Just as issue 275 inevitably had to focus on the events
in Genoa, the central theme of 276 is bound to be September
11 and the subsequent attacks on Afghanistan. The remarkable
cover photo, an Afghan soldier and a young child both
obviously delighting in touching an automatic rifle,
already sets the tone.
Carlo Oliva's article discusses Berlusconi's "foot-in-mouth"
statement about Western supremacy over Islam, and suggests
that it is perhaps inequality within societies rather
than between societies that we should be addressing;
likewise, Francesco Codello places anarchism's continuous
tension towards freedom within this context. Antonio
Cardella's piece finds neither heroism in the attack
on the Twin Towers nor righteousness in Bush's response.
To provide useful background to the emergence of the
west's current hate figure, Usama bin Laden, we have
an extract from the Saudi millionaire's biography by
John K. Cooley. Things American also find their way
into Marco Pandin's musical column; he talks of his
America, that of Dylan and Ginsberg, and specifically
a CD that is a revisitation of Mickey Newbury's "Frisco
Mabel Joy".
"Nomads by Choice" is an interview by Cristina
Valenti with Alessandro Berti about the "Agenda
di Seattle" theatre project.
The central part of this issue is a "pull-out"
dossier on the subject of food, by Adriano Paolella
and Zelinda Carloni, looking at how we eat, what we
eat, who makes it and what's in it, focusing particularly
on multinationals, fast food, transgenic food and alternative
distribution networks.
This is followed by another dossier, this time focusing
on Latin America, specifically Brazil and Bolivia, by
roving reporter Massimo Annibale Rossi. He discusses
the Global Social Forum in Porto Alegre, coca production
and the campesino movement in Bolivia, and engages in
a "horror tour" around the (in)famous Potosí
mines.
In his "Smoke Signals" column, Carlo E. Menga
looks at the chemical of evil in advertising, which
is not adrenaline, but morphine.
The series, "Ritratti in piedi", on anarchist
texts by writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
continues with Massimo Ortalli's consideration of the
work of the great Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti,
with an extract from Durruti's writing, plus short pieces
on Barcelona 1936 by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Gaston
Leval and Enrique Castillo.
Finally, the mailbox contains letters from Alfio Nassaro
asking for more information on the 5 anarchists killed
in 1970, featured in issue 273, and from Andrea Perrone
from Spoleto prison about the nature of time in prison.
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