Here’s an interview with Wu Ming 1 published on STIR magazine’s website. It isn’t only about Arzèstula, WM1 answers questions on the Occupy Wall Street movement, post-apocalyptic literature etc.

[The original version of this essay was published on Giap on 26 September 2011, which means several days before Steve Jobs died. The French version was published on Article XI on the eve of Jobs' death. The piece had already received a lot of attention, backlinks and comments when the news arrived. However, it obviously sky-rocketed to the status of "crucial" text as soon as the media landscape was filled with iGrief, and it kept attracting people when anonymous cultural activists "displaced" the discussion on iGrief by creating the "Steve Workers" persona. The present English translation was done collectively on a Wiki page on Mauro Vanetti's website. Many thanks to Mauro, SandorKrasna and all the guys who gave a hand. This version retains some additional mini-explanations Wu Ming 1 wrote for the French readers. We also inserted a few additional links that weren't in the original text but came up during the discussion.]
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Last week a Pennsylvanian daily newspaper, The Morning Call, published a long and detailed inquiry – entitled Inside Amazon’s Warehouse – on the appalling work conditions at Amazon warehouses in the Lehigh Valley. The article, resulting from months of interviews and direct checks, is being spread around the world and has gotten coverage from the New York Times and other mainstream media. The picture is grim:
- extreme job insecurity, a mood of perpetual blackmailing and lack of rights;
- inhuman work routine, with a pace that can be doubled overnight (from 250 to 500 units per day, with no advance notice), at an internal temperature beyond 40 Celsius that at least in one case reached 45 °C (114 °F);
- disciplinary actions against workers who slow down the pace, or simply faint (a report of the 2nd of June mention the fainting of 15 workers due to heat);
- “exemplary” immediate sacking, with the guilty escorted outside before the eyes of co-workers.
And there is more. Read the whole piece, it is worth it. The key sentence was said by a former Amazon warehouseman: “They’re kiling people mentally and physically“.

Jeff Bezos. INSEGVENDVM AB OPERARIIS FORCONIBVS.

Judging by online comments, many people were taken by surprise, finding out for the first time that Amazon is a mega-corporation and Jeff Bezos is a boss who – as bosses customarily do – seeks profits at the expenses of any consideration for dignity, justice, and safety.
As should have been suspected, Amazon’s “miracle” (super-discounts, ultra-quick shipping, “Long Tail”, a seemingly infinite catalogue) is based on the exploitation of workforce under vexatious, dangerous, humiliating conditions. Just like the Walmart “miracle”, Sergio Marchionne’s FIAT “miracle” or any other corporate “miracle” the media have dished up to us in recent years.

What I just wrote should be obvious, but it is not. These revelations are not about a company whatsoever: they are about Amazon, a sort of Big Friendly Giant always portrayed in uncritical, praising and populistic ways —- also in Italy.
The Morning Call broke a charm. Until a few days ago, with a few exceptions, the media (and the customers themselves) took Amazon’s propaganda at face value, without the hint of a doubt. From now on, perhaps there will be more fact-checking, assertions will be properly verified, potential bluffs will be called. With the crisis getting worse and worse, the ranks of skeptics seem to increase.

The problem of multinational corporations being perceived as “less corporate”, “cooler” and ethically — almost spiritually — better than others regards especially companies that are so tightly associated with the Internet, as to be identified with the net itself. Another typical case is Apple.

iPhone, iPad, youDie

Foxconn is a corporation in whose Chinese plants many digital devices are assembled, including iPads, iPhones and iPods. Last year, a wave of suicides among Foxconn workers caused a brief sensation all over the world, before being silenced and covered up. Actually, suicides started in 2007, and the phenomenon is not over (the last confirmed suicide dates to last May; another worker allegedly killed himself in July). On the whole, about twenty employees have committed suicide. Various inquiries and reports cited as likely causes the unbearable work pace, lack of human relationships in the workplace and psychological pressure from the management.
Sometimes things went beyond psychological pressure: on July 16th, 2009, a 25-year-old employee called Sun Danyong was beaten up by a company security squad [not an exceptional situation, judging by this video] and threw himself from a roof right after. He was suspected of the loss or theft of an iPhone prototype.
What kind of solutions did Foxconn implement to prevent further tragic events? Well, they installed anti-suicide nets, for example .
[To dig deeper into this subject, I recommend SACOM's report Workers as Machines: Military Management at Foxconn,  the links collected in the Wikipedia page and the video Deconstructing Foxconn].[1]

Such behind-the-scenes of the Apple world do not receive much attention, compared to news on Steve Jobs’ health, or pseudo-events like the opening on via Rizzoli, downtown Bologna, of the biggest Apple Store in Italy. In that circumstance, many people spent the night in front of the store, in order to be admitted among the first into the Temple. Those people ignore the entanglement of work and death lying upstream of the brand they worship. Putting the largest possible distance between upstream and downstream is the quintessential ideological operation under capitalism.

Fetishism, Subjugation, Liberation

Whenever we talk about the Internet, the “mythological machine” in our discourses — powered by the ideology that we breathe every day, whether we like it or not — reproduces a myth: the idea of technology as an autonomous force, a subject with its own spirit, a reality that evolves on its own, spontaneously and teleologically. Somebody even had the great idea of nominating the internet (which, just like any other infrastructure and network, can be used for every purpose, including war) for the Nobel Prize for Peace.
This rhetoric conceals class, property, and production relations: we can only see their fetishes. Here’s why the pages Karl Marx devoted to commodity fetishism are still useful (my italics):

«There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things.»

“Fantastic form of a relation between things”. Like the computers interconnected to form the web. Behind the phantasmagory of the Internet lies a set of definite social relations, and Marx means production relations, exploitation relations.
The net rhetoric hides these relations. It is indeed possible to talk about the Internet for hours, days, months, touching only marginally the issue of who owns it, who is really in control of the nodes, the infrastructure, the hardware. The pyramid of labour — including slave-like labour — incorporated into the devices we use (computers, smartphones, ereaders etc.) and as a consequence into the Internet itself, is even less discussed.
Eveyday, corporations expropriate social wealth on the net, and oppress the working class at each corner of the Earth behind the scenes. Nevertheless, they are considered less “corporate” than others.
Until we realize that Apple is like Monsanto, that Google is like Novartis, that praising a corporation is the most toxic narrative we can choose, whether we are dealing with Google, Fiat, Facebook, Disney or Nestlé—-until we realize all this, we will stay in the net like fish.

[Let me put things clear: I do have a Mac, and I work well with it. I also own an iPod, a smartphone with Android, and a Kindle. My job requires me to know and investigate the ways in which culture is shared and the net is used. As I will explain later, this essay does not focus on the behaviour of the individual consumer -- on which a diverting rhetoric has been built in the latest years -- nor it implies any accusation of moral "incoherence" against him or her. What I am discussing here is the necessity of connecting online activism to the struggles that are taking place upstream, during the material production phase.]

Because of net-fetishism, the spotlight is always on the practices of liberation pervading the Internet — ie the kind of practices we Wu Ming have put time and effort into for twenty years —, which are customarily described as the rule. In this way, people dismiss as exceptions all the practices of subjugation , eg using the net to exploit or underpay intellectual work, to control and arrest people (see what happened after the recent UK riots), to impose new idols and fetishes, to spread the dominant ideology, to enforce the same financial capitalism that’s destroying us.
On the net, the practices of subjugation are the rule as much as the others. In fact, if we want to nitpick, we should consider them the rule more than the others, if we take into account the genesis of the internet, which evolved from ARPAnet, a military computer network.

The question is not whether the net produces liberation or subjugation: since its creation, it has always been producing both things. That’s the net’s dialectics, one aspect is always together with the other, because the net is the form capitalism has taken nowadays, and capitalism itself is the contradiction in process. Capitalism developed itself by setting individuals free from the old feudal bonds, and at the same time by imposing new kinds of subjugation (to the controlled time of the factory, to the production of surplus value etc.) Under capitalism, everything works like this: consumption sets free and enslaves, it brings about liberation that is also new subjugation, and the cycle starts over on a higher level.

Heron's Aeolipile

Therefore, the struggle should consist in fostering practices of liberation to be played against the practices of subjugation. This can be done only if we stop considering technology as an autonomous force and realize that it is moulded and driven by property relations, power relations, and production relations.
If technology could develop outside of these relations, thanks only to its being innovative, the steam engine would have been adopted in the 1st century AD, when Heron of Alexandria invented the aeolipile—-but the antique mode of production did not need machines, since all the necessary workforce was provided by slaves, and nobody could or wanted to imagine any concrete development of that invention.

By fetishising technology as an autonomous force, we remain trapped within the old conceptual frame “Apocalyptic vs. Integrated”. If you make the slightest critical remark about the net, the “Integrated” will mistake you for an “Apocalyptic”, and will accuse you of incoherence and/or obscurantism. The former accusation resounds in such phrases as: ‘Aren’t you using a computer right now?’, ‘Don’t you buy books on Amazon too?’, ‘You own a smartphone too!’, and so on. The latter is expressed in the form of such useless preaches as: ‘Try to picture a world without the Internet…’
On the other hand, any argument about the positive aspects of the net will be welcomed by the “Apocalyptic” as a piece of servile, “Integrated” propaganda.
Let us always remember Heron of Alexandria. His story teaches us that, whenever we talk about technology (and about the Internet in particular), we are actually talking about something else, ie social relations.

Let us ask again then: who are the bosses of the net? And who are the exploited of the Net, and by the Net?
It is not that difficult to find out: it suffices to read the “Terms of service” of the social media you’re using, read the licenses of the software you keep on your computer, digit “Net Neutrality” on a search engine—-and, dulcis in fundo, keep in mind stories like those of Amazon’s warehouses and Foxconn’s factories.
Only in this way, I believe, we will avoid such bullshit as the “Internet for peace” campaign or the horrible, “softly” totalitarian scenario prefigured in Casaleggio & Associati‘s infamous video Gaia: The Future of Politics.

Let us not deceive ourselves: only violent conflicts will decide whether the evolution of the net will impose the supremacy of the practices of liberation over those of subjugation, or the other way around.

All the (shitty) work embodied in a tablet

Steve Jobs with an iPad

Recently, those who consider Marx’s labour theory of value to be outdated in contemporary capitalism, have been referring to the iPad as an example: the physical work performed by factory workers to assemble a tablet, they explain, is not a big deal, and the tablet’s value depends mainly on the software and apps running on it, therefore on the mental, cognitive work of invention and development. Such work is elusive, unmeasurable in terms hours of work.

This is supposed to question Marx’s idea that — to put it very roughly — the value of a commodity is given by the amount of labour it embodies, or, more accurately, by the work time that is socially necessary to produce it. (By “socially necessary time” Marx means the average time used by the producers of a particular commodity at a given stage of capitalist development).

I’m not a expert of political economy, but they look like two co-existent levels to me. Maybe the labour theory of value is liquidated too hurriedly. I believe that the core of its meaning (its “philosophical” and very concrete kernel) persists even through changing conditions.

Nowadays, work is much more socialised than at Marx’s times and the productive process is far more complex (and capitalism is more conditioned by external, environmental constraints). And yet, those who give this example shorten the cycle and single out the act of assembling an individual iPad. It sounds like a serious methodological mistake to me.
We should take into account the mass of work along the whole productive cycle of an entire batch of tablets (or laptop computers, smartphones, e-readers, whatever). As Tuco correctly said in the discussion thread in which this essay started to take shape:

«One of the essential points is that the whole contraption could never be set to motion to produce one hundred iPads. You’ve got to make one hundred million at least. At first glance it could look like the intellectual work needed to develop the iPad software generates value by itself, irrespective of the rest of the productive cycle. But this would imply that the value generated by this intellectual work is independent from the number of iPads being produced. Actually it’s not like that. Were it not part of a cycle that involves the production with Fordist methods of a hundred million iPads, this intellectual work would generate virtually no value at all.»

Once this point is clarified, in considering how much labour gets embodied in a tablet one can:

1. Start from the retrieval of raw materials like lithium. Without lithium there would be no rechargeable batteries in our gadgets. It does not exist in nature in a “pure” form, and the process to derive it is costly and impacts on the environment. (By the way, 70% of the world reserves of lithium is at the bottom of Bolivian salt lakes, and the Bolivian government has no intention to sell it off. Apart from geopolitical issues, even earthquakes contribute to the mess. This primary stage of the cycle is bound to get more complicated and require more and more labour);

2. Take into account the work (and the harm suffered) by those who work in the petrochemical industry producing the necessary polymers;

3. Take into account the work lacking any safeguard of the toilers assembling the devices (we’ve mentioned above the work conditions at Foxconn);

4. Finally, take into account the (undignified, noxious, almost inhuman) work of those who “dispose” of the laptop’s or tablet’s carcass in some African dump. Being these rapidly obsolescent commodities, and particularly, commodities whose obsolescence is planned, this work is already embodied in them since the beginning of the cycle.

Taking all this into consideration, we will notice that a batch of iPads does indeed embody a large amount of labour (shitty, exploited, underpaid, toxic toil), and a large quantity of working time. Without a doubt, the latter is socially necessary working time: nowadays this is the only way iPads are produced.
Without this work, the applied general intellect that creates and updates software just could not exist. Therefore, it could not produce any value. It takes a tree to make a table, and it takes a factory worker to make a tablet —-and a miner before him, etc. Without factory workers and their labour, no valorisation of digital commodities, no Apple stock quote would be possible. Shareholders and investors trust Apple because it develops, enhances, and sells hardware and gadgets, and sometimes hits big by placing a new cool “jewel” on the market—-and who makes the jewel?

Whether a precise counting in terms of working hours is still possible, I cannot tell. Let me repeat myself: I am not a political economist. What I do know is that when we trash a perfectly working cell phone because a new model can do more things, we’re trashing a good portion of life and toil of a large mass of workers, who are often underpaid and booted in their butt into the bargain.

Collective Intelligence, Invisible Work and Social Media

What I am trying to explain has already been tackled by Marx in the Unpublished Sixth Chapter of the Capital. The excerpt is particularly dense, since it was never edited for publication (my italics and underlining):

«The social productive powers of labour, or the productive powers of directly social, socialised (common) labour, are developed through cooperation, through the division of labour within the workshop, the employment of machinery, and in general through the transformation of the production process into a conscious application of the natural sciences, mechanics, chemistry, etc., for particular purposes, technology, etc., as well as by working on a large scale, which corresponds to all these advances [...]. This development of the productive power of socialised labour, as opposed to the more or less isolated labour of the individual, etc., and, alongside it, the application of science, that general product of social development, to the direct production process, has the appearance of a productive power of capital, not of labour, or it only appears as a productive power of labour in so far as the latter is identical with capital, and in any case it does not appear as the productive power either of the individual worker or of the workers combined together in the production process.
The mystification which lies in the capital-relation in general is now much more developed than it was, or could be, in the case of the merely formal subsumption of labour under capital.»

In a nutshell, Marx is saying that:

1) the collective, cooperative nature of labour is really subdued (the term is sometimes translated as “subsumed”) under capital—-which means that it’s a specific collective nature that did not exist before capitalism.
The “real submission” of labour under capital is set by Marx against the “formal subsumption”, which was typical of the dawn of capitalism, when the capital used to subdue pre-existent kinds of labour: hand weaving, the processes of agricultural labour, etc.
“Real submission” (or “subsumption”) means that the capital turns into productive force a social cooperation that did not pre-exist it, because workers, salaried labour, machines and new ways of transportation and distribution did not exist before capitalism;

2) the more advanced the productive process (thanks to the application of science and technology), the more mystified the representation of productive cooperation.

Let us look now for some current examples of this formulation: the production of sense and relations on the internet is not considered as productive force of cooperating workers; nor does the dominant ideology allow to recognize the work of a single person. All this production is fraudulently, mythologically attributed to the capital itself, to “entrepreneurial spirit”, to the supposed genius of the capitalist, etc. For instance, it is often said that Facebook exists thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s “insight” blah blah blah.

