild some semblance of normal society, every time one joyously utters “C'è speranza!” (“There IS an hope !” ) people around, or at lest some of them, will instinctively close up in fear and dread? After all, one of the tools used by the present government (and all the previous ones, to be honest), has been indirection, a willingness to manipulate the flow of information to use fear in order to instill compliance. I am not passing judgement on their motivation, for all I care they could be a bunch of saints with nothing but the best intentions in their hearts, including using what they think is the most effective tool in uncertain times. But this unfortunate coincidence might bite back down the line, and I realised that aspect just today.

Merry Christmas, Everyone, and I wish all  a better year for 2022.