Prison, theater,
Memory

The phenomenon of theater in jail and has enjoyed a certain success in recent years in Italy. Often, however, has deepened the quality of "therapeutic" of his case, instead of forgetting what his or her potential to the outside. If you start with a reflection on the meaning of the prison, the size of the theater (etymologically, the observation point) can show a completely different function. It was this perspective that guided my research during the two years that I have been involved. I will start this excursion with two fragments, which have recently attracted my attention.
Radiotre, "obsession. Memories ", Wednesday, January 19, 2011. Speaker Manlio Milani, director of the House of Memory of Brescia. The "memory" of which we speak is that of neo-fascist massacre of Piazza della Loggia, in which Melanie was involved directly as it was in place along with his wife, who was killed along with seven other people. In his speech about the need to keep alive the memory of that massacre, and denounces the 'impunity' substantial after more than thirty-five still surrounds those terrible events, which may be absorbed by the fog as if they never existed. "We have evidence but we do not have names," says, throwing the words of Pasolini. But really the "names" are what's missing? Would actually help to understand, to promote coexistence less obtuse and hypocritical (more dialogue and less violence), have names? Either they are at risk of closing a question, once again narrowing the blame around special individuals (antisocial, deviant, sick torturers, murderers, violent, profiteers, crazy)? The terms of his speech made me think that a reasoned justicialism although at times can obscure the truth rather than make it more clear: too much light blinds.
The "Manifesto", 29 December 2010: Justice: life imprisonment is never "nice" ... even for Rafael Videla. The writer is Mauro Palma, one of the leaders of discussions on the jail in Italy, honorary president of "Antigone" and president of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Palm distances itself from the idea of a "bell'ergastolo" affirmed in a title of "Manifesto" of December 23, fined Rafael Videla, head of the Argentine military junta coup and therefore responsible for the worst crime imaginable in the twentieth century, genocide. For him the most just condemnation because it was unacceptable that it not be given any weight to the public to the massacre: he meant it as lawful, just, and what is worse, he could authorize other. But the effort, unlike the sentence must be proportionate to the seriousness of crimes not committed, but the function to which it must fulfill. And this function is certainly not the pay, that of "revenge" should instead be that of the "restoration of the wound produced by the commission of the offense and not a worsening her." A life sentence, therefore, is always a defeat for justice and civilization is a term that, in the words of Aldo Moro rediscovered, "it is no less cruel and inhuman than it is the death penalty."

Humanitarian Limits

Recovering from this perspective the question raised by Manlio Milani, his use of the word "impunity" recalls the danger of confusing the necessity of a conviction (which is a clear public stance) with that of the "penalty" or "punishment" which literally refers. The imperative of justice should not be "punishment" but the truth, as a tool for building a better world. The problem of criminal justice is not just a matter of limits "humanitarian" (the processing of the body, physical restraint, in meters per capita in which life is locked up, according to a criterion similar to that of organic chicken flocks). The problem is, however, condemning individuals who closes the blame around their branding as if they had a different nature from ours. Under the Nazis (and even before) did with the image of the Jews, then by that of the Nazi hierarchy. Many post-war film - it was noted recently in Siena Maria Grazia Giannichedda, the passionate director of the foundation Franco Basaglia - give the Nazis as monsters (and barbarians, speaking in German in Italian films), running essentially the idea in the 30s and 40s in Europe had happened that had happened because we had fallen prey to a gang of lunatics. The system (and the people, the 'humanity' that supported him) thus discharging their responsibilities by finding suitable scapegoats.
The penalty helps to transform individual nature of those issues that are matters of relationship, and therefore largely structural issues. This means in the sociology of punishment when declaring that "punishment is the result of society", rather than the actions of individuals. Since the problem is not the end to determine who is to blame, but trying to build a world where people can live together. A world in which we happen to not have to see what the worst can happen, as reflected Primo Levi in 1986, a year before suicide: the horrors of history repeating [The Drowned and the Saved]. The assignment of blame to the people to be assessed only as a tool to do this, and not as retributive justice (not "you'll get what you deserve", but "we have what we deserve"). The sentencing of a few individuals instead only serves to wash the conscience, and deny the possibility of transforming what is transformed: the system of social relations.