Such production of sense is often considered, as Marx says, “productive power of labour in so far as [it] is identical with capital”. Let’s translate and apply this principle: the exploitation is hidden behind the appearance of an autonomous, non-subordinate work that relies on independent entrepreneurship and free agreements — even if a significant chunk of web content is produced by the subordinate piecework of several “ghostwriters”, hired by such companies as Odesk.com.

Does what Marx called the “Gemeinwesen” – ie the tendency of human beings to cooperate and be part of a community – really exist? Yes, indeed. It is always risky to use such terms, but if there is an “anthropological universal”, it is definitely that. “Companionable animal” (“Compagnevole animale“) is how Dante translates Aristotle’s “zoon politikon” (“Ζῷον πολιτικὸν“)—-and neurosciences are proving that we are wired for the “Gemeinwesen” (the discovery of mirror neurons, etc.).
No mode of production has “subsumed” and “made productive” the human tendency to cooperation with the same strength of capitalism.
The best example of this subdued cooperation — and at the same time of an invisible work that is nor perceived as such — is offered by social media.

Mark Zuckerberg. INSEGVENDVM DEINDE COSPARGENDVM CATRAME PLVMISQUE.

I am going to use Facebook as an example. This does not imply that other social media are “less evil”. The reason I’m focusing on Facebook lies in its being the largest, the most yielding and (as illustrated by the latest wave of new options and add-ons) the most enveloping, persuading, and expansionist social networking site on the web. It looks like Facebook wants to engulf the whole net to replace it. It is the social networking site par excellence, and therefore it offers us the clearest example.

Are you one of the 700-and-something million Facebook users? Well, it means that you produce contents for the network every day: any kind of contents, including emotions and relations. You are part of Facebook’s general intellect. To put it short, Facebook exists and works thanks to all the people like you. What is Facebook if not a mass of collective intelligence that is not produced by Zuckerberg & Company, but by users?

In fact, you actually work on Facebook. You do not notice it, but you’re working. You work and do not earn—-others are making money with your work.

What turns out to be useful here is the Marxian concept of “surplus labour”. It is not an abstruse concept: it is the part of work that, albeit producing value, is not converted into salary but in profit for the capitalist, since the latter owns the means of production.
If there is profit, it means that there has been surplus labour. Otherwise, if all the labour were paid according to the value it creates—-well, that would be communism, a society with no classes. It is obvious that the capitalist must pay the workers less than the sum he earns with the sale of commodities. This is what “profit” means—-it means paying workers less than the actual value of their labour.
For several reasons, the capitalist may not be able to sell those commodities and make profits. But this does not mean that the workers have not provided surplus labour. The whole capitalist society is based on surplus value and surplus labour.

Your whole work is surplus work on Facebook, because you are not paid. Everyday Zuckerberg sells your surplus work—-that is to say, he sells your life (your sensitive data, your navigation patterns, etc.) and your relations. He makes several million dollars each day, because he is the owner of the mean of production, and you are not.
Information is a commodity. Knowledge is a commodity. In fact, it is the quintessential commodity in Post-Fordism (or whatever you want to call it). It is a productive force and a commodity at the same time, just like workforce. The Facebook community produces pieces of information (on individual tastes, consumption habits, market trends) that are wrapped up in form of statistics and sold to others and/or used for customising ads and any other kind of offer.
Moreover, as a representation of the most extended network of relations on the planet, Facebook itself is a commodity. The company is able to sell information only if, at the same time and incessantly, it keeps selling that particular representation of itself. That representation too is generated by users, but Zuckerberg is the one who pockets the cheque.

Of course, the kind of “work” described above is not comparable for toil and exploitation to the labour mentioned in the early paragraphs. In addition, Facebook users do not form a social class. The point is that we must always consider both the toil at the base of hardware production and the continuous, predatory embezzlement of collective intelligence taking place on the internet. As I wrote above, they are two “co-existent levels”. The production of value depends on both activities, and they should be pictured and analysed together.

There is no “Outside” vs. “Inside”

At this point, should somebody ask me, “Do I have to stay outside social media?”, or “Can I solve the problem by using only free software?”, or even “Should I avoid this or that device?”, I would reply that the question is ill-framed.
Of course, it is a good and right idea to create different, grassroots social media running on free software and not based upon the trade of sensitive data and relations—-but so is also holding a critical, informative presence where the majority of people live and communicate, perhaps trying to devise conflictual ways of using the existing networks.
We’ve suffered for too long the hegemony of an apparatus that “individualises” revolts and struggles, focusing mainly on what is or can be done by the single consumer (a subject who is continuously reproduced by specific social technologies): boycott, critical consumption, radical personal choices, and so on.
Personal choices are important, but:

1. Too often this way of thinking brings to a competiton on who is “purer” and more “coherent”. There will always be someone boasting choices that are more radical than mine: the vegan bashes the vegetarian, the raw fruitarian bashes the vegan, etc. Each one claims to be “further outside”, more “independent” from capital —-a picture that is completely delusional;

2. The consumer is the last ring of the distribution chain, and his or her choices are made at the estuary, not at the source. Perhaps we should recommend more often the reading of a “lesser” text by Marx, the Critique of the Gotha Program, in which he criticised the “vulgar socialism” focused on distribution instead of production.

I have being trying for a while to explain that, in my opinion, spacial metaphors (such as “Inside” and “Outside”) are inadequate, because if the question is, “Where is the outside?”, the answer — or lack thereof — cannot but be paralysing, since the question itself is already paralysing.
It could be more useful to employ, and reason in terms of, temporal images. Focus on time, not space.

It is a question of understanding how much time of life – how many times and how many lives – is stolen by the Capital (stolen stealthily, given that such theft is represented as “the nature of things”), becoming aware of the various forms of exploitation, and therefore struggling inside the relations of production and power by contesting the proprietary structure and the “naturalization” of expropriation, in order to slow down the pace, break off the exploitation, and regain pieces of life.

There is nothing new in what I’m saying: once it was customarily called “class struggle”. In a nutshell: the worker’s and the employer’s interests are different and irreconcilable. Any ideology (whether corporatist, nationalistic, or racist) concealing this difference must be fought against.
Think of the dawn of the labour movement. Proletarians work 12 to 14 hours per day in brutish conditions, and the same conditions are shared by children who hardly see the sun’s light. What will they do? They will struggle. They will struggle until they wring eight-hour working days, pay for the overtime, health assistance, right of organization and strike, laws against child labour… They’ll take back part of their time and claim their dignity, until these achievements will be questioned again and a new struggle will be needed.

To realize that our relation with things is neither neutral nor innocent, to find ideology therein, to acknowledge commodity fetishism—-these are all achievements in themselves: we may still be injured and insulted, but at least we are not “injured, insulted, and loving it“. The injury is still there, but not the mockery of believing to be free within frameworks whereas we’re actually exploited. We should always find the dispositifs that subjugate us, and describe them while finding ways to put them in crisis.
The digital devices we use incorporate exploitation—-let us realise it. The Internet stands upon gigantic pillars of invisible labour—-let’s show it, and let’s show the struggles and the strikes. Although still little debated in the Western world, there are indeed strikes in China, and there will be more and more.
Whenever a loser becomes a tycoon, we should go and check how many heads he stepped on to get where he is, what work he exploited, how much surplus work he did not reward.
When I talk about “defetishising the Net”, I mean the acquisition of this awareness, which is the requirement to stay “inside and against”, inside in a conflictual way.
If we stay “inside and against” the Net, we may find the way to enter into an alliance with those who are exploited upstream. A worldwide alliance between “digital activists”, cognitive workers, and electronic-industry workers would be the most frightening thing for the bosses of the Internet.
The forms of this alliance, of course, are all to be discovered.

Wu Ming 1

Steve Workers. Image by We Are Müesli

Think different: billionaires are not on your side.
Stay foolish: fight capitalism.
Stay hungry: eat the rich.
- Steve Workers, 2011

For those who speak or at least can read French, «Fétichisme de la marchandise digitale et exploitation cachée: Les cas Amazon et Apple» is the translation (*) of an essay Wu Ming 1 wrote and published – with great resonance – on our Italian blog Giap a few days ago. It is also being translated into English and Spanish. We’ll make those versions available as soon as they’re ready. If you like a good work in progress, the English translation is being made by a group of people using this Wiki.

N.B. If you take a look at the Italian article, you’ll see that it also relies upon a few embedded videos. They’re respectively about:
1. Workers’ suicides at Foxconn plants in China;
2. The really depressing inauguration of the biggest Apple store in Italy;
3. An example of how people live and work in an African e-waste dump (this one is in Ghana);
4. Andrea Casaleggio’s Gaia-inspired totalitarian vision of the future
[Casaleggio is the ideologist and marketing guru of the neo-poujadiste, neither-left-nor-right, digital-fetishist movement headed by former comedian Beppe Grillo].

BTW, be patient, we’re going to relaunch this neglected blog as soon as possible!

* French translation by Serge Quadruppani.

[Quite obviously, we also wrote about literature and narrative fiction, and in any case, even when we discuss seemingly unrelated matters, at the end of the day we do it as writers, that's always our approach, the way we cast glances upon the world. Ours is always a narrative stance. We're writers, and our latest book (an anthology of short stories called Anatra all'arancia meccanica, which means "Clockwork Duck à l'Orange" or "Clockwork Orange Duck") was published at the end of February 2011 and had among the best reviews we've ever gotten.]

We tried to raise all thosee issues and reflect upon them drawing on the works of philosophers, cognitive scientists… and combat poets. You probably had a grasp of of our lines of reasoning if you listened to our North Carolina conferences. We tried to make use of such concepts as Alain Badiou‘s “Event”, the Invisible Committee‘s “Resonance”, Slavoj Zizek‘s “Interpassivity” (which we used to describe the dangers of clicktivism/slacktivism), Jacques Lacan‘s “Jouissance” and the “Discourse of the capitalist”, Deleuze & Guattari‘s “Haecceity” (as “revamped” by Jacques Rancière in his writings on literature) and so on. WM1 even wrote a piece on the “parallel lives” of Michel Foucault and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Meanwhile, we’ve been doing a lot of experiments on Twitter. We’ve been heavily tinkering with that device, eg we co-launched an impromptu campaign of “hashtag hijacking” in order to help the No TAV movement. We also used the social networking site to commemorate the anti-fascist Resistance in unconventional ways etc.
Even the mainstream media (provided that such an expression retains any of its meaning) recently devoted some attention to our activities in that realm.

Please notice that we’ve been doing all this while touring Italy for talks, conferences and presentations, working together on the new novel on the French Revolution (which will become our main task for the next two years) and following “solo” projects: WM1 and WM4 are writing two different books which have to do with Africa, WM5 is recording a new album with his classic Oi! band Nabat, and WM4 has been doing his research on how JRR Tolkien was appropriated by Italian far-rightists… Oh, and WM1 has been translating some of Stephen King‘s portentous output.

Luckily enough, we’re four people.

Now, how many blog posts in English have we published while keeping ourselves hellishly busy like that?
The answer is zero. Clearly, we haven’t had the time to translate anything. It took the UK riots to give us the necessary kick in the butt.

We’ve neglected this blog, but we have all the intention to restyle it and relaunch it in September/October, with new features, different categories, more integration with social networking sites etc.
This blog will never be par to Giap, we have no illusions about that. It will always be something we do on the side. Italian is our mother tongue (we write our novels in that language), and Italy (this sorry, plagued place where most people look shell-shocked) is our main field of intervention. However, we want to give our English speaking readers something better than some sporadic, half-assed update.
Please don’t lose your patience on us.

And now some little pieces of news:

Shaun Whiteside – who already translated Q, 54 and Manituana – is currently translating our novel Altai.

Altai is also being translated into Greek and Japanese.

Q is being translated into Japanese too.

WM4′s solo novel Stella del mattino is being translated into French and Spanish.

A short-story by WM1 entitled Arzèstula will be featured in I’m with the Bears, an anthology of stories on global warming and the environmental crisis edited by Mark Martin, which Verso will publish sometime soon.

People's History poster by Tim Simons - Taken from www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily

Here’s both the audio recording and text (PDF) of the double talk WM1 and WM2 gave at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, on April 5, 2011.
On the previous day we’d given the same talk at Duke University, Durham, NC. The UNC version is slightly different, because it took into account things emerged in the Duke Q & A.
We wish to thank, among many, Mimmo Cangiano, Roberto Dainotto and Federico Luisetti, who invited us and organised the whole thing; Laura Moure Cecchini, who put us up in her flat; the comrades of El Kilombo Intergalactico, for an eye-opening afternoon of “counter-tourism”; Michael Hardt, for being always the gentleman; Fredric Jameson, for supporting the initiative; Michal Osterweil, with whom we share precious memories of the penultimate uprising.

[Click on the small Playtagger icon to listen without leaving this page. Click on the text link to listen on a new page. Right click and save (or ctrl + click and save) to download the mp3s.]

WU MING 1 – WE’RE ALL FEBRUARY OF 1917 (47’31″)
An article by Hardt & Negri in The Guardian – Are the North-African uprisings revolutions? – Are 20th century references really that useless? – Looking for a “healthily schizophrenic” narrative of the revolution – Picture yourself in a trench by a river – How the Italian working class instantly grasped the anti-war nature of the 1917 February Revolution – What did the revolution look like in their eyes? – Forked tongues and resonances – Jacques Rancière on In the shadow of young girls in flower – What is “haecceity”? And can a sense of haecceity be conveyed through a narrative? – Enter Vladimir Mayakovsky – Lev Trotsky on Mayakovsky – The 150 Million – Conclusions.
PDF HERE

WU MING 2 – HOW TO TELL A REVOLUTION FROM EVERYTHING ELSE (44’21″)
The “colored revolutions” – 1989 – What is a “toxic” narrative of the revolution? – Retrospective illusion of fatality – The first regime to fall down was our regime of discourse on the Arab world – Orientalism and revolution: T.E. Lawrence – Looking for the “Original Sin” – Chronological myopia – The Synecdoche Effect – A timeline in the Guardian website – The meme of the “Twitter Revolution” – Partial intentionality and the Ceausescu Effect -  “Divide and conquer” stories – The Main Event and the Wind-Down – The Result and post-coital tiredness – Conclusions.
PDF HERE

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (19’52″)

N.B. As yet, the two texts have no footnotes. They were written for public reading, and have a a semi-oral nature. When one speaks, s/he’d better not give exact bibliographical details, page numbers, the name of every translator etc. We’ll provide an appendix ASAP, with all the correct references.

This could be both stupid and interesting to someone (but we don’t know whom). It’s just an idea we had while translating the two talks we’ll give in North Carolina on April 4-5. These are the first five minutes (out of about 45) of each talk. They’re read by a certain “Alex”, ie the male voice of a text-to-speech software we happen to be tinkering with these days.

WM2 – How to tell a revolution from something else

WM1 – We are all February of 1917

Duke University, Durham, NC
Monday, April 4
5:00 pm
Franklin Humanities Institute Garage, Smith Warehouse
This event is also sponsored by the Franklin Humanities Institute, the Program in Literature, the Marxism and Society Program, and the UNC Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Tuesday, April 5
11:00 am
UNC Global Education Center, room 3024

Wu Ming 2 will give a talk on how to recognize a revolution and take part to the collective telling of its story, ie how to understand that the story you’re listening to is a narrative of revolution, not a narrative of some other non-revolutionary kind of event (eg a coup d’état or a riot), and how to avoid traps that would turn that narrative into what we call a “toxic story”. WM2 will list such traps, which we call: Original Sin, Chronologic Myopia, Reductionism or Synecdoche Effect, Partial Intentionality, Domesticated Violation, Retrospective Illusion of Fatalism, Genre Forcing, Deductive Illogic, and Narrative Accumulation. Of course, many examples will be taken from international reporting on the recent North-African and Middle-East uprisings.

