Democracy Can Want Fascism, Senate President Tells Students Calmly

INTERCEPTED INTERNAL MEMORANDUM, ROME

Organization: Presidency of the Senate of the Republic, Office of Educational Outreach and Institutional Serenity. To: Chief of Staff; Director of Communications; Archivist (for retention, not reading). From: Dr. Vittorio Manzi, Deputy Coordinator for School Relations. Re: Annual student visit, 13 November. Classification: Internal. Do not summarize aloud.

SUMMARY. Two hundred secondary-school students were admitted to the chamber on 13 November and put their question about the health of democracy to the President of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa. He instructed them that the will of the people "can be imperfect," since "it wanted fascism." We had prepared for questions. We had not prepared for quotation. The students took notes, which is the part the briefing did not survive.

MEASURED DISTANCE BETWEEN BRIEFING AND EVENT. Talking point 4(b), issued at 09:15, read: "democracy is a daily achievement." The delivered statement credited the electorate with installing fascism and, by extension, with holding a renewal option. Time of abandonment of 4(b): mid-sentence. Gap between issued text and issued conviction: the width of one honest answer. Instruments recorded zero distortion and logged it as a malfunction.

REACTION. Francesco Bonelli, floor leader of the Democratic Party in the Chamber of Deputies, replied: "Ma quale popolo, sono stati i manganelli" ("Which people? It was the truncheons"). File under oppositional pedagogy. All further student questions have been assigned Form OS-77, Request for Clarification of an Answer, three fields, one of them optional: patience. The escorting teachers were polled; the consensus reply was, "It went wonderfully, none of us were expecting an answer anyway."

ACTION ITEMS. 1. Circulate the transcript under the heading "Democracy Welcomes Hard Questions." 2. Issue certificates of participation to all students; comprehension is not a condition of attendance. 3. Do not amend the record. The record is the difficulty.

POSTSCRIPT. Forty-one teachers requested the audio recording. One appended a note: "Play it for them. They should hear that he was not joking." Send the summary. The summary predates the event, which has never once counted against this office. FILED AS: will of the people, imperfect; students, still taking notes; comprehension, not a condition of attendance.