That kiosk
That no longer exists

On the back cover of each issue of "A" there is a list of our sales points. Until the last number, in Milan, next to libraries, some kiosk, community centers, etc.. there was this curious statement: direct sales outside the Statione Nord (Cadorna) every Wednesday from 17 to 19. If you went there, and at the time indicated on the site, you would find him, Franco Pasello, standing opposite the entrance to the busiest station, right at rush hour for return. Umanita' Nova in hand, "A", perhaps Sicilia Libertaria, and resting on the ground or in the bag (to avoid trouble with local or state police), some books - perhaps just what ordered from the week before by that student residing in the Varese and by that professional, very elegant, who was commuting from Como. Franco was a newsstand man, or - if you prefer - a man / newsstand. Regularly for decades, presided over that place at that hour. Just as he had done for more than twenty years, on Saturday (the first all day, then - you know, it's hard to go straight from work after the night of Friday, when the bread is done three times - only in the afternoon) at the Fiera di Sinigaglia, the flea market in Milan. For many years alone and then together with Lillino and Patrizio, then again by himself.

Franco Pasello (photo Ivana Kerecki, thanks to Fabrizio Casavola)

Franco was legendary, had an innate ability to sell, was the joy of our editors. In reality, the trick was, that big guy that over the years became old remaining always a big guy, has invested much of himself in that activity apparently commercial. It seemed that he was selling, actually he sought an opportunity to speak, to explain our ideas, to say and hear comments on the news, for "connect", or at least try to do it, with the girls. It was real solid as a kiosk, you would find there with the rain and the cold (which are not lacking in Milan, with a winter that can go from October to March), always with his chatter, his smile, his communicative . When I found myself alongside him in some parade, he always enjoyed making comparisons with my failure: I sold for twenty euro, he for seventy, plus a subscription, plus the phone number of a girl, plus vegan dinner flyer since two of Mortara, etc. .. At times it seemed too excessive, on the edge of the insistence.
Franco was not a friend of Roma, was a Roma. No coincidence that in regular and irregular camps he felt entirely at home. Even more than in the newsroom, where in average has come at least once a week for 35 years - and, in summer, when he did not go on vacation, he would finish here with the talk, and it was a problem (and only a few Franco we talk they next time, otherwise we can not make a new magazine and you have to continue to sell the old one made him give up).
His Roma friends (some also my friend) did not bother him, as we sometimes did, with an invitation to care for his teeth, wash his clothes more often, to give himself a rule. In the camps he was loved, he made pictures to everyone, but above all he spoke, was listening, trying to understand this world so different from ours. From our own? I say: of course Franco, a person of great human sensibility, of careful reading, of fine reasoning, was part of our anarchic world, but the Roma component has been assuming greater and greater importance in his life. And he, single certainly not by choice, has always found in the large extended family of gypsies, carousel owners, Sinti his family: the family that has never had, as a child, and that he did not been created when adult (and who knows him knows how this bothered him).
And then he would list the relatives, the Braidich, crossed marriages, detentions (many) and releases (a few), and "fuitine" of the girls, the raids of law enforcement in the camps. And then he would buy and eat up everything that was on the Roma, their history.
He had a strong work ethic. Never skip a night shift, had an intimate awareness of the social value of the bakery.

Franco Pasello (photo Roberto Gimmi)