Wu Ming 1 will also give a talk on how to recognize a revolution, but he will focus specifically on how the Italian working class immediately understood – without any precise information and against all rational judgment or expectation – the anti-war character of the  first Russian Revolution of 1917 (the “February Revolution”). Using the concept of “haecceity” as Deleuze & Guattari re-formulated it and in the way Jacques Rancière adopted it (well, more or less…), WM1 will do a comparative reading of Italian popular narratives of the Revolution (Springtime 1917), an excerpt from Marcel Proust‘s In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919) and some Vladimir Mayakovsky poems such as The 150 Million (1920) and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1924).

We’ve been neglecting this blog for too long (over a month has passed since the last post). It’s just that our main blog, Giap, requires a lot of work and takes pretty much all the time we’re able to devote to work on the web. Moreover, we’re writing the new collective novel on the French Revolution (with an eye on what’s happening in North Africa); Wu Ming 1 is translating this book here (1,000 pages to be delivered on September 15th!) and doing research for a project on Africa, mountaneering and fascism; Wu Ming 2 and Wu Ming 4 are teaching a course at the University of Pesaro; Wu Ming 5 is on national tour with his Oi! band Nabat (click on the name to see them performing live). And we’ve got little children to boot! In plain words, we’re juggling our way through life while riding a metaphorical bicycle like the one you can see in the pic, and translating stuff from Italian is out of question these days. This is unfortunate, for we’ve written a lot of pieces which, once slightly readapted, could be of some interest to non-Italians.
The difficulties we’re experiencing with all these projects are even preventing us from doing the usual book tour to promote our latest book, Anatra all’arancia meccanica [Clockwork Orange Duck], a collection of the short stories we wrote from 2000 to 2010. We’re very fond of this book, it’s a look back upon ten years of activities, but if we hit the road now, we wouldn’t be able to write :-(

The fact that the last post, back in February, was in Spanish might have puzzled some Anglophones. It’s easy to explain: we decided to alternate posts in English and Spanish (when we’ve got good material, of course), because English and Spanish are respectively the 2nd and 3rd most spoken language among people who visit our blog(s) and follow us on Twitter.

Before communicating some news to you, let us brief you on the Veneto #rogodibri (book burning) affair, which we wrote about in January and February. It is now clear that we (we the writers and readers) have won the first round. Let’s summarise the whole thing.

HOW WE STOPPED TWO RIGHT-WING CENSORSHIP PROJECTS

It seems likely that the first attempts at removing Roberto Saviano‘s books from some Veneto public libraries took place immediately after Saviano exposed ongoing “conversations” [he used the verb "interloquire"] between Calabrian organised crime and the xenophobic party Northern League. Saviano did it during a hugely popular prime-time program on national TV, on November 15th, 2010. In Preganziol, province of Treviso, the local librarian revealed that the town’s Assessore for Culture (a member of the Northern League) asked her and her colleagues to make Saviano’s books disappear from the shelves.

This happened “unofficially”, in the shade, but other attempts were about to take place in broad daylight: in the third week of January, two important public officials at the level of both the Province of Venice and the Veneto Regional Administration, asked librarians and public schools to remove all books by authors who had signed a petition against the extradition from France of Italian ultra-leftist fugitive Cesare Battisti.

Both these public officials, Raffaele Speranzon (Assessore for Culture of Venice’s provincial administration) and Elena Donazzan (Assessore for Education of Veneto’s regional administration) are former members of the Movimento Sociale Italiano, the neo-fascist party that was active in Italy from 1946 to 1993. Now they are both members of Berlusconi’s party, the Popolo della Libertà.

Quite obviously, no law allows blacklisting or holding disobedient librarians responsible for ignoring a blacklist. In fact, this proposal blatantly violated the Constitution, but this happens frequently. Oftentimes Italy’s Supreme Court [la Corte Costituzionale] abolished acts and decrees by Berlusconi’s government, because they were against the Constitution. The problem is that, between the initiative and its being acknowledged as illegal, there is a period in which people may feel intimidated.

N.B. The “Battisti affair” is a weapon of mass distraction used by the Right whenever they need a scapegoat for their failures. Each time Berlusconi is in trouble, these people try to shift the public’s attention on completely unrelated issues. Recently, Brazil refused to extradite Battisti to Italy, and our government took the opportunity to try to raise a wave of nationalism and mass hysteria: How dare those samba dancers say that Battisti would risk death in an Italian prison? How dare they imply that we are blood-thirsty torturers? The recent attempt at banning authors and intellectuals who don’t share the government’s “opinion” on the Battisti affair should be read in this context, the context of Berlusconism’s state of crisis.

Speranzon’s list features about fifty writers. The body of literary works involved amounts to several hundreds of books. Some of them are important works, because among these writers there are several famous authors, whose books are translated in dozens of countries, like Nanni Balestrini, Massimo Carlotto, Valerio Evangelisti and, er, us.

We took part in forming a huge committee of writers called “Scrittori contro il rogo” [Writers Against Book-Burning]. All of us wrote articles and gave interviews to all the media channels we had access to. We effectively blocked censorship by asking the public to mobilize as they pleased, avoiding the most usual and tiresome rituals of “clicktivism” if possible: no lazy on-line petitions, no ephemeral Facebook groups. We were immediately taken by surprise by the people’s imaginative tactics and the multifariousness of their activism: flash-mobs in front of Speranzon’s office, countless parodies and pieces of satire on the web, ad hoc solidarity widgets devised for blogs and social networks, citizens visiting libraries and donating copies of the “banned” books, performers disguised as firemen out of Fahrenheit 451 appearing all of a sudden at trade-union marches, demonstrations of all kinds in Venice and Preganziol. All together, we managed to make it a matter of democratic emergency in Veneto, and it ended up on the national TV newscasts (ie the TV newscasts that aren’t controlled by Berlusconi), until Speranzon and Donazzan had to withdraw their proposals.

Please be aware that we’re talking about a country whose prime minister is the owner of three national TV channels (Rete 4, Canale 5 and Italia 1) and can control a huge portion of the information broadcast by the public TV (RAI). Moreover, he’s also the owner of the biggest publishing group in the country, of an important national daily paper and of one of the most read gossipy weekly mags. They’re all weapons that he constantly uses to stay in power. Censorship-the-Italian way means that most crucial pieces of information can be found / read / heard only on the Internet or on the newspapers that Berlusconi doesn’t control.

Italian society is living an extremely difficult situation. Racism, xenophobia and authoritarianism are everyday currency over here. Any attempt at restricting civil liberties may be yet another push forward, towards a dangerous, maybe irreversibile situation. We have to fight every move, every bill, every seemingly foolish proposal.

And now the pieces of news:

SPRINGTIME

Tania Palmieri and Clare Solomon edited a book on student uprisings in Europe. It is entitled Springtime: The New Student Rebellions. The publisher is Verso. It includes a detailed genealogy of the “Book Bloc”, which we wrote about a few months ago.

WU MING 1 AND WU MING 2 AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

In the early days of April 2011, two of us will be in North Carolina. We’ll give two somewhat erratic talks in Durham and Chapel Hill on “how to tell (about) a revolution” and “how to tell a revolution from (something else)”. In fact, the title of the whole thing may sound a little weird to native English speakers: “How to Tell (about) a Revolution (from)”. All this from a novelist’s point of view, it goes without saying. We enjoy reading philosophy, but we aren’t philosophers ourselves. [And yet, it is likely that the notes we're taking while preparing the talks will become an essay included in an anthology on Jacques Rancière. How bizarre.]
On monday, April 4, we’ll be hosted by Duke University’s Department of Romance Studies. We’ll give the talk(s)  at 5:00 pm @ Franklin Humanities Institute Garage, Smith Warehouse. The event is also sponsored by the Franklin Humanities Institute, the Program in Literature, the Marxism and Society Program, and the UNC Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.
The next day, we’ll be at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Details will follow.

ALTAI

Most likely our novel Altai, which was published in Italy at the end of 2009, will be published in English by Verso in the springtime of 2012.

A Khaled Said y a todos los insurrectos en Nordáfrica y en Oriente Medio
..

[WM1:] Intentaré poner al día a nuestros lectores acerca de lo que ha sucedido en la última semana en el frente del “rogo de libri” [quema de libros] véneto, y sobre como esta movilización se ha cruzado con otras luchas, en particular, la huelga general de los trabajadores de la industria metalmecánica.
Respecto a la batalla que llevamos adelante desde hace ya dos semanas, hay algo que podemos decir ahora mismo: hemos ganado el primer asalto. Pero procedamos con orden.

BOLONIA, INTERVENCIÓN DE LOS ESCRITORES EN LA MARCHA DE LA FIOM [Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici]

La maratón de dos días empieza en Piazza del Nettuno, Bolonia, la mañana del 26 de enero. Algunos escritores que viven en la ciudad (Stefano Tassinari, Marcello Fois, nosotros los WM y Massimo Vaggi, que también es un estimado abogado laboral) hacen una rueda de prensa junto a los dirigentes de la FIOM de la ciudad y regional. En Emilia-Romaña, por motivos que aquí sería superfluo explicar, la huelga general se realizará el 27 en vez del 28 como en el resto de Italia. A los medios de información locales les explicamos las razones de nuestro apoyo a la lucha de los obreros y el sentido de nuestra presencia en la marcha del día siguiente; les damos las gracias a los obreros de Pomigliano y Mirafiori por habernos dado a todos una gran lección de dignidad; decimos que todas las luchas son la misma lucha; contamos como la crisis ha golpeado duro también en el mundo de la cultura (reducciones de fondos, reajustes de festivales y espectáculos, cierre de teatros y espacios de reuniones, trabajadores echados a la calle de un día para el otro); hablamos del #rogodilibri y anunciamos que el día después, en Piazza Maggiore, haremos una intervención en el palco.

Al día siguiente, claro, es algo cómico leer en los periódicos locales titulares como: «ESCRITORES & OBREROS EN HUELGA» (“L’Unità”-Bolonia), pero al menos conseguimos conectar dos mundos.

Stefano Tassinari habla frente a la gran muchedumbre de Piazza Maggiore, inmediatamente antes de Maurizio Landini, y dice de forma más estructurada y consistente lo que declaramos el día anterior. Para dar testimonio de que la presencia de los escritores es considerada importante, somos mencionados incluso por Landini («los escritores presentes hoy en esta plaza»).

Maurizio Landini

[Una observación: desde el palco, Landini dice algunas cosas que un sindicato confederal no hacía sonar con fuerza desde hace mucho tiempo. Tras casi veinte años de políticas conciliadoras y mediaciones a la baja, es confortante oír decir que los intereses de los trabajadores no coinciden con los de los empleadores (¡tendría que ser una banalidad de base!), y que los derechos de los primeros no están subordinados a los de los segundos. Es confortante oír decir que se necesita una globalización de los derechos y de las luchas, que tenemos que apoyar a los trabajadores que se auto-organizan en China, que sin un cambio en la forma de producción el negocio de los automóviles destruirá el planeta. Repito: no estaba descontado oír decir estas cosas de manera neta por un dirigente del sindicato confederal, que no se expresa con jerga sindical sino en italiano de la calle (por ej."y se te viene encima el fenómeno Marchionne", donde "fenómeno" es utilizado en su significado slang de "autocomplaciente"). Landini concluye pidiendo a grandes voces la huelga general. Después de él, habla una Susanna Camusso en evidente estado de confusión: ni siquiera saluda a la plaza, permanece cabizbaja con los ojos en la hoja de su discursillo desabrido, se gana un torrente de silbidos y eslóganes. Un secretario general de la CGIL cuestionado por su base obrera en Bolonia. Creo que nunca sucedió antes. Y el dato más relevante no es tanto que sea silbada (los que silban después de todo son una minoría de la plaza, aunque considerable), sino que muy pocos la aplauden, y nadie se pone a aplaudir para ahogar los silbidos y los gritos: «¡HUELGA! / ¡HUELGA! / ¡GE-NE-RAL!"]

Nuestra presencia molesta a Alessandro Alberani, secretario de la CISL de Bolonia, que en “Repubblica” del día siguiente se pregunta «¿qué tienen que ver los escritores?» y dirá que, según él, no hemos leído el acuerdo FIAT de Mirafiori. Pues bien, yo me lo he leído todo (PDF aquí), de la primera a la última página, y tranquilamente puedo decir que es una mierda.

El caso Gomorra había anunciado un tiempo nuevo, y el “Book Bloc” había puesto en escena la alegoría: libros y escritores están en los escudos. Libros y escritores se volvieron peligrosos. Se los quiere prohibir, y su presencia en las luchas impacta, no pasa inobservada. En un país con pocos lectores, es un dato sobre el que hay que interrogarse.

Acabado el comicio, nos organizamos para el viaje a Preganziol, en provincia de Treviso.

PREGANZIOL CAPUT MUNDI*

Desde hace un tiempo, en el web se habla mucho de Preganziol. No voy a resumir aquí los episodios anteriores, quien quiera puede seguir los enlaces en los posts de los días pasados.

En la calle Gramsci, frente a la biblioteca, hay más de doscientas personas. Están presentes todos los periódicos de ese territorio. Hay un equipo de documentales que vinieron expresamente de Turín. Hay gente de Treviso, de Mogliano Veneto, de Mestre… Está “Libera”, la asociación antimafia fundada por don Ciotti. Está Radio Sherwood. Está una delegación del movimiento universitario de Padua. Hay estudiantes de primer ciclo. Hay representantes del ANPI [Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d’Italia]. Está la corresponsal de El País. ¡Y la idea de la manifestación fue lanzada en la red por una sola persona! Un habitante de Preganziol, Davide Busetto, que –después de haber visto el telediario TG3, las declaraciones balbuceantes de los administradores de Preganziol y el intento de hacer pasar por mitómana a la valiente bibliotecaria que enseñó los estantes donde faltaban los libros de Saviano– decidió pasar a la acción. El llamamiento partió de su blog.

Los escritores presentes: Stefano Tassinari, Serge Quadruppani, Lello Voce, Alberto Sebastiani y yo. Tenemos la octavilla de los “Scrittori contro il rogo” [escritores contra la quema], y casi no hay necesidad de repartirla: la gente viene a pedírnosla. Hay ganas de saber, de informarse.
Tras una intervención de introducción, esas personas nos dan la palabra.

Elena Donazzan

Yo doy la noticia (recibida poco antes) de que la consejera Elena Donazzan [foto a la derecha, con la cruz céltica al cuello] ya no enviará a los directores escolares su petición de proscripción. Explico que la señora intentó dar la vuelta a las cosas, declaró que de todos modos le era suficiente con haber sensibilizado etc., etc. “Pura mentira”, digo, “lo esencial es que había anunciado que habría enviado una carta, y ahora ya no la enviará”.
Aún no sé hasta qué punto es ridículo el comunicado de la señora, que sostiene que ha conseguido “aislar” a los que firmaron la apelación sobre Cesare Battisti. Como precisamente hacen notar los comunistas de Mogliano, Donazzan se cuenta a sí misma que ha “aislado”

«una parte muy amplia de la Cultura italiana (¡e incluso internacional!) y mucha opinión pública de distintos partidos políticos (a excepción de los miembros de la Liga Norte más recalcitrantes no hemos visto muchas tomas de posición a favor de las propuestas suya y de Speranzon)».

Ya. Nos dieron solidaridad activa colegas que acerca del caso Battisti tienen posiciones discordantes con las nuestras; con nosotros se movilizó la multitud de los lectores; la FIOM nos dio espacios de intervención, para que pudiéramos hablar frente a decenas de miles de personas.
A fin de cuentas, nunca hemos recibido tanta solidaridad como desde cuando Donazzan nos tiene “aislados”.