Justice sense

But at this point we can return to the question of the meaning of memory by inserting a third reference, this time drama: Eduardo De Filippo, mayor of the district Health. The two protagonists of the play are Barracano Antonio (played by De Filippo) and the doctor at his service, and friend, Fabio Della Ragione. Both heroes and anti-heroes at the same time (while the "bad" is the real baker Santaniello), saw in the first few readings simplistic a criminal Camorra, which defends its affiliates in violation of justice, and the second member of a universal justice, constrained only by threats to serve others: the death of a street light Barracano would open to reason. Barracano but has a much more refined sense of justice for what was called "amoral familism." In fact, mortally wounded by the cowardly and selfish baker above (which is harmful to his own son, but says: "I am an honest man, I have always done my own '), Barracano giving up one's own life in the name of 'ideal that had guided her: "We have worked a lifetime to tighten the chain of crimes, not to enlarge. In doing so denies revenge "pay", but at the same time forcing Baker to repay the murder of his son doing good. Shortly after Barracano dies, and asks his doctor not to tell, let us forget, but your doctor will betray the promise in the name of truth.
The problem of reason (the doctor) is not forgiving and triggers a series of sold-chain, the problem of forgiveness (Barracano) is the silence, false. It is possible to reconcile them, think of a reason to know and who knows how to forgive? You can think of an "after the violence" that is not the other (and greater) violence, as called historian Sandro Triunzi postcolonial Africa, in a recent collection of actions to be taken care of him [After the violence, yet, 2005]? Think future, our, that is not only slavery to the past, "pay" to what it was? The victims, the dead, should remind us how dangerous it is to show off the walls more often, and do not invite us to build more robust.
Returning once again to the issue of prison, in the most important studies conducted on its meaning in the twentieth century - Discipline and Punish, published in 1975 by Michel Foucault - it is evident that it has had the upper hand on the ideas of justice reform Enlightenment (Beccaria and others) who imagined the city as a theater of widespread torture: to show off their sentences in special tableau under the eyes of citizens, to inform them on the functioning of society, and thus enable them to operate freely, but in a manner calculated the difference between good and evil (as rational actors, once overcome ignorance and accounts doing well, there was confidence that they would have definitely chosen the "good"). Emerges, against most of the theories of the Enlightenment, the prison, an institution that obscure rather than illuminate, subtracts the eye, but it helps the system and its power generating ignorance. His genealogy is that of the sole, rational, disciplined, able to transform those bodies subject to the functional mechanisms in the system: the hôpital général for the poor, the army barracks, factory, school.

Ghosts in prison

Bring the theater in jail, prison and carry out to the theater, but can help you put this question in the prison system. It seems then that a theater like the Compagnia della Fortezza di Volterra - A group that I preferred the study - can bring out in society, the ghosts locked up in prison. But with a double crossing of the wall (the first from outside to inside and then from the inside out), pass the idea of theater with functional all'assetto theorized social theaters of torture. Passing Twice "through", it catalyzes a reflective function and strongly critical of society and to its values of "civilization", as it shows the contradictions at the heart removed (rather than highlighted, or better yet resolved) through the trouble: those that modernity, according to Foucault, he hid in the darkness to better manage its specific power, discipline.

Lucio Varriale

Mice, grow
And multiply!

I always thought that by publishing his book in 1975 illegal immigrants in the city (mostly in plants and animals that live in urban habitat) Fulco Pratesi a nod to the phenomena of antagonism, more or less radical, which spread in Italy at the time. Or maybe the title, as almost always, had been imposed by the publisher. In any case suffered from the climate of the time.
The concept was subsequently repeated in the chapter "The guerrillas of rats" which tells the epic battles between the Rattus norvegicus (rat or surmolotto of culverts) and his cousin Rattus rattus (black rat, also called black rat) as small and dark. While the rape of the culverts live mostly near the polluted urban rivers and irrigation ditches, as well as sewers and cellars, the rats surviving blacks prefer roofs and attics of old houses.
Both are natives of Europe. The black rat would come from the Middle East to the twelfth century, probably the result of the ships of the crusaders, spreading everywhere in the absence of competitors. For historians would have been the main vehicle of the Black Death that caused havoc in the Middle Ages in European cities. The surmolotto, bigger and lighter coat, would come later on the steppes of Central Asia. A first wave was sighted in the fall of 1727, as he crossed the Volga, at the cost of thousands and thousands of animals drowned.
Exists in regard to the testimony of a predecessor of Michael Strogoff. A courier of the Tsar, after having seen tens of thousands as they advanced in the desert, had to escape galloping horde. Escaped across a river from the swirling waters that had temporarily slowed the advance. This first wave came up in Bohemia and Galicia. The author of the fable of the Pied Piper of Hammelin was inspired to one of these sudden invasions. Later, in 1739, the surmolotto arrived in Britain, possibly with the ships coming from India. Fifteen years after he had already crossed the Channel and invaded Paris.
Early 800 proliferated throughout Europe. And then, with battalions landing illegal (such as writing Pratesi) hidden in ships, and the Americas. More voracious, prolific and adaptable (with a sophisticated social organization), the rape of the culverts ousted from the ground and from neighboring areas (with more waste and therefore more likely to eat) the black rat, relegated to the attics. Indirectly would then gradually reduced the plagues that with time there are only a bad memory. An example of how greater biodiversity, diluting the chance of infection, can have beneficial effects for our species.
The next time you see a "rat" come out of the gutter, thank them. Even on my part.

Gianni Sartori