The Persistence of Contrarian Speech

- By Erri De Luca

Final Statement from the Defendant, Erri De Luca 
Tribunale di Torino, 19 October 2015 

Even if I were not the writer on trial here for instigation, I would be in this courtroom today. Beyond the insignificance of my personal case, I believe the charges that I answer to are a social experiment, an attempt to silence contrarian speech. As such I believe this courtroom is an outpost that reveals the present state of our country. I’m self-employed as a writer and consider myself an injured party in any case aimed at censorship.

I have been charged according to a section of the penal code that dates from 1930, from that period of Italy’s history. I believe this section of the law has been superseded by the drafting of our Republic’s Constitution. I am in this courtroom to learn whether the Constitution is in force: whether it will prevail or whether this indictment has the power to suspend and invalidate Article 21 of the Constitution.

I prevented my defense attorneys from filing a motion of unconstitutionality against the indictment. If it had been received, such a motion would have halted this trial and transferred its proceedings to a Constitutional Court which is overwhelmed with work, and which would have taken years to render its verdict. If it had been received, such a motion would have overriden this courtroom and lost this precious time.

I believe that what is constitutional gets decided and defended in public places like this: just as it is at police headquarters, within a classroom, in a prison, hospital, or workplace, or at a border crossing where asylum is requested. What is constitutional in a society gets measured at ground-level.

I have been charged for using the verb “to sabotage.” I believe it to be a noble and democratic word. Noble when pronounced and put in practice by valiant figures such as Gandhi and Mandela, to great political effect. Democratic because it belongs from birth to the labor movement and its history of struggle. A strike, for example, is said to sabotage production. I defend the legitimate use of the verb “to sabotage” in its broadest and most effective sense. I’m ready to face a criminal conviction for using this word, but I can’t accept either censorship or the diminishment of the Italian language.

“That’s where shears have been useful”: for what? Could a construction project as colossal as it is harmful be sabotaged with shears? There are no other insidious implements of hardware mentioned in these proceedings, which are based on my telephone conversation. So what exactly is under indictment? a spoken gesture supporting a symbolic act? I don’t want to stray into my defense attorneys’ area of expertise.

I will conclude by reconfirming my conviction that the so-called high-speed train line in the Val di Susa should be obstructed, prevented, hampered, and thus sabotaged in the legitimate defense of the health, soil, air, and water of an endangered community.

My contrarian speech persists; I await to be informed if it constitutes a crime.

Translated by Jim Hicks