Last week, the Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, had an unfortunate encounter with some university students at the beginning of her speech at Atreju, the Brothers of Italy meeting. The students showed up at the convention to present some complaints to the minister regarding the new filter semester, introduced after the entrance test to the Faculty of Medicine.

The many complications of the reform

According to what the students report, the tests are excessively complex compared to the time available to prepare; many doctors and teachers agree on this, because in fact here what was normally studied in a semester is condensed into a few months. In fact, the percentage of those promoted is very low, and so some positions are even left unfilled.

Not only that: there is the possibility of rejecting the grade and taking the test again, but since there is no ranking the candidates do not know whether the grade obtained, however high, can guarantee them entry. However, refusing it means not knowing if you will pass the test on the second attempt.

In addition to this, we must take into account what the filter semester represents for families, in economic terms: those who are away from home must look for accommodation, which however they do not know if they will keep for the whole year, with the obvious complications that derive from it. And what will happen to the student who doesn’t pass? Even returning to the fallback faculty is not a given, given that many are also limited in number, and 20% of the places are reserved for those who have attempted medicine.

Serious protests, met with ridicule

In short, the students who went to Atreju that day were not there to randomly disturb and waste time: they had serious complaints to make to the minister, as is their full right. Given that the minister is at the service of citizens, and in particular those in universities, we would expect him to listen respectfully to their objections and engage in dialogue. But no! The minister did nothing but make fun of the students, even insulting them.

He defined them as ‘poor communists’, even boasting of quoting the unlamented (or so it should be) Silvio Berlusconi, who was a master when it came to disrespecting citizens. These words of the minister were contested by politicians and journalists, but they did not see any consequences. The government didn’t give a damn, it doesn’t seem to have felt embarrassed – after all these things are the order of the day for them.

An unclean act but without consequences

But they are very serious words, because they debase the students’ protests by bringing them back to a thought presented as stupid, ridiculous; credit, indeed, to the late President. Being a communist in Italy is neither illegal nor immoral, yet it is used as an insult, as if it were a serious thing; being fascist, on the contrary, is not a problem. So the student who thinks critically is silenced with the accusation of being a poor indoctrinated idiot. And the minister doesn’t stop there: they are not only poor (I would also pay attention to this adjective) communists, they are also useless! That is, citizens who protest in front of the one who should work for them are useless. Thus, power dominates and then has a laugh.

The childish and ridiculous way of complaining about not being listened to is also absurd: it is the minister who must listen to the citizens and respond, not the other way around. Bernini proceeded to list all the money spent and the efforts made to improve the situation of Medicine, as if he were reproaching the citizens for having gone to all the trouble for them; The minister didn’t understand that that is his job, that the money he spent belongs to the State, and therefore to the students.

Yet this, like all news, has been on the crest of the wave for a few days, mostly arousing empty and formal reactions, and now it is disappearing from our sight and will soon disappear from our memory. And the minister will continue to vilify citizens undisturbed.