He wasn't a "Taliban". Convinced of the anarchist ideas, like few others dedicated to their spread, he had an open mind, attended anarchists of all kinds, from the think-tanks to the insurgents, careful understanding but firm in his convictions. Hung around vegans and ate meat, was in the end an individualist but did not apply labels, and did not consider other people's filters for the friendship and cooperation. He was critical of the forms that appeared too organized anarchist movement, but (for example) had many friends in the FAI (of which has never been a part) and sold their weekly even if often he did not share a few things: was libertarian and too serious for being influenced in his career in sales, from personal judgments and contingent. In this he was more serious and reliable than others, that while talking about militancy and organizational reasons introduce controversial at every turn.
He was very sensitive, too much - if there is too much. And for one of his personal stories, which had to do with love, fatherhood and other matters of great personal importance, almost lost his head and we got to fight really hard. For a long time greatly reduced the attendance of the editor offices and he found himself "against" highly critical, many comrades and friends. It was a horrible time for him and for others, and for us.
I realized during those months, many months, what it means "blood of my blood." Scientifically Franco was not my flesh and blood, but in fact it is as if he were: I was not able to break up with him - to argue yes, and so much - for how many crap could do (and did, than it did during that period) . It was like my younger brother, or maybe Aurora and I were the figures for him a bit 'parenting - and I especially, perhaps, in part, the father who he never had and still not long before he died he went to look for in Lendinara in the countryside of Rovigo in which he was born 56 years ago. Result: once he knew who he was, the father chased him, ordering him not to get more to see him, or he would call the police. How much suffering in his account of this journey into the homeland!
He had lived to strong things, Franco. Like that night fifteen years ago 'when he found himself, as always, in the middle of the night, only with the baker for whom he worked. For a tragic fate, his "master" literally lost his head, sucked and mangled in the gears of machinery. And alone with the corpse decapitated and bloody, Franco had to tell his wife, who lived in the same building, ending - Franco - in the hospital in shock. And from this had called Fausta, the editor of "A". We, his family.
Many images crowd the mind: the campaign for Monica Giorgi, Senzapatria, the period of his membership in the group Anarres (his only "membership" that I remember), his criticism of so many things that we have published, his passion for bike (strictly his only means of transport), its simplicity in life, and generosity with stinginess.
Among so many images, stands our first time. It was 1976, I was in correspondence with him, a young inmate for refusing military service. He had showed up earlier from the military prison of Gaeta, then from the civil (so to speak!) of Sondrio, to ask the sending of the magazine and some books. Then he went out and wrote us. He lived not far from the editorial offices, but did not come to visit us. I persisted and eventually came, he was embarrassed, did not utter a word, but we just had sympathy. He came back, I interviewed him. Then he introduced us to his mother, we were invited to lunch. The ice was broken. Now all this belongs to the past.
Franco died, a stroke at his home, while two Roma whom he helped for a long time (he had spoken to me about them) had probably gone to his house to wash clothes and drink a coffee. Those two Romanian Roma, who sleep in a car, they will find no other gagio (such as the Roma and Sinti define the non-belonging to their people) who opens the doors of their homes and their lives, as was naturally doing Franco . One thing none of us, but great theorists of solidarity and blah blah blah, would never do. And he, however, did. Practice.
But even here the trick was. Franco stop cheating us. Now that you're dead, let us say the truth: you've never been a gagio. And your brothers Rom, the usual crooks, they knew or at least perceived.

Paolo Finzi
Translation by Enrico Massetti ("The other Fabrizio" + "Pinelli-Piazza Fontana")

A memory of
Alex Langer

In the spring of 1995, I saw again Alex Langer at Campogrosso at the border between Veneto and Trentino. Mountaineer, a member of the "MEPs Friends of Mountain" and Mountain Wilderness, he called for the creation of a natural park of the Little Dolomites. In front of the plaque in memory of the partisan vicentinoToni Giuriolo (exponent of Giustizia e Liberta, mentioned by Meneghello in "Piccoli maestri"), observed that "Vicenza Province, unfortunately, will enjoy a long reputation of international (overseas has already been dubbed "The Rostock Italy") acquired with the manifestation of skinheads last year. " He left from here on a series of reflections on "the current political situation and cultural resurgence impregnated of racist, ethnic conflict more or less latent ...".
Langer's bitter observation was that "at present whole layer of young people appear to have no competence to issues such as solidarity, nonviolence, human rights." You save those "fringes active voluntary, however, they seem to aim more to the individual cases, personal, but are less on the collective level."
"Maybe we thought - he added - that young people have still in them the potential for an culture alternative to selfishness, the rampant, individualism. Instead it seems they are making a bad copy of the adults. "
Hard words, some are still current.
It was not, however, devoid of hope for the future: "Many of these young people who have become drugged on television have never heard you say a little phrase:" Come and see. " It's about creating environments in which to participate without this leading to approval or signature of an ideology. I am convinced that from the diffusion of voluntary service it may result in a civil political regeneration. "
German South Tyrolean, son of an Austrian jew doctor fled first to Florence and then to Switzerland during the Nazi era, Langer had lived with highly involved in the conflicts between Serbs, Croats, Bosnians. He was a founder of the Verona Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, a network linking all the ethnic groups involved in the Balkan wars. "The meetings of Verona - he remembers - had begun even before the November '92 and the anti-war march in Sarajevo. And even then we checked out how difficult it was to put these people together. Many of them did not want to recognize themselves under the name "ex Yugoslavia". We began to meet with minority groups, women, peaceful, democratic ...". More than two hundred are the people who have participated in at least one of the meetings, confronting and coming to sign the joint statement ". And of course each of them "participate in the compilation of a document, a declaration must also think about the position of his ethnicity."
The last period of the life of Alex Langer was frantic. He had invested all my energy on the list for his candidacy for mayor of Bolzano, designed to "dissolve existing clots in the world of politics, without hurting the people and without underestimating their experience." For a "Bolzano European city, a place of stimulating cohabitation. City kind, hospitable, supportive and social. " On April 29 came the final exclusion as the candidate for mayor ( for refusing on two occasions the declaration of ethnicity) and that on his list. On May 19, arrived in Bolzano Selim Beslagic, mayor of the Bosnian town of Tuzla, which is traditionally a place of peaceful coexistence. Langer had accompanied him in several meetings in Italy and Europe to establish in Tuzla a 'Embassy of local democracy ". But a week later, a grenade that killed seventy young people in front of a bar, a shooting war restarted. With the appeal Europe dies or is reborn in Sarajevo and manifestation on 26 June in Cannes, in part by repudiating his personal story of a pacifist, Langer asked, in essence, an operation to "give some clear signal that the aggression does not pay.
Then the tragic conclusion. Not far from San Miniato in the Tuscany he loved, to Barbiana (his was the first German translation of "Letter to a Professor") and Isolotto (where, coincidentally, I had known in 1969). A climbing rope, the apricot tree and the three tickets, two Italian and one German: "The weights I have become really unbearable, I do not take it anymore. Please forgive me all for my departure .(....). Do not be sad, continue in what was right. Pian dei Giullari, July 3, 1995. "
A few days later, on 11 July, the Serbian militias of Mladic and Karadzic were entering Srebrenica.

