On the usual page "ai lettori" (to the readers),
which opens the magazine, we report the death of a ninety-year-old
anarchist who lived in Michigan: he was an Italian immigrant,
one of the many that gave rise to a vast Italian-speaking
anarchist movement in North America between the end
of the 19th century and the last decades of the century
just passed: a movement that has now exhausted itself,
but also contributed - among other things - to supporting
our magazine financially in the first years of its life.
Globalization is the focus of two articles: Maria Matteo
discusses the new "contro" movements in Italy,
while Vittorio Giacopini analyzes the innovations that
have been introduced into "political" action
since Seattle. The cover dossier concerns world agriculture,
famine, the policies of the multinationals, etc.: it
is written by Zelinda Carloni and Adriano Paolella,
the latter a key representative of WWF Italia.
A recurrent theme on the pages of "A" is that
of gypsies and the attitude of the authorities (and
people) towards them. This time "A" discusses
the gypsies in Palermo, with three articles that reveal
the usual contradictions and the repression that is
not even particularly well concealed.
Mauro Macario remembers Victor Jara, the Chilean poet
and songwriter, victim of the generals in the coup 30
years ago. Lilla Consoni interviews Teodora Ansaldo,
a former lawyer who now devotes herself to dance. Maria
Mesch presents the experience of alternative lifestyles
and alternative technologies represented for over twenty
years by the Ufa-Fabrik, in the heart of Berlin.
Anarchist thought, with its limits and perspectives,
is the focus of an interview with Gianpiero Landi, one
of the organizers of a Study Conference on Francesco
Saverio Merlino, to be held in Imola (Bologna) on July
1st. At the turn of the last century, Merlino was a
key anarchist figure, but he subsequently developed
a critique of the revolutionary conception, moving closer
to more "moderate" positions, without this
meaning he ever moved fully away from anarchist socialism.
An interesting figure, on whom to reflect, not only
thinking of the past.
On the specific problems of agriculture and those who
have chosen to live in the country, there is an article
by the members of an anarchist commune in Puglia, the
Urupia commune.
Other themes discussed in this issue of "A":
an account of the 23rd Congress of the Italian Anarchist
Federation (FAI); the proposal of an anarchist summer
camp for this coming summer; four book reviews (on the
Roma, immigration, repression, ideologies); three letters
(one on the singer songwriter Fabrizio De André,
a report on a case of solitude in prison, one against
the Catholic Jubilee). And the usual column by Felice
Accame.
Then we have the communiqués, the list of "A"
sales outlets, subscriptions, a page advertising our
"cousin" magazine Libertaria (a quarterly
published by the same publishing house, although it
is totally editorially independent).
translated by Leslie Ray
|