Appeal
We want to break a Taboo
We want to break a taboo, break the
silence on the fact that the Italian State has kept 16 militants of the
“Brigate Rosse” in prison for forty years and has subjected three others, for
over 20 years, to the regime of Article “41 bis” of the penitentiary system.
The special regime of “41 bis” is aimed at the psycho-physical annihilation of
the prisoner, who is kept in almost total isolation: twenty-two hours a day in
solitary confinement, two hours of fresh air a day, a short monthly visit for
family members behind a glass wall, no books or newspapers from outside the
prison. This prison regime is one of the most intolerable in Europe. It has two
objectives: to cut off all communication with the outside world and to force
prisoners to become "repentants", collaborators of justice.
Some commentators argue that these
prisoners prefer to remain in prison, stubbornly refusing to benefit from
alternative measures to detention or conditional release. But these statements
do not mention the fact that these alternative measures are subject to a logic
of exchange: they are granted only in exchange for the questioning of one's
political past, for formal self-criticism, which will be amplified by the
media; they are therefore asked to deny, purely and simply, their own political
history and their own revolutionary past.
This is not an abstract question: these
militants are asked to renounce an identity that for them is the choice of a
lifetime, which explains their incredible resistance to forty years of
deprivation of freedom; they are asked to renounce beliefs that correspond to
currents of thought deeply rooted in universal history, in more than a century
of class struggle, a struggle that has been international. Whether one shares
these ideas or not, it is this identity struggle that is at stake and nothing
else.
But while the State prides itself on its
firmness in pursuing the annihilation of the prisoners, some claim to reduce
their struggle to a simple question of principle that the prisoners would
defend with excessive obstinacy. As if at the basis of their resistance there
wasn't a profound coherence, the refusal to bargain and commodify their
political thought. But to better understand why it is important to break this
taboo, we must also ask ourselves what are the fundamental reasons why the
Italian State still today maintains a ferocious line of conduct towards them,
why it persists in this implacable line of action.
We are living in a historical phase
characterized by the unbridled growth of inequalities, by a succession of
crises and by a strong intensification of the comparison between the states
that dominate the world. A comparison that is becoming increasingly dangerous
and globalised. In this context, the crisis of the political system is
intensifying, as in other historical phases, such as in the years between the
two wars or during the colonial wars. These tensions make representative
democracy increasingly "unsuitable" for crisis management, so much so
that the ruling classes seem every day more inclined to seek authoritarian
solutions and to liquidate social gains.
Proof of this trend is, for example, the
violent repression by the French state against the Gilets jaunes or during
demonstrations against the pension reform, rejected by the vast majority of the
population; but also the repression of the environmental movement in Germany
and France, the anti-strike laws in the United Kingdom, as well as the
unprecedented measures against migrants. In Italy there has been a massive
criminalization of social movements: attacks on trade unions, on students, on
those fighting for the right to housing, against unemployement, on NGOs trying
to defend the lives of immigrants and on immigrants themselves, deprived of the
preventive protection of previous safeguards and violently attacked in their
precarious jobs.
At the same time, the right to freely
express one's thoughts is constantly limited: it becomes compromising to defend
the Palestinians and anyone who denounces the ongoing massacre against the
Gazan people is banned. Any discussion of the war in Ukraine that does not
immediately and without discussion adopt the NATO point of view is seen as
support for Russia and betrayal. In general, we are witnessing the gradual
criminalization of all opposition, not just the radical one. Finally, after
countless trials and incarcerations of protesters, anti-globalization activists
and anarchists, the repression in Italy reached its peak when, on the orders of
the Minister of Justice, Alfredo Cospito was subjected to the “41bis”. He was
the first anarchist to be subjected to this ruthless detention regime.
The increasingly severe repression of
social movements, demonstrations, militants and activists, regardless of their
beliefs and actions, is gradually creating a climate reminiscent of the
"strategy of tension" that characterized the 1960s and 70. Back then,
this strategy aimed to stifle a strong protest movement that was sweeping
through the entire society. Today, this strategy of tension would like to
prevent the growing discontent and ideological disorientation from finding
political expression and transforming into real protest. The "war"
that has been waged for some time against the memory of the struggles of the
1970s fits into this context. In those years, the subordinate classes were the
bearers and expressions of an important process of social transformation, of a
real "assault on heaven". This is why this period is systematically
subject to reductive or mystifying analyzes by those in power.
By denying the existence of class
struggle, they persist in pretending that the world can be reduced to an
opposition between supporters of liberal democracies and others.
It is only in the context of this
"war" on memory that we can understand the silent policy of prisoner
annihilation. The State sees these prisoners as a sort of trophy and, by making
their imprisonment an example and a bogeyman, aims to discourage any struggle,
in the hope of suffocating the development of the current contradictions, which
could lead to a reversal of the situation, to a new "assault on the
sky".
Breaking the taboo, breaking the silence
about these prisoners, about the conditions of their detention, about their
infinite duration, cannot be reduced to a humanitarian reaction. It is a
necessary step to free ourselves from our fears, to untie the noose of
constraints, of the cage in which they would like to enclose struggles and
movements.
This unacceptable prison regime, the
denial that is required of prisoners in order to escape this regime, is a
further way to stifle all struggles.
Therefore, breaking this taboo is
primarily in the interest of those who suffer the consequences of the
disastrous economic and political conditions of society as a whole, which can
only be transformed by a radical change in existing social and political
structures. Breaking this silence is also a way to regain freedom and critical
thinking, so that we can freely find possibilities for solutions and to
interrupt the mortal spiral into which the powerful are dragging us with their
increasingly repressive, classist policies and warmongers.