Gianni Sartori
Translation by Enrico Massetti ("The other Fabrizio" + "Pinelli-Piazza Fontana")

About land,
Capital and labor

Over time I tried to understand the meaning of the development of economic / social situation trying not to base the analysis only on the interconnections between the three factors: land, capital, labor, but noting the "logic" of each one of these three factors, "logic" in difficult situations, has come to impose increasingly the stronger at the expense of the others.
The 'original minor consideration who has taken the Earth as a whole, because it is considered a divine gift to mankind, it was believed it could be exploited indefinitely, was obviously flawed. The "logic" of the land now has to do with its reaction destructive force to the other factors so as to force them willy-nilly, but to take the utmost account. (even if this is peacefully still not accepted)
Capital, which has passed the 'initial strength limited to financial resources, it now represents the entire legal / social organization of which it appropriated thanks to the complicity of religion, state control, to ensure, between the' other by all means, the right to property made eternal with the inheritance.
The Labor, focusing its strength on the ability of workers to solidarity and moderation, has been building its organizations, other early socialists and anarchists, have become increasingly looking for their legitimacy, flattening their demands, ostensibly on economic laws, forgetting that the legislative, executive and judiciary powers, were in the hand or strongly influenced by capital which, when not in conflict with its interests, would, at best, allow a slight improvement in living standards but never accept the individual right to 'equality.
In fact, as science and technology have allowed, as originally envisaged in favor of humanity (remember the "Ballet Excelsior) an use numerically less demanding of labor, capital has claimed, for measuring values, the simplistic (falsely neutral) market outcomes. This has led to the acceptance and passive complicity on the part of the society of intensive exploitation of all factors of production against the promise of a future improvement of general living conditions.
As for the Earth we know what this factor depletion has meaning, is' appropriate to understand how capitalism has meant the "exploitation" for himself.
Initially, he directed "company savings" (accrued profits) to get room for investment in the business. Then the investment objective has shifted from the business to finance pure and simple because of the ease of formation of earnings. This was made possible by the fact that the capital has obtained, by exploiting the social issues related to reflexes' employment, that the strictly productive investments were borne by the public as at first, low interest loans and / or incentives with equity and then real that, while partial initially, could easily become total with unemployment for workers threatened with the closure of businesses and thus transferring their liability squarely on the shoulders of society.
Since most of the 'public revenue are due to a) the income taxed earned directly in the time of their formation, b) contributions, that apparently in charge to business, in fact are they too charged to Labor because they are excluded from the tax on profits; c) indirect taxes on consumption, it follows that the diverted funds to the pseudo-problems of production become the de facto removal of income to workers who, they say, that can not be reduced taxes.
The unions, who more or less, have been confined to the role of claims of better contracts, higher wages and so on, sacrificing their primary purpose, the only one in which were really interested the workers, the construction of a world without exploiters and exploited.
But now that the Earth does not allow to be exploited without brakes, the Capital, there remains, with the excuse of the law of the market, exploit the Labor and then, as we have seen, the whole society.
That is as much the unions are trying to defend, in the reference country, the jobs of those few who still work (maybe to the detriment of workers in another country), the more and better capital exploits the global society as a whole.
I realize that my observations lead us to believe that the market mechanism is unable to allow the "economic recovery" understood as a means to date.
I think (and hope) that lead to demand a "human and social recovery" for which so many have fought. Recovery that has never had the sense to enrich themselves at the expense of others.
The Labor has always known that the wealth of some results in misery for everyone else.

Angelo Tirrito
Translation by Enrico Massetti ("The other Fabrizio" + "Pinelli-Piazza Fontana")