Parting the Waters
- By Jim Hicks
Given the state of post-Berlusconi Italy today, it was perhaps to be expected. Yet the judge’s decision at Erri De Luca’s preliminary hearing—to proceed to trial—is still, to put it mildly, disappointing. That the trial date is set for January 28th at least gives those of us who still believe in free speech and a green planet some time to organize.
On the 9th, Erri gave an interview to La Repubblica, one of Italy's major newspapers. There was also an interview in France's Liberation a few days earlier, but that largely repeats the Le Monde interview already posted here. Here are some highlights from his comments to La Repubblica:
Erri: “I just don’t see myself playing this role, as initiating these events, given that I have no political or collective responsibility.”
However, they're accusing you of having, with your words, instigated actual material events that occurred later.
“Yes, let's just say that they used a sophistic trick, common in medieval scholasticism, and one that is easily unmasked. The theory is: “Post hoc ergo propter hoc”—which means “after this, and thus as a consequence of this.” They're putting two events in a causal relation that in fact have only a temporal relation.”
Are you certain that the phrase stated publicly by you—“the TAV should be sabotaged”—didn't have the effect of an invitation?
“I don't believe it did. And I also think it's odd that they've decided to start from there and forget everything else. It's as if my interview had become year zero for the struggle against the TAV, and everything that had happened earlier was completely irrelevant.”
It's not year zero for the struggle against the TAV, but your trial is year zero for a new stage: they're taking to trial, not only those who demonstrate at the fences around the worksite, but also those who make public statements in support of the demonstrators.
“Yes, that's the parting of the waters. This marks the moment where they want to start intimidating public opinion and freedom of expression by convicting it in court. They believe that by discouraging me that they discourage a hundred others.”
Listening to you speak, it seems almost as if in this trial you'd consider a conviction more honorable than a not guilty verdict.
“That's it. I'm not interested in being found not guilty; I'm only interested in defending my freedom of expression. Simply that. And I intend to accuse in return, for the abuse and intimidation by those who have put this indictment together.”
(What follows is a translation of a blog post from Susanna Marietti, the national coordinator for the Antigone Association, a group working for prisoners’ rights and reform of the penitentiary system in Italy.)
I’m Siding with Erri
Susanna Marietti, June 12, 2014
On May 21, 1957 two men came into San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore and bought a copy of Howl, a work by the Beat Generation’s greatest poet, Allen Ginsberg. It cost them 75 cents. A certain Shigeyoshi Murao, who worked as a salesperson in the store, sold them the book. Thirteen days later, on the third of June, Shigeyoshi Murao was arrested. Those two men were police officers in plain clothes. There was also an arrest warrant for Lawrence Ferlinghetti—the owner of the bookstore as well as editor of the volume under indictment. The poem had been declared obscene. Ferlinghetti and Murao were subjected to a trial that would make history. “Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemism? An author should be real in treating his subject and be allowed to express his thoughts and ideas in his own words.” Such were the words by which Judge Clayton Horn acquitted the accused.
Despite the obvious differences between the two cases—for one, here it’s a declaration during an interview, not a poem, that’s in question—what’s been happening to our celebrated writer Erri De Luca does make one think of the famous trial of Ferlinghetti. When asked about the TAV, Erri spoke of sabotage and scissors, and today’s he’s being accused of instigating violence. In order to substantiate his thinking, he ought to have used some “vapid innocuous euphemism”; that way no one would have even noticed his statements. Erri De Luca had a leading role during the 60s, years that in Italy witnessed excessive penalties simply for crimes of opinion.
I’m siding with Erri. And, fortunately, along with me there are many others: people that at this very moment are protesting on the web, organizing spontaneous readings to recite his work, showing their indignation over what’s happening to him.
We’re siding with him. We saw him go back and forth to Bosnia just after the war, driving trucks full of food in aid convoys. We saw him in Belgrade during the bombing. We saw him in Lampedusa, where we drown the bodies and hopes of a part of humanity we like to pretend to forget. We saw him alongside the inmates that fill our prisons with need and misfortune. “Whoever holds something back holds everything back,” says one of the three men in Aceto, arcobaleno, an already classic work by Erri De Luca. That’s it exactly: he has never held anything back. We love you, Erri.
