An unfortunate petition - In my opinion, the most serious errors in our History, from the beginning to today, are at least twenty; but, if I had to say which was the most damaging of all, for which we are still paying the consequences, it was the loss of individual Statehood when we asked Charles Albert to merge us with the Principality of Piedmont, the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to form a single large State - always called the Kingdom of Sardinia - but which internally had nothing - or almost nothing - of Sardinian.
To obtain it, the indigenous rulers of the time expressed themselves in this way on 19 November 1847: «The General Council having met, virtually unanimously resolved that the main request to be submitted to the Lord by the aforementioned Deputation should be aimed at imploring for Sardinia the perfect fusion with the Royal States of the mainland, as a true bond of brotherhood…».
The Merger between States - For those who do not know, the "Merger" or "Perfect Merger" , according to Constitutional Law is the logical and natural evolution of a process of associative development between "equal" States. It is not, therefore, an annexation but an act of conscious will by both interested parties, with which the internal federal distinctions are annulled and the State is transformed from a composite into a unitary or simple one.
The lost state asset - If we had not asked for and obtained this unfortunate “Fusion” on November 29, 1847, today we could have been an independent and sovereign state; like, for example, the current island of Malta. Instead…
The concession - With great satisfaction (and I believe it!), King Carlo Alberto, in the annual speech from the Crown, communicated to Parliament on 8 May 1848 that «Sardinia, having rejected the fatal legacy of ancient privileges, wanted to be united with closer ties to the Mainland, and was welcomed by the other Provinces as a beloved sister».
With this unfortunate renunciation of ours we created the “Sardinian Question” that we still try to correct and overcome with democratic forms; but with little success.
The present-day reflections of the Merger –- Like all Sardinians (or almost all), I follow regional politics with interest because we depend on it, whether we like it or not. In particular, because of my profession as an academic historian, I follow the problem of the political-cultural relationship of our island with the central Government and with the peninsular part of the Nation because, without our agreement, we are colonized by them through school, the press, television and the mass media, in all areas of life, especially in that of intelligence and social behavior. And, from this dependence, born with the Merger of 1847, we must get out, if we do not want to remain eternally subjugated.
The three proposals - Unless one wants to undertake an impossible war of independence from peninsular Italy, similar to the bloody one waged by the Irish against Great Britain in the first half of the last century, the most democratic proposals for a solution to the Sardinia-Italy relationship, expressed by local politicians and intellectuals, are for now three: strengthen and expand special autonomy, insist on the concept of insularity, apply political (not economic) territorial continuity with the continent since Sardinia is the parent of the Italian State and we owe it at least this.
Achieving these libertarian demands depends on the ability and will of all of us.