My name is Luca Josi.
I am forty and have two daughters. I have two professional lives behind me with a lot of space between them but, for the last twenty-one years, I have been receiving invitations to conferences on generational exchange. This is possibly the reason why, when I talk to a foreigner and unthinkingly come out with Ôwe youngstersÕ, I risk appearing dyslexic.
While it must be recognised that the governing classes have fought for and earned the power they hold, it is also true that it is difficult for those who are older to spontaneously give up their positions to the so-called youngsters. However, I believe that, behind the physiological need for change, on my part and the part of us all, is concealed a particularly Italian habit of asking for things that we would never expect of ourselves. In other words, we ask for a generational handover but without providing any guarantee that tomorrow, when it is our turn, we will be able to behave accordingly.
This is why I have written the appeal I am asking you to read and which, inevitably, tends to use the somewhat pompous and rhetorical language common to all appeals. However, many have already signed it so I will leave the substance unchanged. Its theme is not ideological but, appropriately, generational and I am attempting to involve people with the most diverse kind of experience and orientation. It is a way of communicating to subsequent generations that it will not be us who is the problem, the blanket or the stopper impediment to their future.
This appeal is not an attempt to preclude an entire generation from all the positions of power in the world but concerns only a handful of, mainly public, holders of office. It concerns, in practice, the top ten or fifteen political positions in a country. In effect, the world of enterprise, particularly the multi-national world, has no need of such appeals since it has already adapted in this sense and knows that a generational handover is simply both a necessity and an investment.
This appeal, equally, does not expect the commitment of the generations which have preceded us, and who are already outside the limits of its remit, since it is both just and normal that their exit from the scene is a fact of nature. In many instances this can be seen as a gerontocracy which has contributed to the existence of generations, of such as our own, which has had all sense of the adventure of assuming responsibility removed and has grown up with the idea that it will still be young at forty. Unfortunately, we cannot know whether we will fall into this same trap in ten or fifteen yearÕs time but, nonetheless, we can make a commitment today Ð a significant commitment.
What I want is that you should sign the attached appeal and, in whatever case, I would like your opinion.
Thank you.
The Pact
A community lives when it shares a sentiment, a mission and when it can identify with a calling. A community, as well as the pleasure to be found in coming together, can share a form of responsibility which may well oblige it to assume a commitment to a programme for those who will come after it Ð not to decide the future of others, but to offer its own.
To feel oneself to be indispensable is a human weakness which, with the passing of years, disconcerts many and the attempt to prolong ones existence and to deny ones age is almost inevitable. We cannot know whether, in ten or twenty years time, we will fall into the same trap, but we do have the possibility, here and now, to create an instrument that will impede us carrying out for ourselves, a practice which is so profoundly negative for civil society.
We are aware that an unquestionable gerontocracy has caused generations to remove and distance any adventurous attempt at assuming responsibility and to grow in the conviction of perpetuating their protected and insufficiently prepared youthfulness Ð possibly through to the age of forty. In this way, society, like the child of overprotective parents, does not develop and delays its confrontation with reality like an adult without an adolescence.
For this reason, it might be useful to generate in our nation a new form of behaviour or approach and force a generation to wake up to reality. We must demonstrate to them that it will not be us who is the problem, the blanket or the impediment to their future.
As a result, in order to effect change, it is necessary that our and your example can transform what is a necessity into something that is a reality. If you are not the first to do this, you cannot expect that others do it for you. You cannot ask of others a commitment that you are not prepared to make yourself. Consequently, a gesture, a break with the norm, possibly even some sort of sacrifice, is required.
Therefore, who amongst us, consistent with their request for replacement and competitiveness, is prepared to underwrite today a pact that commits them, once they reach the age of 60, to leave or no longer accept a leadership role (the main positions in politics and the economy) while continuing to offer their commitment in a position of substitute leader, number two, elder, consultant or any other position that will permit society in general to exploit and not dissipate their experience?
Wars and tragedies have stolen the tomorrow of other generations. We have had much and, rather than ask for more, we are ready to give and limit ourselves to just twenty years more of a window on our prime potential. All this will serve to require those who are truly young to grow.
A community that becomes a leader can anticipate changes and anticipate a future step backwards in order that those behind can more forward. This is the kind of experience that emerging and exploring nations should live Ð where error is permitted because we learn by experimenting and testing new talents.
In this way, maybe, and without creating a stir, one day we will have a government guided by a forty year old like the USA, Great Britain or Spain. A forty year old with twenty years of responsibilities ahead.