Concluyo mi intervención diciendo que no se debe bajar la guardia, porque hay una moción presentada por el PdL en el concejo de Venecia (Moción nº 423, PDF aquí, análisis en el final de este post). Digo que lo intentarán de nuevo. Luego anuncio mi lectura, más o menos con estas palabras:
“Yo no soy Nanni Balestrini, pero leeré dos páginas de un libro de Nanni Balestrini, una obra maestra de empeño civil, uno de los fundamentos de la literatura italiana contemporánea. Se llama Gli invisibili [Los invisibles], su autor está en la lista negra, si llegaran a pasar ciertas propuestas este libro desaparecería de las estanterías del Véneto. Este fragmento habla del autolesionismo en la cárcel”.
Acabada la lectura (una pieza dura y splatter), me aplauden con convicción.

Luego interviene Stefano. El suyo es un discurso largo, articulado. Explica las razones que nos impulsaron a firmar la apelación del 2004, habla de la “doctrina Mitterrand”, de la necesidad de una solución política a la herida de los años 70, etc. pero habla de todo esto manteniéndolo dentro del marco de la lucha a la censura. Nadie se queda perplejo, nadie se escandaliza, el aplauso sale muy convencido. Stefano dice: “Aunque estuviésemos totalmente equivocados, la nuestra es una opinión, y todas las opiniones tienen derecho a ser expresadas sin que aquel que la exprese acabe en una lista negra”. Luego lee unas páginas de su novela sobre el G8, I segni sulla pelle [Las marcas en la piel] (vídeo aquí).

Después de él habla Serge. Dice: «Por mi acento podéis daros cuenta de que no soy italiano. Soy un escritor francés, y tengo el honor de estar en la lista negra junto a mis colegas italianos. No solo eso: también soy su editor. Soy el director de una colección que publica muchos libros italianos, y casi todos nuestros títulos son de autores de la lista negra».

Lello hace una intervención, dura y directa, contra las bajezas de la prensa local, analiza los titulares engañosos y criminalizadores, luego lee una poesía suya, muy potente. Se me queda grabado un verso: «Quien paga rompe, y los restos son nuestros»**.

Luego se suceden las intervenciones de “Libera”, de los estudiantes, y de Umberto Lorenzoni del ANPI de Treviso (nombre de batalla “Eros”, comisario político en la Brigada Piave de la División “Nino Nannetti”), que pronuncia un discurso muy bello (vídeo aquí). En un momento dado, nos señala y grita: «¡Estos escritores son nuestros compañeros, y nosotros tenemos que defenderlos!». Concluye diciendo: «Era un lema de la guerra partisana y quiero repetirlo: si tengo que caer, ¡caeré con los dedos en los ojos del adversario!”. Hay ovación.

Al día siguiente, haciendo una búsqueda en el web, descubriré que el compañero Eros realmente es alguien que tiene huevos. El año pasado, en una ciudad como Treviso, tomó una posición irreprochable:

«Los liguistas no pueden inscribirse en nuestra asociación. No comparten el respeto por la Constitución, que el ministro Roberto Calderoli quiere alterar, la defensa de los principios de igualdad y de solidaridad. En ciertas declaraciones hacen propaganda del racismo y además discriminan a los pobres, aceptando ayudar solo a los italianos, no dan de comer a los niños que no tienen dinero para pagar el comedor escolar, rechazan a los extracomunitarios. ¿Pero cómo es que quieren unirse a nosotros, antifascistas y antiracistas por excelencia? Ninguno de ellos tendrá nunca el carné de la Anpi».

Somos entrevistados por varios medios. Stefano es entrevistado por Italia 7 Gold, canal de televisión del noreste. La primera pregunta es: «¿Qué tiene que ver Saviano con Battisti?», y Stefano: «No, un momento, volvamos a empezar». Confirma las cosas dichas en la intervención, incluidas las motivaciones de la apelación por Battisti, pero siempre “subordinadas”, dentro del marco de la lucha a la censura.
Muchos vienen a darnos las gracias por nuestra presencia, les brillan los ojos, todos dicen: «Para un lugar como este, es una cosa sin precedentes». Como escribió Alberto Sebastiani en un mail dirigido a muchos escritores:

«No debe ser fácil hacer una manifestación de este tipo para esas doscientas personas [...] Allí en el pueblo todos se conocen. Un señor de pie detrás de la pancarta “Los libros se tienen que leer… no esconder” saludó a un anciano que pasaba por la calle Gramsci. “Bien –le suelta el anciano– ¿qué haces allí?”, “Ven tú también, ¡es por algo justo!”, “¡Ah no! Ahora entiendo de qué parte estás tú… ya no te saludaré más”, y se fue irritado. El señor permaneció detrás de la pancarta y le dijo a alguien a su lado: “aquí si dices algo contra la Liga, pasa esto”. Pero no se alejó de la pancarta, y después, durante las lecturas, aplaudía fuerte».

Un primer balance, no solo de la jornada sino de toda la campaña, partiendo de lo específico y llegando a lo general:
- en Preganziol compartimos un momento significativo con una parte minoritaria pero importante y batalladora de la sociedad civil local;
- tras la “misteriosa” desaparición, los libros de Saviano regresaron a las estanterías de la biblioteca, que ahora tiene muchos más ejemplares de Gomorra a disposición, porque muchos ciudadanos donaron los suyos.
- Lucia Tundo, la bibliotecaria de Preganziol, no estaba porque no podía estar (y no voy a ahondar), pero de todos modos sintió alrededor suyo el calor de una comunidad, tuvo la confirmación de que no está sola; Mientras tanto, Il Gazzettino tuvo que rectificar la basura que escribió el día anterior acerca de ella. Su situación sigue siendo difícil, pero hay quien la defiende.
- la consejera Donazzan dio marcha atrás y su carta acaba en el basurero de la historia;
- Speranzon presenta en el Ayuntamiento una moción que es objetivamente odiosa pero, forzada a afirmaciones más implícitas, marca un pequeño paso hacia atrás respecto a las declaraciones de los primeros días.
Estos son los resultados concretos, resultados parciales pero importantes de una movilización a la que hemos contribuido todos, escritores y lectores. No hay laureles donde reposar, ¡pero que la lucha paga tenemos que decirlo!

Entre los escritores más activos en el frente del #rogodilibri, sin triunfalismos, se está discutiendo acerca de las estrategias utilizadas, de lo que funcionó mejor y lo peor. En un mail, Stefania Nardini escribió:

«Es indispensable salir de la lógica localista de los varios Speranzon que, precisamente en virtud del hecho de que la información en este país es una cloaca, se mueven en una región como si fuera un feudo propio. Un buen periodismo, subrayo bueno para decir profesional, más allá de los titulares sobre los festines de Berlusconi debería sacar en primera página lo que pasó. Los varios fascio-liguistas saben, o mejor sabían, que estas bravuconerías, esta manera de enseñar el puño de hierro, significaba consenso mediático por tanto electoral. No les ha salido así. No han hecho bien las cuentas. No se esperaban acabar en los periódicos franceses y españoles [...] solo estas son las armas que ponen en crisis a sujetos que se permiten violar la Constitución pensando que pueden hacer lo que quieren en una tierra de nadie. Hemos demostrado que el Véneto no es “su” tierra. Y un debate local no solo habría bajado el tono de una batalla que es por la libertad, sino que habría llevado agua al molino de estos incultos. Las noticias, queridos amigos, solo son noticias cuando superan los confines locales. Nos guste o no funciona así».

En otro mail, Girolamo De Michele escribió:

«Se descolocó la política local jugando una dimensión nacional (o mejor: supranacional) contra su localismo. La política local es su juego, el juego en el cual controlan las reglas y a los árbitros: fueron obligados a jugar en un terreno que no es el suyo. Contribuimos a hacer de Preganziol, durante unos días, el centro simbólico de un debate sobre la censura, dimos a conocer a media Europa quién es Donazzan. Es una lección de método. La movilización ha jugado con sus propios tiempos, los de la rapidez y del tejido de las relaciones en el web: un juego que ellos no conocen, que no es inherente a sus prácticas políticas. Al arraigamiento se contrapuso la deterritorialización, si me permiten la expresión filosófica».

TAMBIÉN EN PADUA, INTERVENCIÓN DE LOS ESCRITORES EN LA MARCHA DE LA FIOM…

Serge Quadruppani, Lello Voce y Massimo Carlotto, Padua, 28/01/2011

…y performances contra #rogodilibri. En la marcha de Padua, en representación de los Scrittori contro il rogo estaban Massimo Carlotto, Lello Voce y de nuevo Serge Quadruppani. Estudiantes universitarios marcharon vestidos de bomberos de Fahrenheit 451, llevando carritos llenos de libros destinados a la quema, y distribuyendo cientos de copias de un folleto con fragmentos de los libros que Speranzon y Donazzan pretenden proscribir.
En Piazza dei Signori los escritores subieron al palco, y Lello habló en nombre de todos, presentado por un dirigente de la FIOM que expresó la solidaridad de la organización contra las censuras y los ataques a la cultura. De un mail de Carlotto:

«A lo largo de la marcha me paré a hablar con decenas de personas y me di cuenta de que nuestras iniciativas fueron eficaces en el plano de la comunicación. Muchos añadieron novedades a lo que difundimos sobre Speranzon y Donazzan. No hay duda de que, a distancia y en silencio, mucha gente nos siguió. ¿La retirada de Donazzan ha sido una victoria? Ciertamente cuando un político es obligado a dar marcha atrás públicamente y a retractarse de lo que afirmó varias veces públicamente, significa que ha sido derrotado. Creo que podemos afirmar con toda honestidad que la movilización consiguió detener una iniciativa que podía resultar desastrosa».

DE LAS QUERELLAS A LA MOCIÓN 423

Los dos consejeros anti-antifascistas demandaron al periódico “Terra-Nord Est” por este artículo sobre #rogodilibri. Solidaridad de nuestra parte a Riccardo Bottazzo. Se trata de una pequeña venganza, de un gesto de rabia. Confirma que sintieron la presión, el orgullo está herido.

La mezcla de orgullo herido y falta de atención lleva a hacer grandes cagadas. Si se lee la “Moción 423″ presentada por Speranzon y otros en el Concejo de Venecia, se verá que está plagada de errores, enésima confirmación de que estos del asunto Battisti no saben nada ni quieren informarse, porque Battisti es un pretexto como cualquier otro, y su indignación es falsa.
En el texto de la moción:

- se atribuye a Battisti la herida de Alberto Torregiani (mientras que hasta la sentencia de condena del 13/12/1988 reconoce que Battisti no estaba presente en ese atentado);
- se fecha la apelación de los escritores por Battisti en el año 2007, mientras que es del 2004;
- se sostiene que Roberto Saviano acusó a Carmilla de haberle “robado” la firma (una burda mentira, por la cual Carmilla podría optar por la vía legal);
- se dice que Lula confirmó la decisión de Tarso Genro de conceder asilo político a Battisti (mientras que Lula NO concedió el asilo, simplemente decidió no extraditar a Battisti);
- se afirma que las motivaciones de Lula para no conceder la extradición «tachan a Italia como un país no democrático, privado de reglas de derecho y a los italianos como un pueblo bárbaro sediento de venganza» (algo en muchos ámbitos no distante de la verdad, pero que de todos modos no se encuentra en ningún pronunciamento de Lula ni de la Procuraduría General de Brasil);
- se sostiene la necesidad de seguir presionando a Brasil incluso a costa de «sacrificar la ratificación de los proyectos de cooperación económica ya encaminados con Brasil» (mientras que, como explicó Massimo Carlotto, los administradores vénetos tranquilamente siguen haciendo negocios con Brasil, y cuando van allí se cuidan mucho de nombrar a Battisti);

Tras esta impresionante serie de meteduras de pata y afirmaciones demenciales… llega incluso algo peor. La moción pide al Ayuntamiento de Venecia

«puntualizar, hasta que [los escritores] decidan retirar públicamente la propia adhesión del manifiesto en apoyo de Battisti, algunas formas de boicot civil, por ejemplo no concediendo gratuitamente las salas de propiedad del Comune de Venecia para debates u otras iniciativas [...] manifestar la indignación de toda la ciudad con relación a Marco Philopat, Luigi Bernardi, Elia Spallanzani, Valerio Evangelisti, Domenico De Simone, Christian Raimo, Tiziano Scarpa, Nicola Baldoni, Alessandro Mazzina, Alessandro Bertante, Lello Voce, Massimo Carlotto, Giuseppe Genna, Nanni Balestrini, Catalano [?], Michele Monina, Stefano Tassinari, Giovanni Zucca, Sandrone Dazieri, Giorgio Agmben [sic], Mauro Smocovich, Enrico Remmert, Rossano Astremo, Gianfranco Manfredi, Tommaso Pincio, Pino Cacucci, Simone P. Barillari, Ray Luberti, Monica Mazzitelli, Francesco Cirillo, Fausto Giudice, Massimiliano Governi, Giovanni De Caro, Dario Voltolini, Roberto Saporito, Antonio Moresco, Enzo Fileno Carabba, Luca Masali, Vittorio Catani, Girolamo de Michele, Cristina Brambilla, Laura Grimaldi, Gabriella Fuschini [...]»

Bien, esta lista está creada de prisa y corriendo, a tontas y a locas, dado que
1) figuran escritores muertos, que difícilmente harán petición de una sala en Venecia;
2) hay un apellido no acompañado de nombre, “Catalano”. ¿Quieren boicotear a todos los Catalano de Italia? ¿O la tienen tomada con los catalanes, entendidos como pueblo?
3) faltan un montón de escritores firmantes. Por ejemplo, ¡no estamos nosotros los WM, Gianni Biondillo y Loredana Lipperini!
Lo que pasó no es difícil de imaginar: entraron a la página web de la apelación e hicieron una búsqueda rápida con la palabra “scrittore” [escritor]. Puesto que Loredana se definió como “periodista”, Biondillo como “arquitecto” y luego de nuestro nombre dice “scrittori” , en plural, nosotros hemos quedado fuera. En realidad, Speranzon y compañía no tienen la más mínima idea de quienes son toda esta gente, ni se informaron al respecto.

Al fin y al cabo, chicos, estamos hablando de Raffaele Speranzon. Ese que hace de consejero de Cultura, pero en su página web escribe cosas como esta:

¿Sprengler?
¿Por casualidad no será Spengler?
Hay que remarcar también otra cosa: el “boicot civil” consiste en “no conceder gratuitamente las salas de propiedad del Comune”. Es decir que si pagamos, entonces no hay problema. La indignación y la rabia moral son cosas bellas, pero i schei xe anca mejo [en dialecto véneto: el dinero es incluso mejor].

En el Concejo de Venezia el centro derecha es minoría, pero no demos muy por sentado que esta basura será parada. En ciertas cuestiones, el centro izquierda tiene un bajo vientre que no es difícil perforar. Estemos atentos: para informarse y saber se necesita esfuerzo, pero permanecer ignorantes no cuesta ningún trabajo.

LAS PERSONAS-LIBRO

Contra #rogodilibri hay programadas otras iniciativas. Las “personas-libro” de la asociación “Donne de carta” [Mujeres de papél] tienen en programa una incursión a Venecia y alrededores:

«Vergüenza para quienes al amparo de las INSTITUCIONES dice que “desaconsejar los libros es una cosa buena” y pone en el Index librorum los libros de Saviano, de Pennac, de Lipperini, de Carlotto, de Grimaldi, de Scarpa y de muchos otros autores, “culpables” de haber sido “pro-Battisti” en el año 2004.
[...] Partimos de Arezzo y de Roma para ir el 12 de febrero a la biblioteca cívica de Mestre en Véneto y el 13 de febrero a la Sala Conciliar del Ayuntamiento de Porogruaro para recitar en voz alta las páginas sentenciadas a la quema y los Artículos de la Carta del Derecho a la Lectura porque nadie debe elegir lo que queremos leer.
Nunca como hoy ser una “persona libro” adquiere el sentido profundo de una demostración de libertad. Pueden eliminar los libros pero no la memoria y las voces de las personas. Venid con nosotros.
Quienes en Véneto construyen el desacuerdo nos acojan: bibliotecas, escuelas, plazas. Iremos donde sea. Es tiempo de inscribirse a Donne di carta [Mujeres de papel] para ayudarnos a sostener esta iniciativa. Un modo concreto de participar. Gracias. Escribir a: segreteria@donnedicarta.org»

En cuanto a nosotros, seguiremos informando, y los escritores contra la quema permanecen movilizados.
Gracias a tod*s.

