The smell of eucalyptus trees, the summer heat, the sound of cicadas, groups of people in the shade. This is democracy for me. So, I should say that 2 days ago I found Democracy. Yes. At S. Giorgio bay, Bari, Italy. All these things were there: the eucalyptus trees, the summer heat, the sound of cicadas, groups of people in the shade. What a happiness!!
All these things remind me the Kabylia region in Algeria. There, for the first time in my life, I learnt what Democracy is. It was 2001, and then 2002. Summer, of course. Very hot, incredibly hot. Small villages. Groups of tens of people gathering from the countryside. Let's say, emerging from dusty lanes from the countryside, coming down from the mountains. Old cars, animals or even only their own feet as carriage. Starting speaking, discussing, not about cosmological disputes, but about compelling problems, in a permanent state of mobilization, supervised by local police perceived as the big brother's eye of the government, a kind of distant, arrogant, violent and stranger power as worse it could not be.
Democracy was coming from the countryside, too. It was appearing and disappearing, like a mythical animal that you don't know if really exists or if it's only a legend. Like a mirage in the heat. Democracy was every time when all the people taking part in the assembly had the same importance in the discussion. Every time each person could speak and argue his own thoughts, fears, hopes. Every time, facing a disagreement, people started over again speaking. Until everybody, after hours and hours, sometimes days, were converging on the same opinion, on the same decision. This is the consensus method. And then Democracy was showing off itself like a wonderful creature. All around, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the summer heat, the sound of cicadas, groups of people in the shade. (WATCH HERE "THE RETURN OF AARCH - VILLAGES OF KABYLIA SHAKE ALGERIA", only Italian subtitles available).
All these things remind me the Kabylia region in Algeria. There, for the first time in my life, I learnt what Democracy is. It was 2001, and then 2002. Summer, of course. Very hot, incredibly hot. Small villages. Groups of tens of people gathering from the countryside. Let's say, emerging from dusty lanes from the countryside, coming down from the mountains. Old cars, animals or even only their own feet as carriage. Starting speaking, discussing, not about cosmological disputes, but about compelling problems, in a permanent state of mobilization, supervised by local police perceived as the big brother's eye of the government, a kind of distant, arrogant, violent and stranger power as worse it could not be.
Democracy was coming from the countryside, too. It was appearing and disappearing, like a mythical animal that you don't know if really exists or if it's only a legend. Like a mirage in the heat. Democracy was every time when all the people taking part in the assembly had the same importance in the discussion. Every time each person could speak and argue his own thoughts, fears, hopes. Every time, facing a disagreement, people started over again speaking. Until everybody, after hours and hours, sometimes days, were converging on the same opinion, on the same decision. This is the consensus method. And then Democracy was showing off itself like a wonderful creature. All around, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the summer heat, the sound of cicadas, groups of people in the shade. (WATCH HERE "THE RETURN OF AARCH - VILLAGES OF KABYLIA SHAKE ALGERIA", only Italian subtitles available).
So, that's why, 2 days ago, at S. Giorgio bay, when I smelt the eucalyptus trees, under the summer heat, listening to the sound of cicadas, among groups of people in the shade, it seemed to me suddenly for a moment to glimpse Democracy. I was at the States-general of the "Fabbriche di Nichi" (= Nichi's factories). Nichi is Nichi Vendola.
Nichi held the final speech of the meeting. Here is a summary (OR WATCH HERE A VIDEO IN ITALIAN WITHOUT SUBTITLES):
Nichi held the final speech of the meeting. Here is a summary (OR WATCH HERE A VIDEO IN ITALIAN WITHOUT SUBTITLES):
<<We must be a lamp that illuminates the dark corners of the organization of life. (...)
We lose when we get lost, when we do not have a beam of light that illuminates what prevents us from the path. To enlighten means to build together the ethics of the path. (...)
The aesthetics of defeat: the beautiful death. When they impale you but you're there with the red flag waving, and then your dying body is wrapped around the flag that falls down on you like a sublime curtain: how boring, comrades! (...)
Trying to win without fear of losing. (...)
To win means to make win a civil Italy, friendly, supportive, an Italy that encompasses human beings and doesn't condemn them to a hopeless solitude. Then it's a victory that is contagious, is a discourse of salvation of the country, is a discourse that looks to Europe, then it is a victory worth fighting, is not a victory of a single, it is a victory for many, is not the victory of a party or a coalition, but the victory of a people that stands up. (...)
Who am I? I am you when you hate being this center-left , having in the bottom of your heart the hope for a different world. (...)
Why me? I wonder this by myself. Because it happened to me to do this double movement: to defeat the center-left to defeat the center-right. (...)
We in this deep darkness can not do it to live with a mediocre political proposal. (...)
This desire is what can wrong-foot the conformists, of right and center and left. It is the desire, I say it with the words of Pasolini, of throwing our body in the fight. (...)
We don't have to anesthetize our pain but we must use it to understand more. The pain that we feel should be a magnifying glass to see better social, cultural and political phenomena. And the pain must be the material root of that "principle of hope" mentioned by Ernst Bloch that we have to relocate in the public arena and in the political discourse, to say with strength, joy, concerns particularly of younger that yes, a better Italy exists and we will make it win>>.
Important happenings in Italy in these last 3 days. Nichi Vendola formalized his candidacy for leader of the Italian left. Yesterday it was the 18th anniversary of the murder of Paolo Borsellino. Today is the 9th anniversary of the murder of Carlo Giuliani. What a meaning!!
