"It must be you, with your legs, your ideas and your choices, who carry forward the values of Falcone and Borsellino." These were the words spoken by Pietro Grasso at a hugely attended event at the Giffoni festival, where he offered young people not an abstract lesson on legality, but the story of a life spent in service to the State. More than forty years in the judiciary, ten in active politics, rising to hold the important office of President of the Senate, and a commitment that continues today through the Scintille di Futuro Foundation. The explanation of the name given to the Foundation was one of the most touching moments of the event. The last time Grasso met Giovanni Falcone, the magistrate handed him a silver lighter. He recalls: "Giovanni said to me: 'I have decided to stop smoking. This lighter is precious to me. I'm not giving it to you, I'm entrusting it to you. If I decide to start again, you'll have to give it back.'"
Grasso carefully placed it in his bag. Two weeks later, Falcone was supposed to travel with him, but postponed his departure to wait for his wife Francesca Morvillo. Grasso managed instead to find a seat on a scheduled flight and returned to Palermo. The following day came the news of the Capaci massacre.
"I ran to the hospital hoping Giovanni might pull through once again. I saw Paolo Borsellino come out of the emergency room. From his face I understood there was nothing more to be done. We embraced outside the hospital. Paolo did not know that fifty-seven days later it would be his turn." From that moment on, that lighter never left his side. Yesterday too, Grasso took it in his hands and lit it. For an instant, before the young audience, a small flame appeared: the flame of legality, the spark of justice that gave his foundation its name. Grasso told the young people he was "happy to be here for this moment of dialogue. And I am happy above all to listen to you, because too often young people are not listened to by adults."
He also recalled how important this had been for Borsellino too. "After Falcone's death, although shattered by grief," he recounted, "Borsellino got up at five in the morning to answer questions from some students in Padua. This was a great lesson for me: young people need answers."
Grasso explains that it was far from easy. He recalls in particular the threats — not so much those against himself, but against the people he loved. "My son was fourteen years old and was heading out to play football when an anonymous voice on the intercom said to my wife: 'You know when children go out, but you never know when they'll come back.'"
The Maxi Trial, with its 475 defendants, became concrete proof that even what seems unachievable can be brought to completion: "Nobody believed that a trial of that scale could go all the way through. And yet we did it. It takes tenacity, commitment and sacrifice. You have to believe in what you are doing and never give up, even when results are slow to come."
There was also room for reflection on current issues in justice. Grasso reiterated that he does not share the positions of Minister Carlo Nordio on the currents within the magistracy, defining them instead as "an expression of ideal and cultural pluralism" and emphasising that it is wrong to speak of the "power of the magistracy," preferring instead to invoke the constitutional principle of its autonomy and independence. On this matter, he observed, "citizens have already expressed their views through the referendum."
In closing, the official award was presented: the Giffoni Impact Award "Il sogno di Icaro" (The Dream of Icarus), conceived by scholarship holder Francesca Tagliaferri — who personally presented it to President Grasso — from the School of the Art of the Medal (SAM) and minted by the State Mint.
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