AUDIO – LAS INTERVECIONES COMPLETAS DE PREGANZIOL
Wu Ming 1, 3’17″ | Stefano Tassinari, 9’17″ | Serge Quadruppani, 1’20″
Umberto Lorenzoni (ANPI), 5’17″ | Lello Voce, 5’16″

.
* Expresión latina que, con referencia a la Roma Imperial, significa “capital del mundo”.
** Alteración del dicho popular “Chi rompe paga e i cocci sono suoi” [quien rompe paga y los restos son suyos].

In the last two weeks we’ve been campaigning hard against right-wing officials trying to ban books and authors in Veneto (North-East Italy). Alongside many writers and readers, we’ve been helping to coordinate a rich, manifold counter-informative operation which has taught us (and is still teaching us) many lessons. We already scored some important goals, as we managed to stop some hateful initiatives dead in their tracks. Unfortunately, we’ve been so engulfed in the campaign that we haven’t had time to keep you anglophones reasonably up-to-date with what was going on. If you look at this post’s comment section, you’ll find some useful texts and pingbacks. We even held a public meeting and made a demonstration “in the belly of the Beast”, ie in Preganziol, province of Treviso, the den of the hideous Northern League. A brief, partial report on what happened can be found here.
Anyway, we can’t omit to post stuff specifically related to our work as writers.
Thus, here’s the first batch of news of 2011.

AN EVENING IN PARIS
7 February 2011, PARIS, France
h. 8 pm, Théâtre Antonie Vitez D’Ivry-Sur-Seine, 1 Rue Simone Dereure (Métro Mairie d’Ivry-sur-Seine)
Wu Ming 1 will talk about his novel New Thing
with Serge Quadruppani (novelist and translator)
and Yannick Séité (teacher at the Université Paris-Diderot, author of Jazz à la lettre, PUF 2010)

NEW ITALIAN EPIC
The latest issue (Vol. 30, No. 3, October 2010) of The Italianist (published by the Departments of Italian Studies of the University of Reading, Cambridge and Leeds) features an important essay by Maurizio Vito (Visiting Assistant Professor at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut)  entitled “A Narrative Discourse of the XXI Century: The New Italian Epic.” In conducting a more general analysys (especially on the legitimacy of the term “epic” in the light of recent theories), the text focuses on some books: our Manituana and Stella del mattino [Star of the Morning], Giuseppe Genna’s Italia De Profundis, Giancarlo De Cataldo’s Nelle mani giuste [In the right hands] and Carlo Lucarelli’s L’ottava vibrazione [The Eighth Vibration]. Vito sent us the un-refereed version of his piece – which differs from the published one only in a few tiny details – and here it is (PDF).
And this is Maurizio Vito’s website.

POPULISM(S)
Issue #20 of Open magazine (frontcover above) features some very interesting articles and interviews (including an abridged version of our essay Spectres of Müntzer), and we found this bird’s eye view on populism useful to understand the events in Veneto and the way they anticipate some tracts of the post-Berlusconi age. Hopefully, we’ll write/translate more about this in the next days. Here you can read the blurb and order a copy:
www.e-flux.com/shows/view/8896

¿Quién es la mujer que declara que nuestros libros son “deseducativos”, pontifica sobre la “necesidad de buenos ejemplos, no de malos maestros” y pide a los directores de las escuelas de la Región Véneto que destierren cientos de títulos y –sobre todo– a sus autores? ¿Quién es ella? Fuera del Véneto, solo se sabe que es la consejera regional de Instrucción y Formación, y que es del PdL [Partito della Libertà]. Pero aparte de esto, que es el envoltorio, ¿quién es Elena Donazzan?
Bueno, para dar un ejemplo, es la que está dentro del círculo:

Ya, así es. La consejera Donazzan proviene de un cierto ambiente, y se lo lleva detrás. La red está llena de interesantes imágenes, raros informes, pomposas declaraciones, curiosas anécdotas. Muchos la conocen por la intención de regalar copias de la Biblia a todos los alumnos del Véneto (¡y paga el tonto Pantaleón!), pero no es más que uno de los episodios. Aquí podemos componer solo una breve antología (gracias a Lello Voce por los datos). Invitamos a todos a buscar/contar.
No nos vengáis a decir que “solo son provocaciones, no hay que caer”, “son boutades, no hay que darles importancia”, “solo les estáis haciendo publicidad”, etc., etc. Ella no necesita en absoluto nuestra “publicidad”: no le interesan quienes nos leen. Tiene su mundo, su base, sus referentes , y todo el resto es el Enemigo Absoluto. Gracias a quienes, en estos años, siguieron subestimando y haciéndose los “superiores”, todos nos encontramos en la mierda colgados cabeza abajo. Y si ahora no nos despertamos, si permitimos al enemigo que establezca todos los precedentes que quiera, ya no tendremos metáforas para describir la pesadilla. Como alguien escribió en Tumblr, “el Véneto está adelantado seis meses” (obvio: ¡corre en bajada!), y si ya os parecía demasiado la colega Santanché, esperad a que ella llegue a los escenarios nacionales.

“No es líder de un partido bien preciso”

Pocos clics, y hete aquí una zalamera apología de la mujer escrita por sus, ejem, fans. ¡Y da la impresión de que lo hacen gratis! El fatuo artículo está en el blog Alternativa Sociale di Schio, sobriamente titulado: “Elena Donazzan, patrimonio de Italia”

«Elena Donazzan, cada vez más radiante, bonita, feliz, una vez más en este evento donde se reunía con la gente que le quiere en serio y que la ha sostenido en la dura, reciente campaña electoral… Ella, la protagonista, la festejada, la que “amando el Véneto” se ha convertido en la hija de todo un territorio, la predestinada, estamos listos para hacer una apuesta, al cargo de Presidente de la Región. Cuanto produce es un discurso lleno de afecto y gratitud, para todos los electores, los amigos, sus seguidores, en particular Sergio Berlato, los cazadores, por los cuales siempre se ha batido y que la reconocen como referencia política incontrastable [...] La conclusión, digno marco para excelentes palabras dichas con el apoyo del corazón y del alma, ha sido el Himno Nacional, que ella quiso regalar a los asistentes y se ha querido regalar para celebrar el amor patrio, que hace italianos y orgullosos de serlo, cantado con solemnidad, con la mano en el corazón por algunos, a viva voz, por encima de cualquier duda sobre el deseo de unidad de un pueblo que no quiere perder la identidad en nombre de razones irrazonables.
Grandes aplausos en el final, todos corren a abrazarla, con una sola certeza: Elena Donazzan no es una líder de un partido bien preciso, porque un carné o una bandera, que no sea la tricolor, no pueden restringir los porqué de tamaña persona, de tan profunda humanidad y humildad. Elena Donazzan es patrimonio de Italia: los mejores deseos princesa de Pove, ¡el futuro está en tus manos!»

Prácticamente Fascisti su Marte [fascistas en Marte]*.
Pero no es Marte.

Biagi y D’Antona asesinados por culpa del antifascismo

El 24 de noviembre de 2010, el consejo regional del Véneto se disponía a votar las Normas en materia de tutela y valorización del patrimonio histórico, político y cultural del antifascismo y de la Resistencia. En un momento dado, la princesa de Pove se ha lanzado a una confusa diatriba, intentando “joderla” de algún modo. Se desencadenó una algazara. Así es como describe la escena el corresponsal del “Corriere del Veneto”:

«…en un crescendo que la llevó a remontarse a los recuerdos de un tío fascista en Rusia para llegar hasta las protestas durante la presentación de los libros de Pansa, Donazzan ha soltado: “Bajo la bandera del antifascismo militante han caído Marco Biagi y Sergio D’Antona [matados por la última encarnación de las Brigadas Rojas, N.d.R.]…”. En la cámara estalló la pelea, pero Donazzan continuó impertérrita: “Llego también a la constitución… “. Gritos y alboroto desde las bancas de la oposición. “En nombre del antifascismo militante…”. Ya no se escuchaba nada. “Esta es la tolerancia que se debe…”. El presidente del consejo regional, cada vez más fuerte: “Disculpen, disculpen, disculpen…” Donazzan: “Esto es censura… censura profunda”»

La princesa de Pove saca a relucir el eterno victimismo de los neofascistas: denuncia censura intentando hacer callar a los demás, y actúa como una perseguida desde lo alto del propio costoso (para los contribuyentes) escaño.
Pocos meses después, aquí la tenemos pidiendo la proscripción de escritores que no piensan como ella (quizá porque tuvieron la elegancia de nacer y crecer en otro tipo de ambientes).
Una curiosidad: nuestros amigos de Militant seguramente se reconocieron en la frase sobre las “protestas durante las presentaciones de los libros de Pansa” [Periodista que escribió muchos libros contra la Resistenza, N.d.R.]. Esta mención es una auténtica medalla al valor. Ánimo, compañeros: si todo sale mal, serán reconsiderados dentro de setenta años, como ya sucedió con los Arditi del Popolo.
Digna de destacar también es la descripción, por parte de Donazzan, de un hipotético “nuevo 25 de Abril” [Día de la Liberazione, N.d.R.]:

«Sueño y considero que trabajo por un 25 de abril en el que todos los combatientes que se afrontaron lealmente, quienes en nombre de la Libertad, quienes en nombre del Honor de Italia, pero siempre bajo la tricolor, se reapropien [sic] de esta jornada y marchen juntos, como ya ocurrió desde hace años en las agrupaciones de los alpinos, de los bersaglieris, de los granaderos, de los paracaidistas: un 25 de abril que sea de verdadera reconciliación y que en verdad sea de todos».

Escuchando la proposición de dicha “marcha”, nos ha venido a la mente Waiting For The Worms de Pink Floyd, en The Wall. Tomémonos unos minutos, disfrutémosla juntos.

La hora de religión y la Biblia

Hace ya un par de años la princesa había propuesto que la hora de religión volviera a ser obligatoria. Obligatoria para todos, también para los hijos de padres no católicos. Portentosa la argumentación:

«¿Por qué en Italia no se roba y no se mata, por qué tenemos este sentido de la familia, por qué el informe tiene que girar sobre el eje del respeto y el perdón? Estos son los principios de comportamiento de quienes viven en Italia, provienen de un enfoque cultural hacia la religión católica, no provienen de otras religiones, en Italia desde siempre aunque no lo queramos reconocer estos principios no provienen del derecho natural, sino de la religión cristiana».

En Italia no se roba y no se mata. En Italia el informe “gira sobre el eje del perdón”. Nada de robos ni homicidios ni sentimientos de venganza. Y es mérito de los sacerdotes. Sería el caso de decir: en Italia se está divinamente. En cambio, en los países no cristianos se roba y se mata y no se perdona nunca a nadie. Porque siguen el derecho natural. No, momento… Nos perdimos.
Y la entrevista tenía otras perlas.
Más recientemente, poco antes de tener la idea de prohibir muchos libros, a Donazzan se le había metido en la cabeza imponer uno solo. La Región Véneto, con el dinero de los impuestos de todos los contribuyentes (también los ateos, agnósticos y de otras confesiones), tendría que regalar un ejemplar de la Biblia a cada alumno de primario. No es cuestión de si la Biblia se tiene que leer o no: es obvio que es una piedra angular de nuestra historia. Pero el gesto anunciado por Donazzan huele a fundamentalismo y transgrede la laicidad de las instituciones públicas, además de suponer un monumental despilfarro de dinero y recursos. A ojo de buen cubero, hablamos de una edición ad hoc que ni aún con Dan Brown y Stephen King juntos. Enteros bosques abatidos en quién sabe qué parte del mundo, fondos sustraídos a emergencias sociales, todo por la hybris de una Doncella que, si no nos equivocamos, milita en el mismo partido del bunga-bunga, de la Minetti y del engullimiento de Cialis. En el nombre de Papi, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. Amén. Citamos de la Tribuna, periódico de Treviso:

«“Me gustaría saber si Donazzan, que dice estar atenta a los valores cristianos, le ha mandado un ejemplar de la Biblia también al presidente Berlusconi, porque si todavía no lo ha hecho sería bueno que lo hiciera cuanto antes”. Comenta sarcásticamente la diputada Simonetta Rubinato (Pd) la decisión de la Región Véneto de regalar una Biblia a los niños de las escuelas.
“Creo que la Región –añadió Rubinato– se debería ocupar de los problemas de los ciudadanos, dejando a la Iglesia la tarea de educar a los jóvenes en la fe cristiana”. “Quisiera saber cuánto cuesta esta iniciativa –concluye– y si la misma se repetirá también en el futuro. Pienso que los ciudadanos tienen derecho a saber, porque no hay recursos para las escuelas de preescolar o para los centros de atención de adolescentes para la prevención de las dependencias. En cambio hay para hacer propaganda a través del uso instrumental de la Biblia”».

Pero aparte de ese libro, ¿qué otros libros serían buenos para las escuelas?

Por ejemplo, 1989/2009. 20 anni dalla caduta del muro [20 años desde la caída del muro], volumen que Donazzan hizo escribir y publicar por cuenta de la Región. Es una lástima que tal libro se haya revelado como una burda copia de Wikipedia y otros sitios, además de estar repleto de propaganda cripto-fascista tomada de fuentes partidarias y reproducida en las páginas sin filtro alguno. En este vídeo, los políticos vicentinos Matteo Quero (antiguo PLI, hoy PD), figura conocida en las crónicas vénetas, ilustra algunos copia-y-pega y referencias solapadas. Con Quero o sin Quero, la demostración es incontrovertible.

Apéndice tal vez OT: La muela que duele

A las importantes reflexiones terminológicas hechas por Lello Voce en su blog y en Carmilla, se tendría que añadir una acerca de la palabra más contaminada: “libertad”, que en el discurso político italiano ya ha asumido un significado opuesto al registrado en los diccionarios. La “libertad” que figura en los nombres de varios partidos políticos (todos ellos “partidos personales”, poco más que halos en torno a un líder-personaje, aureolas alrededor de su cabeza) es una palabra vaciada de contenido, por tanto no tiene nada que ver con las libertades concretas que en este país es necesario defender. Y como sucede con muchas cosas, cuanto más se evoca la libertad, más quiere decir que no existe. “Libertad. Más la exhiben en los escudos y menos la quieren” (Tuone Jurman llamado “il Tuota”, Dubrovnik, 1569). Allá va la lengua, donde duele la muela. En Italia, a menudo, quien se define “liberal” quiere decir que no le desagrada el fascismo. Y el pretendido “liberismo”, lo sabemos, es la doctrina económica que más esclavitud ha producido en el planeta.
En el idioma italiano todas las palabras que empiezan con “liber-” se han transformado en monstruosas o, cuando va más o menos bien, inocuas. Hay solo una que ha conservado un porcentaje de sentido, y de hecho es la menos recurrente, la que se mantiene más alejada del discurso público, la más temida y odiada por los charlatanes y donazzanoides: “liberazione” [liberación]. Frecuentemente con la inicial mayúscula: “Liberazione”. Palabra que describe un proceso y su resultado, el cumplir una acción y su finalidad. Al contrario de “libertad”, que puede ser un concepto abstracto y incorpóreo, “liberación” implica a los seres humanos. Sin ellos no existe. Siempre se libera a alguien, y nos liberamos de alguien.
“Popolo della Libertà” [pueblo de la libertad, partido de Berlusconi] es una expresión horrorosa. “Futuro e libertà” [futuro y libertad, partido de Fini] es pura distopía. “Sinistra, ecologia e libertà” [izquierda, ecología y libertad, partido de Vendola] es una bolsa de la compra que se vuelca.
Liberarse de la “libertad” ya sería el comienzo de una liberación.