I think that Nichi is someone that Italy was waiting since a long time. The mixture of his background, his culture, his political experience, his smartness, his eccentricity, his eloquence, his humanity, his courage, his wisdom, his kindness, his healthy humor, his humility, is something irresistible, at least for many. Of course! Because all the others we saw on the Italian political scene in the last 20 years were exactly the opposite of what Nichi is. Nichi is something missing not only on the Italian left side, but also on the Italian right side. Those few who claim to be honest rightists in Italy, I think they also are envying someone like Nichi.
But there's a paradox. Exactly what showed the power of Nichi, 2 days ago, is exactly what convinced me less. It's possible that Nichi has the answer. And it's possible that his answer is the right one. But the only possible answer comes and must come from the people, not from a single man. You may say that I am the usual fucking leftist who likes disorder, overlapping voices, unbridgeable divisions as a proof of pluralism and going on this way leftists will never win. Possible. So why "Fabbriche di Nichi", Nichi's factories, were born? For fashion? To give a semblance of democracy? This point, frankly speaking, is still not clear to me. I don't wish that the Nichi's factories are only the fig leaf behind which the same old story of the charismatic leader is hiding. We really love too much Nichi to leave him at the mercy of the basic instincts of personalism. Someone must tell him. Time maybe is not enough for starting a long process to democracy, 3 years (to the next elections) is a too short period to establish a new old way to democracy in Italy as never existed here and after 16 years of parliamentary season of the Sultan. But I don't know any other way but to let people find its own way to solutions. And Nichi is walking too fast, always 1 step before the people.
We lose when we get lost, when we do not have a beam of light that illuminates what prevents us from the path. To enlighten means to build together the ethics of the path. (...)
The aesthetics of defeat: the beautiful death. When they impale you but you're there with the red flag waving, and then your dying body is wrapped around the flag that falls down on you like a sublime curtain: how boring, comrades! (...)
Trying to win without fear of losing. (...)
To win means to make win a civil Italy, friendly, supportive, an Italy that encompasses human beings and doesn't condemn them to a hopeless solitude. Then it's a victory that is contagious, is a discourse of salvation of the country, is a discourse that looks to Europe, then it is a victory worth fighting, is not a victory of a single, it is a victory for many, is not the victory of a party or a coalition, but the victory of a people that stands up. (...)
Who am I? I am you when you hate being this center-left , having in the bottom of your heart the hope for a different world. (...)
Why me? I wonder this by myself. Because it happened to me to do this double movement: to defeat the center-left to defeat the center-right. (...)
We in this deep darkness can not do it to live with a mediocre political proposal. (...)
This desire is what can wrong-foot the conformists, of right and center and left. It is the desire, I say it with the words of Pasolini, of throwing our body in the fight. (...)
We don't have to anesthetize our pain but we must use it to understand more. The pain that we feel should be a magnifying glass to see better social, cultural and political phenomena. And the pain must be the material root of that "principle of hope" mentioned by Ernst Bloch that we have to relocate in the public arena and in the political discourse, to say with strength, joy, concerns particularly of younger that yes, a better Italy exists and we will make it win>>.
Important happenings in Italy in these last 3 days. Nichi Vendola formalized his candidacy for leader of the Italian left. Yesterday it was the 18th anniversary of the murder of Paolo Borsellino. Today is the 9th anniversary of the murder of Carlo Giuliani. What a meaning!!
I think that Nichi is someone that Italy was waiting since a long time. The mixture of his background, his culture, his political experience, his smartness, his eccentricity, his eloquence, his humanity, his courage, his wisdom, his kindness, his healthy humor, his humility, is something irresistible, at least for many. Of course! Because all the others we saw on the Italian political scene in the last 20 years were exactly the opposite of what Nichi is. Nichi is something missing not only on the Italian left side, but also on the Italian right side. Those few who claim to be honest rightists in Italy, I think they also are envying someone like Nichi.
But there's a paradox. Exactly what showed the power of Nichi, 2 days ago, is exactly what convinced me less. It's possible that Nichi has the answer. And it's possible that his answer is the right one. But the only possible answer comes and must come from the people, not from a single man. You may say that I am the usual fucking leftist who likes disorder, overlapping voices, unbridgeable divisions as a proof of pluralism and going on this way leftists will never win. Possible. So why "Fabbriche di Nichi", Nichi's factories, were born? For fashion? To give a semblance of democracy? This point, frankly speaking, is still not clear to me. I don't wish that the Nichi's factories are only the fig leaf behind which the same old story of the charismatic leader is hiding. We really love too much Nichi to leave him at the mercy of the basic instincts of personalism. Someone must tell him. Time maybe is not enough for starting a long process to democracy, 3 years (to the next elections) is a too short period to establish a new old way to democracy in Italy as never existed here and after 16 years of parliamentary season of the Sultan. But I don't know any other way but to let people find its own way to solutions. And Nichi is walking too fast, always 1 step before the people.
And this is not healthy, also because we don't need a leader, we need a spokesman ready to step aside as soon as he is in conflict with the decision of the base. We are still too hurt to trust even the grandmother. We became able to recognize the long ears of the wolf in any condition and situation and under any disguise.
Democracy likes eucalyptus trees. But eucalyptus leaves are even smaller than fig leaves.
