Republic 8.2.10 When we dreamed of justice and freedom of Beniamino Placido
Dear Barbara, I want to tell you many things (at least two or three) I do not know where to start. Then I'll start with a fact ancient, ancient, almost one episode of childhood that could, should (would?) Cries.
During the early postwar years in Italy was a beautiful thing: the Party of Action. In Lucania Valentino uncle had founded, with other young anti-fascists. Other anti-fascists - young and old - had established throughout Italy. The Action Party was out of a worthy tradition. From the group of "Justice and Liberty", which was founded by Carlo and Nello Rosselli, two wonderful Florentine anti-fascists, that fascism had to be killed: exiled in France. The Action Party was the only political group organized to make the true anti-Fascist activities during the two decades, in addition to the PCI. Its representatives had founded not give up, when everyone gave up. Then they went, one after the other in jail and remained there for quite a while '. Ernesto Rossi, the Economist (author of abolishing poverty, the masters of steam, Settimo not steal) for thirteen years in a row.
Who made the resistance? Two political groups: the Communists and the "shareholders" (who were also called disparagingly "visipallidi" because they had the happy face and biscuits to Berlusconi). What's "shareholders" were different from the Communists? In this, they wanted justice, but also wanted to Freedom.
Benedetto Croce said it was not possible. What if you just want Justice, Equality, inevitably end up with giving up freedom. Will you make the end of Stalin's Russia. The "shareholders" were strongly hostile to Stalin's Russia. Never for a moment, gave in to the fairy-tale nonsense about Communist Russia then said the Italian Communists. And that proved false bloodily.
This makes them invisible to God and to his enemies. For the Conservatives as the orthodox Communists (with whom, however, always retained a relationship of loving, quarrelsome familiar). A party of military action in all (or most) Italian intellectuals of the time. The big ones, that you do not do names Why do not you say anything (De Ruggiero, Omodeo, Arturo Carlo Jemolo, Calamandrei Codignola) and many smaller ones. Even so, for this prestige, the Action Party had now luck, all over the country. He helped liberate the Nazis and Fascists.
think that Rionero, town of twelve thousand inhabitants, the section was founded by Valentino uncle had six hundred members. Then what happened? It happened that these intellectuals began to quarrel among themselves. Came the split, consumed in a painful, drammaticissimo conference in Rome, Italy at the Teatro (located around Piazza Bologna).
The Action Party was dissolved. His most talented representatives were distributed between i vari partiti della sinistra italiana. E vi hanno fatto le cose migliori. Cosa sarebbe stato il Partito Repubblicano italiano senza Ugo La Malfa? Cosa sarebbe stato il Partito Socialista italiano (quello di Nenni, non quello attuale di Craxi) senza Riccardo Lombardi? E questi nomi forse ancora dicono qualcosa (spero) a quelli della tua generazione.
Il Partito d´Azione si sciolse, ma non si dissolsero nel nulla i suoi componenti: anche quelli più piccoli, in ogni senso. Continuarono ad operare nella società civile, dentro e fuori i partiti, dentro e fuori le Università, dentro e fuori i sindacati. Mai rassegnandosi all´ondata di restaurazione che intanto era arrivata. La prima delle tante ondate di restaurazione che di tanto in tanto facing our country. Wave of restoration brought about by a huge unforgivable error of the Communist Party of then: presenting himself as the champion of Russia of Stalin - who had hung heavily, which continued to hang happily - the Communists made it easier to flood Democrat of April 18, 1948. Flood continues, from which we try hard to re-emerge.
Among those "shareholders" also was your daddy: small, then small, little, very little time. And he never forgot that day away. When the official news of the dissolution came. When the section of the Action Party of Rionero was closed. When those flags glorious, daring (Action Party flags were red with the coat of arms of G. and L. USTICE REEDOM) in the middle: the shareholders were called "companions") piled in the yard of her grandmother, where they had been raised lovingly by Uncle Valentine. And then they were pulped. Never forgotten. Why
died Action Party? There it was asked many times. To the question he dedicated his reflections Palmiro Togliatti. Perhaps we have an explanation. That might be of interest to the anthropologist. He died so terribly abstract. Composed of intellectuals, had the intellectual conviction that men were made of rationality alone. And then to appeal to their reason enough to convince a votare. Gli uomini (tutti gli uomini e tutte le donne: anche noi, non solo "gli altri") sono fatti anche di miti, di pulsioni profonde e inconfessabili, di ambizioni, di interessi. In una cosa invece il Partito d´Azione aveva ragione. Così come «non si fa la poesia con i sentimenti, ma con le parole» (l´ha detto Paul Valery) non si costruisce la società giusta con i sentimenti, siano pure i più nobili, ma con le articolazioni istituzionali.
Ed è questo che avrei voluto dire agli studenti dell´Università di Roma; è questo che vorrei dire a tutti coloro che stanno dentro a questo dibattito sulla nuova sinistra da costruire: a quelli del no, a quelli del sì, a quelli del forse. Lo avrei detto – tanto per cambiare – nella forma di un raccontino. Che si riferisce anch´esso – tanto per non cambiare – alla mia "infanzia" lucana. Il racconto ha una premessa. La seguente. Non è che sia venuta meno in noi la voglia di volare. Negli "azionisti" non viene mai meno. E adesso tu sai che tuo padre è un "azionista": non nel senso finanziario del termine, fortunatamente. No, la voglia di volare alto, di non strisciare per terra, di non vegetare, è sempre quella. Ma come si fa a volare? Quand´eravamo ragazzi, a Potenza, ci pensavamo sempre, talvolta ne parlavamo. Una volta, passeggiando passeggiando, ci trovammo sul ponte di Montereale, che è altissimo e maestoso. Uno di noi, che si chiamava Brucoli - and so was the dynasty of the power of ice cream, and then belonged to good society Potenza - at one point looked out from the parapet of the bridge, looked down (five meters). Then he took his stick - he could afford to go around with a nice stick liberty in his hands - and threw it. Then he asked us - that we were gazing at him in the valley below - flew my stick? It is perhaps done wrong? And then I'll fly. He threw himself down, and broke both legs.
The desire to fly - generous and legitimate - that drove the Communists classic soul today that some groups of students, resembles this. It does not lead anywhere. Only disaster, personal or collective. We then learned to fly. But respecting the laws of gravity do not infringe. But resign ourselves to be - paradoxically - heavier than air, without illusions of ever becoming lighter. But building of artificial devices and complex: highly artificial, highly complex. That does not give us the satisfaction of human flight, but we are going to air at respectable speed.
And this is not civilization, is not this progress? Civilization is an ongoing construction of prostheses, orthopedic a regular craft. To correct the inequality of departure in the sense of equality; to correct the injustices in the basic sense of justice. We can not wait for the freedom of the press come from somewhere just because someone is under the illusion that you have built, or found, or invented the 'new man. " Just because capitalism has been deleted. How they thought the communists of yesteryear. How they thought those students yesterday. This is all the more reason to press freedom: it is built - and keeps - not with the verbal exorcism at capitalism, but with a small-scale work on the revision of the laws. Taking account of resistance, inertia, interest, and so on.
Dear Barbara, I'm not sure that these men left the "maybe" are better than the "yes", and those of the "no". But I am my culture, my biography, my story, have something of the old (and never died) spirit shareholder. Always try, never give up. Not afraid to do. Without fear of being wrong.
A hug from your dad
Rome, Sunday, February 11, 1990
0 comments:
Post a Comment