PRIMERA ACTUALIZACIÓN

Tragaos este vídeo completo donde el mismo Quero nos habla de un CD “europeista”, financiado por la Región Véneto y a cargo de la asociación Strade d’Europa, la misma que ha realizado el librito sobre el Muro (libro que tenía que ser, como siempre, distribuido en las escuelas…).
En el CD, textos neofascistas, con himnos a la Guardia de Hierro y a Codreanu.

[Pedimos aos leitores para reagirem. E eles já o fazem! Todas as sugestões que demos ao final deste artigo estão sendo postas em prática entusiasticamente, melhoradas e compartilhadas por uma multidão de pessoas que estão horrorizadas pelo que está acontecendo na região de Veneza. Editores estão produzindo declarações e lançando comunicados oficiais, a mídia nacional está começando a cobrir o assunto, a Associação Nacional de Bibliotecários (AIB) condenou enfaticamente a proposta e convidou os leitores a relatar qualquer tentativa de censurar e banir livros. Contudo, isso ainda não é suficiente. Precisamos que as pessoas de fora do país saibam o que está acontecendo, há o fedor da prática nazista de queima de livros na Itália, e o caso do fugitivo “ex-terrorista” Cesare Battisti (agora no Brasil) não é mais que uma desculpa para a repressão. O período de declínio de um regime pode ser muito longo, e é seu período mais perigoso, à medida que os lacaios ficam cada vez mais desesperados e recorrem a todos os tipos de atos absurdos de modo a manter suas garras sobre a sociedade.]
..

As melhores palavras, dadas as circunstâncias, foram encontradas por nosso colega Serge Quadruppani. Aqui estão, traduzidas do francês:

«A loucura fascistóide tem o poder de nos deixar mudos de estarrecimento: a vulgaridade estúpida de algumas declarações pode nos deixar sem palavras. Trata-se de algo tão estúpido que somos tentados a simplesmente deixar pra lá e cuidar de outras coisas. Mas essa vulgaridade e essa loucura possuem efeitos muito práticos. Se permitirmos a difusão do simples pensamento de que listas negras oficiais podem ser escritas (sem falar da prática efetiva) para banir pessoas que não se rendem a uma ditadura de tristeza, para banir qualquer um que recuse aceitar a visão dominante sobre este ou aquele evento do passado, então capitularemos a uma concepção de sociedade mais próxima á Tunísia de Ben Ali do que a sonhada na Europa pelo Iluminismo e pela Resistência.
Felizmente, a história recente mostra que, ao fim, a vitória não está sempre assegurada aos grandes e pequenos Ben Alis.»

Advertência preliminar: o caso Battisti é um mero pretexto. Se não fosse esse, eles encontrariam um outro. Por essa razão, neste artigo não falaremos especificamente sobre esse caso. Aqueles que somente conhecem a versão oficial repetida à exaustão pela mídia e por políticos, podem encontrar informação alternativa em www.cesarelivre.org . Aqueles que querem discutir sobre o caso terão que fazê-lo em outro lugar (a web está cheia de blogs e fóruns). Nossa posição é suficientemente conhecida, na medida em que temos escrito sobre o assunto, cuidadosamente escolhendo cada palavra, tentando manter uma boa ponderação [1]. Mas agora a questão é totalmente diferente, como compreendido pelo colega Carlo Lucarelli, que nos enviou essa mensagem:

«Sobre o “caso Battisti” – tanto o homem quanto o assunto – temos posições diferentes, mas o que estão tentando fazer com essa lista de proscritos é realmente uma postura imunda, um ato de censura da dissidência. Eu não assinei a petição em favor de Battisti mas estou disposto a apoiar qualquer iniciativa razoável contra essa ordinária operação digna de uma ditadura estúpida.».

E agora os fatos:
O Assessor de Cultura da província de Veneza, uma figura chamada Speranzon – um ex-militante do MSI [O antigo partido neofascista, ativo de 1946 a 1994] e agora membro do partido de Berlusconi – aprovou uma proposta de um partido coligado e ordenará que as bibliotecas venezianas:
1) Removam das estantes todos os livros escritos pelos autores que tenham assinado uma petição de 2004 pedindo a libertação de Cesare Battisti,
2) Não organizem eventos com a presença desses escritores (eles devem ser declarados “pessoas indesejáveis”, como ele diz).
Qualquer bibliotecário que não aceitar esse diktat “será responsabilizado” por sua atitude. Trata-se de uma sugestão sobre congelamento de fundos, retirada de patrocínio, causar tumultos e de campanhas midiáticas os hostilizando?
A proposta foi elogiada pela COISP, uma associação de policiais. Os pobres bibliotecários pensarão duas vezes, antes de se oporem a autoridades locais e à polícia.
Um grupos de “honestos cidadãos democratas” já está tentando estender a coisa para toda Veneto, e a iniciativa parece suscetível de ser imitada para além das fronteiras regionais.
As declarações que seguem de Speranzon podem ser lidas no jornal “Il Gazzettino” [2]:

«Escreverei aos Assessores de Cultura dos municípios da região do Veneto, considerando que essas pessoas são declaradas indesejáveis e, uma vez que as bibliotecas locais estão integradas num sistema provincial, pedirei a elas para retirarem os livros das estantes [...] Pedirei para não promoverem apresentações de livros com esses autores: cada município pode agir livremente, mas será responsabilizado. Além disso, como conselheiro de Veneza, encaminharei uma moção de modo que Veneza sirva como primeiro exemplo [...] Escreveremos para os ssessores da região Marino Zorzato e Elena Donazzan, pedindo a eles para estenderem a iniciativa a toda Veneto.»

Ora, o mero fato que alguém possa conceber uma coisa dessas mostra que o naufrágio da Itália está atingindo novas e nauseantes profundezas. Estamos agora perfurando o fundo da Fossa das Marianas, cercados por peixes cegos e deformados, em busca da escuridão mais escura que se pode encontrar no universo.
O que faremos? Habitar o fundo do poço com esses sombrios e perniciosos moradores das águas profundas, ou voltar à tona?
O sol está lá para quem quer vê-lo de novo.

Muitos de nós estão na lista dos proscritos: nós, Valerio Evangelisti, Massimo Carlotto, Tiziano Scarpa, Nanni Balestrini, Daniel Pennac, Giuseppe Genna, Giorgio Agamben, Girolamo De Michele, Vauro, Lello Voce, Pino Cacucci, Christian Raimo, Sandrone Dazieri, Loredana Lipperini, Marco Philopat, Gianfranco Manfredi, Laura Grimaldi, Antonio Moresco, Carla Benedetti, Stefano Tassinari e muitos outros.
Eles terão quase que deixar as estantes vazias.
E talvez seja esse o sonho deles.

Quadruppani está certo: não podemos reagir com um ‘deixa pra lá’, dizer que “é apenas insultuoso”, ou sugerir indiferença como meio de “evitar publicidade para certas pessoas”. Às vezes isso é a coisa certa a se fazer, mas nem sempre.
Claro, isso é também insultuoso, mas é principalmente algo mais.:
1) É uma ameaça contra uma categoria inteira de trabalhadores (os bibliotecários). Eles têm que aceitar um ultimato autoritário e inconstitucional, ou então pagar caro.
2) É um ato que visa isolar e censurar escritores e artistas como “cúmplices morais” do terrorismo. Um ato de um administrador, de uma pessoa com autoridade, que apela aos sentimentos mais rudes das “pessoas comuns” ao balançar um espantalho que desvia suas atenções de outros problemas. Um ato que pretende intimidar e “manter na linha” aqueles que produzem discurso público.
Como nosso colega Tiziano Scarpa colocou: “Isso coloca em risco a cidadania de um escritor, a qual reside na sua língua e no seu trabalho” [3].

Devemos reagir todos contra esse absurdo, não apenas como escritores que estão diretamente envolvidos ou como bibliotecários que são diretamente ameaçados.
- Cidadãos, leitores, freqüentadores de bibliotecas devem se fazer ouvir.
- A Associação Nacional de Bibliotecários deve dizer algo.
- Sindicatos de funcionários públicos devem dizer algo.
- Editores devem tomar uma medida e entrar com uma ação legal contra a iniciativa que os prejudica economicamente e moralmente.
- Cartas de protesto aos jornais devem ser enviadas, panfletos e manifestos devem ser afixados aos murais das bibliotecas e salas de leitura.
- Artigos devem ser compartilhados e linkados, como este (postaremos atualizações constantes ao fim [da versão italiana, N.doT.]) ou qualquer outro texto ou vídeo que informe sobre essa figura, suas intenções liberticidas e sobre possíveis iniciativas de seus imitadores e camaradas.

Alguns dos autores da lista negra, e alguns que não estão na lista, estão discutindo, coordenando, avaliando as melhores ações possíveis, incluindo ações judiciais. Mas se eles se mexerem sozinhos, a censura irá ganhar. A ameaça é contra todos: escritores, leitores e qualquer um que ame a multiplicidade de pontos de vista sobre qualquer tema. Se subestimarmos a iniciativa por ser estúpida, o precedente será posto. Essa iniciativa é tão perigosa justamente por ser estúpida. Como o blogueiro Mazzeta apontou muito bem, eles querem afirmar um princípio na base do qual seria perfeitamente normal

«aplicar um filtro moral selecionando livros, com base no comportamento de seus autores e de suas adesões ideológicas e políticas de acordo com a vontade da maioria governante.
Como se se amanhã Berlusconi caísse em desgraça e alguém propusesse banir de todas as bibliotecas os livros escritos por todos que o apoiaram ou o defenderam, como se os trabalhos literários pudessem e devessem ser selecionados dependendo da credencial ideológica ou política do autor.» [4]

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NOTAS (Textos en italiano)

1. Dossier sul caso Battisti, carmillaonline.com

2. Wu Ming 1, «Cesare Battisti. Quello che i media non dicono», marzo de 2004

3. «La Provincia di Venezia “mette al rogo” i libri di chi firmò la petizione per Battisti», Il Gazzettino, 16 de enero de 2011

4. «Una prassi da dittatura», entrevista a Tiziano Scarpa, Corriere del Veneto, 16 de enero de 2011

5. Il commento di Mazzetta sulla sordida iniziativa
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ENLACES (Textos en italiano)

Chi è questo Speranzon

Chi è il tizio che gli ha dato l’idea

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- Atualisaçoes nos comentarios -

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Serge Quadruppani a su trouver les mots les plus indiquées. Les voilà:

«Face à l’imbécillité fascisante, on est comme désemparé : l’énormité idiote de certaines déclarations pourrait laisser sans voix. C’est tellement crétin qu’on a seulement envie de hausser les épaules et de penser à autre chose. Mais ces énormités et cette idiotie ont des effets bien réels.
Si on laisse se répandre la seule idée (pour ne pas parler de la pratique réelle) que des listes noires pourraient être officiellement dressées pour refus de céder à la dictature du chagrin, pour non-respect de la vision dominante de tel aspect du passé ou de telle affaire judiciaire, alors on cède à une conception de la société plus proche de la Tunisie de Ben Ali que de celle qu’a rêvée l’Europe des Lumières et de la résistance. » («Inquisition moderne : les bibliothèques vénitiennes purgées des pro-Battisti »)

Notice préliminaire: le cas Battisti ici est juste un prétexte. S’il n’y avait pas celui ci, ils en auraient cherché un autre. Par conséquent, dans ce billet on ne parlera pas du détail de cette histoire. Si celui o celle qui connait seulement les opinions répétées à l’infini par les médias et les politiciens voulait entendre une autre version, il pourra se renseigner sur Carmilla [1]. Celui qui voudra en discuter est prié de le faire autre part (le net est plein de blogs et forum). Notre opinion est suffisamment connue, à son temps nous en avons écrit, en pesant chaque mot, en essayant de maintenir un équilibre [2]. Mais aujourd’hui la question est une autre, comme le collègue Carlo Lucarelli, qui nous envoie ce message, a bien compris:

«Sur le cas Battisti- l’homme et son histoire- nous avons des positions différentes, mais ce qu’ils sont en train d’essayer de faire avec cette liste de proscription est vraiment une cochonnerie et c’est vraiment de la censure contre le désaccord. Je ne suis pas un des signataires de l’appel pro Battisti mais je suis disponible à soutenir quand même toute initiative partagée pour contester cette sordide opération digne d’une dictature débile.»

Et maintenant on vous raconte ce qui ce passe.

Le délègue à la culture de la Province de Venise, ex MSI (Mouvement Social Italien, parti post-fasciste n.d.t.) tourné berlusconien Speranzon, a accueilli la suggestion d’un collègue de parti et sommé aux bibliothèques de la province de:

1) enlever des étagères les livres de tous les auteurs qui en 2004 ont signé un appel dans lequel on demandé la libération de Cesare Battisti;
2) Renoncer à organiser initiatives avec ces écrivains (ils doivent être déclarés: personae non gratae)
Le bibliothécaire qui n’acceptera pas ce diktat “s’en assumera toutes les conséquences”. On fait peut être allusion au bloc des financements, au refus du patronage des initiatives, au mobbing, à hostiles campagnes de presse? La proposition a obtenu la faveur du COISP (un syndicat de policiers). Donc le bibliothécaire va y penser deux fois avant se se faire des ennemis parmi les pouvoir locaux et les forces de l’ordre aussi.
Une bande de “sincères démocrates” est déjà en marche pour étendre la chose à toute la Vénétie et il y a des chances que l’initiative sera copiée au delà des frontières régionales. Voilà ce qu’on peut lire sur le “Gazzettino” [3]:

«Je vais écrire aux délégués à la culture des Mairies du territoire de Venise afin que ces personnes soient déclarées importunes et je vais leur demander, comme les bibliothèques municipales sont insérées dans un système provinciale. que leurs œuvres soient retirées des étagères. [...] Je vais demander de ne pas promouvoir la présentation des livres écrits pas ces auteurs: chaque Mairie pourra agir en autonomie, mais devra en assumer la responsabilité. En outre, comme conseiller municipal à Venise, je vais présenter une motion afin que Venise donne en première l’exemple. [...] Nous allons écrire aux délégués régionaux Marino Zorzato e Elena Donazzan, pour étendre l’initiative à toute la Vénétie.»

Le fait même que l’on puisse concevoir une telle chose indique que l’enfoncement italien est en train de toucher des nouveaux, ecoeurants niveaux. Nous sommes en train de sonder le fond de la Fosse de Mariannes, entourés par des poissons aveugles et déformes, à la recherche de l’obscurité la plus obscure qui puisse se produire dans l’univers.
Voulons nous rester au fond de la fosse avec ces sombres misérables scaphandriers ou voulons nous nous engager pour émerger?
La haut il y a le soleil, pour ceux qui veulent le revoir.

Dans la liste de proscription nous sommes très nombreux: nous, Valerio Evangelisti, Massimo Carlotto, Tiziano Scarpa, Nanni Balestrini, Daniel Pennac, Giuseppe Genna, Giorgio Agamben, Girolamo De Michele, Vauro, Lello Voce, Pino Cacucci, Christian Raimo, Sandrone Dazieri, Loredana Lipperini, Marco Philopat, Gianfranco Manfredi, Laura Grimaldi, Antonio Moresco, Carla Benedetti, Stefano Tassinari et beaucoup d’autres encore. En pratique ils devraient les vider, ces étagères. Et peut être c’est précisément ce dont ils rêvent.

