Take a lawyer from the south, maybe from Lecce, almost fifty years old, an administrator, cultured, intelligent, democratic, who has never been involved in politics, who does not know his rituals, habits, annoyances, idiosyncrasies, his robust history and biography knows, he has ideas, sympathies, passions that are not easy to name and who longs madly for his freedom; Well, take this lawyer and suddenly throw him in the air old PCI (the Communist Party of Exit And Berlinguer) at the very period of history when the PCI is about to end its course and communism is collapsing under the bricks and cement of the US crumbling wall of berlin. What do you think is a nice experiment, right? The result of this experiment has a surname and a given name: Pilgrim John.
In the last few days a new book has been published in which John Pellegrino tells of his political adventure that began in the late eighties but prompted him to dissect the history of First Republic and from first democracy of the Italian fair from the late sixties to 2000 The book is entitled “Ten Years of Solitude”, subtitled “Memories of a Heretic of the Left”, published by Rubbettino, 290 pages divided into four chapters and 32 subchapters, it mentions – often arguingly – practically all the characters of the first Repubblica and all There are two names at the top of the list of quotes: von Franz Cossiga is that from Massimo D’Alema.
This book is very interesting, especially for those who, like me, have lived these years from within – I say from within PCI and the burgeoning parties of the PCI – and who sees the events of three or four decades more or less flowing again, seen through eyes other than his own, but never partisan, never veiled by prejudice or ideological nuance. Because it has the big advantage Pilgrim, he was able to examine our history by looking at it from the inside and the outside.
Yes, from within, because when he threw himself into politics, politics swallowed him up like everyone else. But also from the outside, because it has nothing to defend, it has no plans to save, no theses to prove, no succumbing to influences. The book says “ten years”, but those ten years refer to his loneliness in Parliament. Because the story spans almost forty years. Today Pellegrino is 84 years old, when he begins his autobiography he was less than fifty.
Of course, reading the book, I didn’t get the impression that the entire reconstruction is correct. I mean: that it fits with my idea of what happened. But that’s exactly why I feel the objective value of this work. Which essentially – critically – tells us three essential things. First, that the PCI never died, at least for many years. And that his Stalinism may have morphed into judicialism, but it has always been guided by it Great reason of state (not just Reason of Party) survived89for the PDS, for the ds, To Berlusconi and also to Pd. Granite. With a considerable hostility to free thinking, but also, at least in the first phase, with a certain love, even a strong love of thought.
The second thing he tells us – and readers of this newspaper know how much I agree with him – is that the justice – perceived as a necessity and a categorical imperative by a large part of the Italian political class – has ruined and corrupted politics Second Republic. He made them mean, impoverished, and culturally flattened. Becoming oneself – judicialism – is a moral question, although it was born to solve the moral question. I say “moral matter‘ because judicialism is the most reactionary and morally corrupt ‘political’ thing I know.
The third thing it tells us is this Politics is cowardly. He has one reverence for power – for power as such, not just for power to be conquered – that one can never say no. In whatever form it presents itself: that of the economy, bureaucracy or the judiciary. And always saying yes often means bowing down to real scammers. But maybe – be careful – summarize the book like this pilgrim I project my thoughts – and my anger – a little too much into his story, which has a gift of not always being flat, clear and utterly composed.
Let’s assume that the facts, told very meticulously and thanks to a lot of direct knowledge, memories and testimonies, are three (plus the experience of Lecce at the head of the province). The first is tangent topoli. The second is theAndreotti affair. The third are the years of lead and the armed fight. The first two, Pellegrino, followed them from the very delicate role of President of the Admissions Committee to continue. The third as president of the bicameral commission of inquiry Terrorism.
On Tangentopoli pilgrim tells us a lot, but what impressed me the most is the straightforward description of the research methods. A story denouncing discreet abuse. The first is to use arrests to get suspects to confess. Against all constitutional spirit and the law. The second is the trick of leaving a file open indefinitely to add any new warranty notices to the same file to ensure the give who then had to authorize the arrests was always the same (friend). Another violation of theArticle 25 of the Constitution (the one about the natural judge to which everyone is entitled).
The third abuse is bail bonds (and then arrest warrants) “in installments” to circumvent preventive detention periods. To be clear, the prosecutors arrested you on one charge, but they had two or three more in store that they would later challenge you against when the pre-trial period on the first charge was about to expire. The history of those horrible years that razed the first republic is very detailed and undoubtedly brings that to light power of judgeswho had kept politics in check and the faint-heartedness of politics that made hara-kiri.
There Andreotti affair it is also very interesting. Because read pilgrim It is clear that Andreotti was completely innocent. It was not a trial or an investigation, but a chess game that Andreotti had agreed to. He accepted because he had no choice. Or maybe it was more than a game of chess, it was a foxhunt without limits. Then there’s the story of 70s And here I think Pellegrino’s reconstruction is marred by a certain, albeit always reasonable, dose Conspiracy. Pellegrino examines this decade through the lens of political maneuvers, rebounds, interests, maneuvers, international influences. I think he misses the essentials: the enormous urge of an entire generation for a frontal mass fight against the system.
A social, political, even existential phenomenon that shook and conditioned the palace, changed the balance of power between the parties, but never dealt with “the palaces”, with the institutions, with the powers that be. He marched alone. On his own he built extraordinary things in the ’68 In the ’69, and then, in the years that followed, failed to respond to counterattacks and degenerated into violence and, in part, violence Terrorism. And when I say “partially,” I don’t mean “fringes.” No, there were tens of thousands of young people, bourgeois and proletarians, born in between ’45 and the 60s, who were touched and delighted armed fight.
My apologies if I’ve been overwhelmed by my ideas, but this book forces you to get all the ideas out of it, for it is a heretical and provocative book and seems designed to provoke reactions. It’s worth a lot for that. Finally D’Alema. But here we leave the tragedy of the book. The story of the relationship between the Lecce lawyer and the leader Maximo is fantastic. Very ironic and self-deprecating. Full of D’Alema’s quirks, his wit, his unconventionality. pilgrim always keep that in mind. With love and with defiance. After all, the whole book is a love drama.