Quadruppani a raison: on ne peut pas réagir en haussant les épaules, dire « c’est juste une provocation », conseiller l’indifférence « pour ne pas faire de la publicité à ces gens là ». Parfois il faut faire ainsi, mais pas toujours. Bien sur, il s’agit aussi d’une provocation, mais surtout d’autre chose:
1)il s’agit d’une menace faite à une catégorie professionnelle entière (les bibliothécaires) qui devraient accepter un ultimatum autoritaire et anticonstitutionnel ou ils vont la « payer chère »
2) Il s’agit d’un acte finalisé à l’isolement et à la censure d’écrivains et artistes comme « complices » de terrorisme. Un acte accompli par un administrateur, une figure de pouvoir qui, en agitant un épouvantail pour détourner l’attention d’autres problèmes, s’appelle aux réactions viscéraux du « peuple ». Un acte qui veut intimider et « remettre à sa place » celui qui produit discours public. Comme le collègue Tiziano Scarpa a déclare : «De cette façon on frappe la citoyenneté d’un écrivain, qui se trouve dans la langue et dans les œuvres » [4]

Contre cette horreur nous devrons tous réagir, non seulement les écrivains directement engagés ou les bibliothécaires directement visés.
- Les citoyens, les frequentateurs des bibliothèques devraient se faire entendre
- Les administrateurs, les forces politiques et associations de Venise et des mairies avoisinantes
- Toute personne travaillant dans l’information devrait essayer d’écrire, comme tous ceux qui ont un blog et similia ;
- L’Association Italienne Bibliothèques devrait faire quelque chose
- Les syndicats de la fonction publique devraient faire quelque chose.
- Les éditeurs devraient faire quelque chose, même légalement, en portant plainte au devant les tribunaux civils, contre une action qui leur provoque des endommagement matériaux et moraux.
-  Il faudrait envoyer e-mails aux journaux (non seulement aux journaux venetiens) pour protester, il faudrait afficher messages et lettres ouvertes dans les bibliothèques et salle de lecture.
- Il faudrait diffuser et mettre un lien aux billets comme celui ci (en bas nous mettrons les mises à jour sur cette histoire) et toute autre article, texte ou vidéo informant sur ce personnage, sur ses intentions liberticide et sur initiatives éventuelles de ses imitateurs et camarades.

Certains écrivains qui sont finis dans cette liste noire (avec d’autres qui n’y sont pas mais qui sont solidaires) sont en train de discuter, ils sont en train de se coordonner, ils sont en train d’évaluer quelle type d’action (y comprises des actions légales) engager. Mais s’ils seront seuls, cette censure va passer. La menace est adressée à tout le monde: à ceux qui écrivent, ceux qui lisent, à ceux qui tiennent à la variété de point de vue sur tout sujet. Si on sous-estime l’initiative parce qu’elle est stupide, on va créer un précédent. Il s’agit d’une initiative dangereuse parce que stupide. Comme le bloguer Mazzetta nous fait remarquer, on a l’intention d’affirmer le principe selon lequel il serait parfaitement normal:

«appliquer un filtre moral, en sélectionnant les livres selon les comportements des auteurs et leur appartenance idéologique et politique au vouloir de la majorité de gouvernement.
Comme si, si demain Berlusconi devait tomber en disgrâce, quelqu’un proposait de bannir de toutes les bibliothèques du royaume les livres de tous ceux qui l’ont soutenu et protégé, comme si les œuvres littéraires pouvaient et devaient être sélectionnées selon leurs caractéristiques morales et politiques de l’auteur.» [5]

NOTE (ITALIEN)
1.Dossier sul caso Battisti, carmillaonline.com
2. Wu Ming 1, «Cesare Battisti. Quello che i media non dicono»
3. «La Provincia di Venezia “mette al rogo” i libri di chi firmò la petizione per Battisti», Il Gazzettino, 16 gennaio 2011
4. «Una prassi da dittatura», intervista a Tiziano Scarpa, Corriere del Veneto, 16 gennaio 2011
5.Il commento di Mazzetta sulla sordida iniziativa

ATTENTION: Mise à jour du 18/01/2011

Serge Quadruppani: “Contre l’inquisition vénitienne, une première victoire”

La présidente de la province de Venise, Francesca Zaccariotto a pris ses distances par rapport à l’initiative de Speranzon, l’adjoint à la culture provincial qui, avec l’appui d’un syndicat de policiers demande aux bibliothèques municipales et scolaires du territoire de retirer de leurs rayons les livres de tous les auteurs (dont le sousissigné et une ou deux centaines d’autres)  qui ont signé un appel en faveur de Cesare Battisti en 2004. La présidente tient à dire que c’est une initiative personnelle et que la Province ne l’appuie pas. C’est une première victoire remportée grâce à une mobilisation sur le net qui a refusé les formes trop faciles de la pétition online ou du groupe facebook, mais s’est caractérisée par une multiplicité d’initiatives, du mail d’auto-dénonciation à Speranzon à la distribution de tracts dans les bibliothèques, à la mise en mouvement des éditeurs, des bibliothécaires, des collègues écrivains non signataires, et de tous les gens concernés. La rédaction de Carmilla analyse très bien toute l’affaire, pour ceux qui lisent l’italien. De toute façon, cette affaire à la fois dérisoire (pour ses effets pratiques immédiats) et très grave (pour le type de pratique qu’elle tend à banaliser) n’est pas terminée: il faut obtenir à la fois la certitude qu’aucune pression directe et indirecte ne sera exercée sur les bibliothécaires et que les conséquences institutionnelles soient tirées de cet abus de pouvoir. Si vous y tenez vraiment, je traduirai quelques passages, plus tard, du texte de Carmilla, en attendant, je retourne à ma chère Tunisie, sur laquelle j’essaie d’écrire quelques lignes.

ATTENTION: Mise à jour du 18/01/2011

Serge Quadruppani: La fierté de figurer sur la liste noire (bis): ça ne s’arrange pas

Malgré la prise de position contraire de la présidente de la province de Venise, c’est maintenant l’adjointe à la culture de la région (une région contient plusieurs provinces) de Vénétie qui demande à toutes les écoles de retirer les livres des “amis de l’assassin” Battisti des rayons de leurs bibliothèque. En cliquant sur l’image, vous verrez dans la colonne de droite la liste des auteurs que la clique fascistoïde au pouvoir dans la province vénitienne appelle à boycotter.

Si vous voulez donner votre sentiment dans la langue que vous voulez mais poliment à l’adjointe en question, on peut lui écrire:
assessore.donazzan@regione.veneto.it
ainsi qu’au président de la région:
presidenza@regione.veneto.it
sans oublier Speranzon, le génial initiateur du mouvement:
raffaele.speranzon@provincia.venezia.it
Faut-il insister sur le fait que tout type d’insulte et de menace serait contre-productif? Il le faut, je connais votre tempérament impulsif, chers lecteurs!

Las palabras más adecuadas a las circunstancias las encontró Serge Quadruppani. Las traducimos del francés, son estas:

«Frente a la imbecilidad fascistoide, uno se queda enmudecido: la idiota enormidad de ciertas declaraciones podría dejarnos sin voz. Es algo tan estúpido que solo te vienen ganas de encogerte de hombros y pensar en otra cosa. Pero esta enormidad y esta idiotez tienen efectos muy concretos. Si se deja difundir la mera idea (por no hablar de la práctica real) de que oficialmente se pueden hacer listas negras contra quienes no cejan a la dictadura de la tristeza, quien no se adecúa al punto de vista dominante sobre uno u otro aspecto del pasado, entonces se capitula ante una concepción de la sociedad más cercana a la del Túnez de Ben Ali que a la soñada Europa de los ilustrados y de la Resistencia.
Por suerte la historia reciente enseña que, a fin de cuentas, los pequeños y los grandes Ben Ali no siempre salen victoriosos».

Advertencia preliminar: el caso Cesare Battisti aquí es solo un pretexto. Si no hubiese sido eso, habrían buscado otra cosa. Razón por la cual, en este post no se hablará en detalle de ese tema. Quien conoce solo la campana percutida con martillo por los medios o los políticos y quiere oír la otra, puede informarse en Carmilla [1]. Quien quiera discutir eso, se ruega que lo haga en otro sitio (la red está llena de blogs y foros). Lo que pensamos nosotros es suficientemente conocido, en su momento lo hemos escrito, sopesando cada palabra, esforzándonos por mantener un equilibrio [2]. Pero hoy la cuestión es otra, como muy bien lo ha entendido el colega Carlo Lucarelli, que nos manda este mensaje:

«Sobre el “caso Battisti” –tanto con el hombre como el asunto– tenemos posiciones diferentes, pero lo que están intentando hacer con esta lista de proscripción es realmente una jugada sucia y es pura censura del disentimiento. Yo no soy uno de los que firmaron la apelación a favor de Battisti, pero de todos modos estoy dispuesto a apoyar cualquier iniciativa que se pueda compartir para contrastar esta miserable operación de dictadura estúpida».

Y ahora contamos lo que está sucediendo.
El consejero de Cultura de la provincia de Venecia, el ayer-neofascista-hoy-berlusconiano Speranzon, acogió la sugerencia de un colega de partido e intimará a las bibliotecas venecianas a:
1) quitar de las estanterías los libros de todos los autores que en el año 2004 firmaron una apelación donde se pedía la excarcelación de Cesare Battisti;
2) renunciar a la organización de iniciativas con tales escritores (son declarados “persona no grata”, dice).
El bibliotecario que no aceptará la orden “se asume la responsabilidad”. ¿Se alude tal vez al congelamiento de fondos, a la pérdida de patrocinio de las iniciativas, al acoso laboral, a campañas de prensa hostiles?
La propuesta cuenta con el aplauso del COISP, un sindicato de policía. Así el bibliotecario se lo pensará dos veces, antes de enfrentarse con la administración local y las fuerzas del orden.
Una camarilla de “sinceros demócratas” ya se está moviendo para extender la cosa a toda la región véneta, y es probable que la iniciativa sea imitada más allá de los confines regionales.
Esto es lo que se puede leer en el “Gazzettino” [3]:

«Escribiré a los consejeros de Cultura de los municipios de la región Véneto para que estas personas sean declaradas no gratas y les pediré, ya que las bibliotecas municipales están integradas en un sistema provincial, que sus obras sean retiradas de las estanterías [...] Pediré que no se promueva la presentación de los libros escritos por estos autores: cada municipio podrá actuar como le parezca, pero tendrá que asumir la responsabilidad. Además como concejal de Venecia, presentaré una moción para que Venecia pueda dar el ejemplo en primer lugar…  Escribiremos a los consejeros regionales Marino Zorzato y Elena Donazzan, para que extiendan la iniciativa a toda la región Véneto».

Ahora, el mismo hecho de que uno pueda concebir algo por el estilo indica que el hundimiento itálico está tocando nuevas y nauseabundas bajezas. Ya estamos perforando el fondo de la Fosa de las Marianas, rodeados de peces ciegos y deformes, en busca de la oscuridad más oscura que pueda producirse en el universo.
¿Nos quedamos en el fondo de la fosa junto a estos tristes y miserables buceadores de la censura, o nos comprometemos a salir a la superficie?
Arriba está el sol, para quien quiera volver a verlo.

En la lista de proscripción estamos muchísimos: nosotros, Valerio Evangelisti, Massimo Carlotto, Pino Cacucci, Tiziano Scarpa, Nanni Balestrini, Daniel Pennac, Giuseppe Genna, Giorgio Agamben, Girolamo De Michele, Vauro, Lello Voce, Christian Raimo, Sandrone Dazieri, Loredana Lipperini, Marco Philopat, Gianfranco Manfredi, Laura Grimaldi, Antonio Moresco, Carla Benedetti, Stefano Tassinari y muchos más.
Prácticamente tendrán que vaciar los estantes.
Y tal vez es lo que sueñan.

Quadruppani tiene razón: no se puede reaccionar con un encogimiento de hombros, decir “es solo una provocación”, recomendar la indiferencia “para no hacer publicidad a cierta gente”. A veces hay que actuar así, pero no siempre.
Claro, esto también es una provocación, pero sobre todo es otra cosa:
1) es una amenaza a toda una categoría de trabajadores (los bibliotecarios), que tendrían que aceptar un ultimátum autoritario y anticonstitucional o de otra forma lo pagarán caro.
2) es un acto orientado al aislamiento y la censura de escritores y artistas puesto que “son cómplices” del terrorismo. Un acto realizado por un representante provincial, una figura de poder que, agitando fantasmas para distraer la atención de otros problemas, apela a las reacciones viscerales del “pueblo”. Un acto que busca intimidar y “hacer entrar en la línea” a los que producen discurso público.
Como dijo el colega Tiziano Scarpa: «Así se vulnera la ciudadanía de un escritor, que está en la palabra y en sus obras». [4]

A esta asquerosidad tenemos que reaccionar todos, no solo los escritores directamente implicados o los bibliotecarios directamente amenazados.
- Tienen que hacerse oír los ciudadanos, los lectores, los que frecuentan las bibliotecas.
- Tienen que hacerse oír los representantes, fuerzas políticas y asociaciones de Venecia y de los municipios relacionados.
- Tienen que intentar escribir sobre esto cualquiera que trabaje en el sector de la información o que tenga un blog o similares;
- Tiene que decir algo la Associazione Italiana Biblioteche (Asociación Italiana de Bibliotecas).
- Tienen que decir algo los sindicatos de los funcionarios públicos.
- Tiene que moverse la industria editorial, incluso en el terreno legal, con querellas y causas civiles, frente a un acto que les ocasiona daños materiales y morales.
- Se tendrían que enviar mails de protesta a los periódicos (no solo a los de Venecia), fijar octavillas y cartas abiertas en los tablones de anuncios de las bibliotecas y salas de lectura.
- Se tendrían que difundir y enlazar posts como este (al pie [de la version italiana] pondremos las novedades del tema y cualquier otro artículo, texto o vídeo que informe acerca de estos personajes, sobre sus intenciones liberticidas y sobre eventuales iniciativas de sus imitadores y amigos.

Algunos de los escritores que acabaron en lista negra (junto a otros que no acabaron allí pero son solidarios) están discutiendo, se están coordinando, están evaluando las acciones (incluso legales) a emprender. Pero si se mueven solo ellos, la censura va a pasar. La amenaza se dirige a todos: a quien escribe, a quienes leen, a quien le importa la variedad de puntos de vista en cualquier tema. Si subestimamos la iniciativa porque es estúpida, se crea un precedente. Una iniciativa es más peligrosa cuando más estúpida es. Como astutamente hace notar el blogger Mazzetta, se pretende afirmar el principio según el cual es perfectamente normal

«aplicar un filtro moral, escogiendo los libros en base a los comportamientos de los autores y a su adhesión ideológica y política a la voluntad de las mayorías de gobierno.
Como si, un mañana en el cual Berlusconi cayera en desgracia, alguien propusiera prohibir de todas las bibliotecas del reino los libros de los que lo apoyaron o defendieron, como si las obras literarias pudieran y tuvieran que ser escogidas en base a las credenciales morales y políticas del autor». [5]

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NOTAS (Textos en italiano)

1. Dossier sul caso Battisti, carmillaonline.com

2. Wu Ming 1, «Cesare Battisti. Quello che i media non dicono», marzo de 2004

3. «La Provincia di Venezia “mette al rogo” i libri di chi firmò la petizione per Battisti», Il Gazzettino, 16 de enero de 2011

4. «Una prassi da dittatura», entrevista a Tiziano Scarpa, Corriere del Veneto, 16 de enero de 2011

5. Il commento di Mazzetta sulla sordida iniziativa
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ENLACES (Textos en italiano)

Chi è questo Speranzon

Chi è il tizio che gli ha dato l’idea

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- ACTUALIZACIONES EN EL COMENTARIO -

[English translation of the "call to arms" we issued yesterday. We asked readers to fight back, and fighting they are! All the suggestions we gave at the end of this article are being enthusiastically put into practice, improved and shared by multitudes of people who are horrified by what is taking place in the Venice area. Publishers are making statements and releasing communiqués, the national media are starting to cover the affair, the National Association of Librarians (AIB) has strongly condemned the proposal and invited readers to counter any attempt at censoring and banning books. However, this isn't enough yet. We need people abroad to be aware of what's going on, there's a stench of nazi book burnings in Italy, and the case of fugitive "ex-terrorist" Cesare Battisti (now in Brazil) is nothing more than an excuse for repression. The period of a regime's decline may be very long, and it's the most dangerous period, as the lackeys get more and more desperate and resort to all kinds of senseless acts in order to keep their  grip on society. Thanks to Gregorio Magini of Scrittura Industriale Collettiva for translating our piece, we really wouldn't have had time to do it! In the next few hours we'll provide translations in French, Spanish and Catalan. We badly need a Portuguese version. French-speaking readers can already read Serge Quadruppani's article on Rue 89.]
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The best words, given the circumstances, were found by our colleague Serge Quadruppani. Here they are, translated from French:

“Fascistoid folly has the power to struck us dumb: the moronic grossness of some statements can leave us speechless. This thing is so stupid that one is tempted to just shrug it off and think about something else. But this grossness and this folly have very practical effects. If we allow the spreading of the mere idea that official blacklists can be written (not to speak about the real practice) to ban people who don’t yield to the dictatorship of sadness, to ban whoever refuses to accept the dominant view about this or that event of the past, then we capitulate to a conception of society closer to Ben Ali’s Tunisia than to the one dreamt in Europe by the Enlightenment and the Resistance. Luckily, recent history shows that, on balance, victory is not always assured for big and small Ben Alis.”

Preliminary warning: the Battisti case here is just a pretext. If they didn’t have that, they would find another. For this reason, in this article we will not talk about the specifics of that affair. Those who know only the official version repeated to nausea by media and politicians, can find alternative information on Carmilla [1]. Those who want to discuss about it will have to do it elsewhere (the web is full of blogs and forum boards). Our position is sufficiently well known, as we’ve been writing about, carefully choosing every word, trying to keep a good balance [2]. But now the matter is entirely different, as understood by the colleague Carlo Lucarelli, who sent us this message:

«On the “Battisti case” – both the man and the affair – we have different positions, but what they’re trying to do with this proscription list is really a dirty trick, an act of censorship of dissent. I didn’t sign the petition in favor of Battisti but I am willing to back any reasonable initiative against this squalid operation worthy of a stupid dictatorship.»

And now the facts:

The Assessor for Culture of the province of Venice, a guy called Speranzon – a former activist of the MSI [the old neo-fascist party, active from 1946 to 1994] and now a member of Berlusconi’s party – approved a proposal from a party colleague and will order Venetian libraries to:
1) Remove from shelves all the books written by any author who signed a 2004 petition asking for Cesare Battisti’s release from jail;
2) Abstain from organizing events featuring such writers (they must be declared “undesirable persons”, he says).
Any librarian who will not accept this diktat “will be held responsible” of his behavior. Is this a hint about fund freezing, withdrawal of patronage, mobbing, hostile media campaigning?
The proposal was lauded by the COISP, a policemen union. The poor librarian will think twice, before opposing local authorities and the police.
A clique of “honest democratic citizens” is already trying to extend the thing to the whole Veneto, and the initiative is likely to be emulated beyond regional borders.

The following statements by Speranzon can be read on the newspaper “Il Gazzettino” [3]:

«I will write to the Assessors for Culture of the Municipalities of the Venetian area, seeing that these persons are declared undesirable and, since local libraries are integrated within a provincial system, I will ask them to remove the books from the shelves […] I will ask not to promote book presentations by these authors: every Municipality can act freely, but it will be held responsible. Moreover, as a Venice city councilman, I will forward a motion so that Venice sets an example first […] We will write to region assessors Marino Zorzato e Elena Donazzan, asking them to extend the initiative to the whole Veneto.»

Now, the mere fact that anyone could conceive a thing like this shows that the sinking of Italy is reaching new, nauseating depths. We are now drilling the bottom of the Mariana Trench, surrounded by blind and deformed fishes, in search of the darkest darkness that can be found in the universe.
What are we going to do? Dwell at the bottom of the pit with these gloomy, wicked deep-sea inhabitants, or resurface?
The sun is up there, for those who want to see it again.

Many of us are in the proscription list: we, Valerio Evangelisti, Massimo Carlotto, Tiziano Scarpa, Nanni Balestrini, Daniel Pennac, Giuseppe Genna, Giorgio Agamben, Girolamo De Michele, Vauro, Lello Voce, Pino Cacucci, Christian Raimo, Sandrone Dazieri, Loredana Lipperini, Marco Philopat, Gianfranco Manfredi, Laura Grimaldi, Antonio Moresco, Carla Benedetti, Stefano Tassinari and many others.
They would almost have to leave the shelves empty.
And maybe, this is their dream.

Quadruppani is right: we can’t react with a shrug, say that “it’s only taunting”, suggest indifference as a mean to “avoid publicity for certain people”. Sometimes that is the right thing to do, but not always.
Of course, this is also taunting , but it’s mostly something else:
1) It’s a threat against an entire category of workers (librarians). They should accept an authoritarian and unconstitutional ultimatum, or else pay dearly.
2) It’s an act aimed at isolating and censoring writers and artists as “moral accomplices” to terrorism. An act by an administrator, a person of authority, who appeals to the gut feelings of the “ordinary folks” by waving a scarecrow that diverts their attention from other problems. An act that wants to intimidate and “keep in line” those who produce public discourse.
As our colleague Tiziano Scarpa put it: «This puts in peril the citizenship of a writer, which lies in its language and its works.» [4]

We should all react against this rubbish, not just the writers that are directly involved or the librarians that are directly threatened.
- Citizens, readers, library goers should make themselves heard.
- Administrators, political organizations and associations in the Venice areashould make themselves heard.
- Whoever works in the media, or has a blog or you-name-it, should write about this.
- The National Association of Librarians should say something.
- Public administration unions should say something.
- Publishers should take action and file a lawsuit against an initiative that damages them economically and morally.
Protest mails to newspapers should be sent, fliers and open letters should be affixed to the bulletin boards of libraries and reading rooms.
- Articles should be shared and linked, like this one (we will post constant updates at the bottom [of the Italian original version, T.N.]) or any other text or video that informs about this guy, his liberticidal intentions and about possible initiatives by his imitators and cronies.

Some of the blacklisted authors, and some authors that aren’t on the list, are discussing, coordinating, evaluating the best actions available, including lawsuits. But if they will move alone, the censorship will win. The threat is against everybody: writers, readers, and whoever loves multiplicity of points of view on any topic. If we underestimate the initiative because it’s stupid, a precedent will be set. This initiative is all the more dangerous because it’s stupid. As blogger Mazzetta acutely points out, they want to affirm a principle on the base of which it would be perfectly normal to

«apply a moral filter when selecting books, on the grounds of the behaviors of their authors, and their ideological and political adherence to the will of the governing majority.
As if tomorrow Berlusconi fell in disgrace, and someone proposed to banish from all Italian libraries the books written by whoever supported or defended him, as if literary works could and should be selected depending on the moral and political credential of the author.» [5]

UPDATES BELOW, IN THE COMMENT SECTION

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NOTES

1. Dossier sul caso Battisti, carmillaonline.com

2. Wu Ming 1, «Cesare Battisti. Quello che i media non dicono», March 2004

3.«La Provincia di Venezia “mette al rogo” i libri di chi firmò la petizione per Battisti», Il Gazzettino, January 16 2011

4. «Una prassi da dittatura», interview to Tiziano Scarpa, Corriere del Veneto, January 16 2011.

5. Il commento di Mazzetta sulla sordida iniziativa

Here’s the recording of the talk Wu Ming 1 and Wu Ming 4 gave at the British Library Conference Centre, London, on 13 October 2010. Thanks to Joshua Eichen for sending the mp3. He warned us: “It’s not a clean edit at the front nor the back.” In fact, it stops abruptly. No ending. If we remember correctly, what was left out was a more political question on Italy etc., and our answer(s). Anyway, here you’ve got more than 1 hour of stuff. Enjoy! (As your Superego commands).
[Click on the small Playtagger icon to listen without leaving this page. Click on the text link to listen on a new page. Right click and save (or ctrl + click and save) to download the mp3s.]


1. Introduction + Italian Fireworks (16’53″)
We show the booktrailer for Manituana – Shaun Whiteside‘s brief overture – Wu Ming 1 reads from Manituana (2nd Part, “Mohock Club”, chapter 7).

2. The Mohocks (11’57″)
Wu Ming 4 explains what Manituana is about, focusing on the London section (translation by Shaun Whiteside)

3. Writing after Manituana: From Altai to the French Revolution (13’48″)
Wu Ming 1 looks back to a perilous phase in the band’s life (2008-09), says a few things about the book we’re currently working on, then answers a question on cinema and Thom Yorke‘s alleged interest in making a film based on Q. Wu Ming 4 adds some details.

4. “Ours is a praxis, not a method” (16’57″)
Wu Ming 1 answers a question on the way we write together, then another question on the “New Italian Epic”.

5. Facebook? We don’t want to be there (13’28″)
Wu Ming 1 explains why we don’t like FB, and the way we use Twitter. Wu Ming 4 answers a question on how we get along: We get along through conflict.

The Book Bloc
Yes, yes. Don’t ask no more. “Book Bloc” is our coinage. To the best of our knowledge, we were the first ones to come up with the pun, on 24 November, a few hours after students clashed with the police in Rome carrying padded shields styled as books. That practice – which took us by surprise – is the real invention, not the name. Anyway, both the name and the practice extended like fire in a prairie. The Book Bloc showed up all over Italy, and – most notably – in Parliament Square, London, on “Day X 3″ of Demo 2010, 9 December 2010. Here’s an interesting meta-post entitled “A Book Bloc’s Genealogy”.

Momodou in Germany
For about 10 years, Germany has been nothing other than a black hole as far as our activities are concerned. We can’t explain what happened. Q was translated into German and published by Piper Verlag in 2000, and we know it went well: it was reprinted in paperback, it’s still in print to this day and reviews on Amazon.de are nearly all positive. You would think it was a good start, wouldn’t ya? Only, it wasn’t. Not at all. No hint of interest from any German publisher after Q‘s publication. No contact, no letter, nothing. 54, Manituana, New Thing and other novels were successfully published in several countries, but not in Germany. Out of all our books, Manituana had the best critical international reception, but German readers never heard of it. What a baffling thing.
Only one of the things we wrote managed to land on German soil.
In 2008 Einaudi Editore published a short story collection entitled Crimini Italiani [Italian Crimes], edited by our colleague Giancarlo De Cataldo. The book included Momodou, a story we wrote taking inspiration from a murder case happened in Southern Italy in 2003. Two cops were charged with killing an African migrant with mental problems. Momodou describes what happens immediately before and after the murder, and then goes back in time, depicting pivotal moments in the childhoods of all the main characters.
Now Crimini italiani (and therefore Momodou) is out in Germany, published by Bastei Lübbe GmbH & Co.KG with the title Denn dein ist das Böse: Italien-Krimis [For Thine is the Evil: Italian Crimes]. Actually, this is all we know. We haven’t seen reviews, nor we have copies of the book. We don’t know anything about the translation. We only know that the book exists. Are German readers aware that the guys who wrote Momodou under the name “Wu Ming” are the same authors who wrote Q under the name “Luther Blissett”? We can’t possibly say.

La salvación de Eurídice
Some brave soul took the uneasy task to translate into Spanish one of the most ambitious essays ever to come from our laboratory, ie La salvezza di Euridice [Eurydice's Salvation] by Wu Ming 2, the longest text included in our 2008 book New Italian Epic (the English Wikipedia entry is a bit outdated but still useful). The Spanish text is here.

We’re on Goodreads
Most of the book reviews we wrote from 2000 to 2010 (118 out of 149) are now on Goodreads. We exported them from our library on Anobii. In the past few years, Anobii has been the first choice among Italian book lovers, the most popular social network of that kind in Italy, but now it’s been malfunctioning for months, it’s painfully slow, and we decided to confer “double citizenship” to our reviews. Of course, they are in Italian.

An interview with Wu Ming 1 is online at wordswithoutborders.com. Here’s an excerpt:

King’s style looks simple, but it is actually very difficult to translate. As an author, he’s very fond of puns, neologisms, idioms, local slang and so on. He plays with all the singularities of the English language, precisely the stuff that can’t be translated in any way! This is typical of, er, “monoglot” writers, by which I mean those writers who don’t care about what happens to their works when they’re translated into other languages.
There are basically two kinds of novelists: those who care about translations, like Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco, because they’re used to exploring foreign languages, and those who don’t care, like Elmore Leonard or Uncle Stevie, because they’re perfectly happy with inhabiting their native language, with no forays in other cultures and koines.
If you’re a careful, attentive reader, you can tell one kind of writer from the other simply by reading. There’s a prose that’s translation-conscious, and a prose that is not.

Read more

PDF, 13.7 mb

MOBI, 5.9 mb

ePUB, 4.7 mb
[Mind you, we used Calibre to convert from pdf to ePUB, and the result is CRAP. As we're just middle-age men of humanities, this is the most we can do at the moment. If you choose the latter format, you'll have to improve the layout yourself.]

Translated by Shaun Whiteside
Published by Verso Books
[They've got quite a cool website, by the way]

About Manituana

Download is completely gratis et amore dei. However, if you want to make a donation to support our work, please click the button below.

And if you decided to buy the book all the same, that would obviously be really fucking, uh, great.
Amazon UK – Amazon USA

The Leaning Tower of Pisa occupied by students, November 24, 2010

«It could be interesting to look closely at the classics the students chose to put on their shields. Let’s look at the frontline.
Boccaccio’s Decameron, which is about people sharing stories while waiting for the plague to end.
Asimov’s The Naked Sun, which is the description of a world where humans no longer touch each other.
Melville’s Moby Dick, which is an epic tale of obsession.
Cervantes’ Don Quixote, ie the story of a proud, noble man led astray by an obsolete ideology (the chivalrous one).
Petronius’ Satyricon, that is, the description of a greedy, decadent power.
Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, that is, a piece of «auto-fiction», a scandalous mix of autobiography and fiction.
Lenin’s What Is To Be Done?, which deals with the problem of organization.
Deleuze & Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaux, that is, the theme of nomadism, the nomadic war machine.
Shall we summarize? [...]
Our world is infected by the plague (Decameron).
The plague is the atomization of social relationships (The Naked Sun)
Those who refuse this state of things are often prey to an obsession that cripples their initiatives (Moby Dick), that is to say: the obsession with “Him,” Silvio the Malignant Whale, this «berluscocentrism» affecting the public discourse.
This obsession becomes an ideological barrier and causes us to attack windmills that are put in front of us as baits (Don Quixote).
The risk is to be mesmerized by the scene of an outraged, sex-addicted, ever-carousing power (Satyricon).
We will avoid such risk only if we find a new story, a narrative of ourselves that will break into this world as a real scandal (Tropic of cancer), as opposed to all the fake scandals we see in the media. The emergence of a new, unified, conflict-bearing subjectivity would be the only truly intolerable scandal. «For it must needs be that scandals come», says the old maxim [Matthew, 18,7].
Hence the problem of organization (What Is to be done?) And, perhaps, the need to re-read Lenin, rejecting what is to be rejected, revamping what can be revamped.
Of course, today the process of organization can no longer aim at building the party of the proletariat as in the 20th century: organization must take into account the enemy’s superior mobility, it must make us able to fight in an ever-changing situation, a scenario of constant deterritorialization (A Thousand Plateaux).
However, without a narrative, without stories to be told in the night around the campfire, any guerrilla warfare in the desert is doomed to failure. And so we return to the first book, the Decameron: it is thanks to the stories we tell one another that we can prevent the spreading of the plague [...]
Well, Q is the only book in the “Book Bloc” whose authors are still living. Should they have chosen only dead writers? We might say that Q represents the “here and now” of the struggle, the need to act now.»

[Translated excerpts from an interview we gave to the daily paper Il Fatto quotidiano, November 28, 2010.]