The magazine "A" is 40 years old.
How did the idea of this magazine start?
The magazine in February 2011 will celebrate its 40th anniversary, the first issue was in fact in February 1971. He had a stage of pregnancy of a few months, just over a year since December 12, 1969, and is certainly the daughter of the Piazza Fontana massacre, the murder of Giuseppe Pinelli and the counter-information campaign in the aftermath of the massacre.
The initial group consisted of writing for the majority of comrades of the anarchist Circolo Ponte della Ghisolfa, the Pinelli's club. I was 18 then and I was one of the youngest members of the editorial group, for about a year was part of editorial group a "Roman", Guido Montana, who later left the editorial group and the anarchist movement..
Before the '69 and bombings of 12 December there was the idea of a magazine?
No. In fact the magazine from the financial point of view was born with a collection of funds within the promoter group, the intent was to cover the cost of the first three numbers. The orientation was, however, to do three monthly issues of "A" and then we would consider whether to continue depending on reception and reaction of the anarchists. If the response was positive, we would have gone ahead with the money and sales of new subscriptions. The funds used for the magazine "A" was made up of money collected by some companions of the Circolo Ponte della Ghisolfa for a project to purchase a deserted farmhouse in Tuscany, in the village of Solata to form a joint city-type campaign. I was not doing the community project sponsored by the older comrades, who had an age around 23-29 years.
With the massacre of Piazza Fontana and the need to counterinformation the money collected were used to create the new journal.
The initial capital was therefore quite consistent?
They had collected more than a million liras at the time, that was enough to pay the release of two or three issues of the journal. In addition to the will of the companions and the political situation, the magazine also looked at the state of the anarchist press that was then represented by Umanita Nova, the magazine coming out regularly since 1945, the editorial office of which regularly change in location. UN was published in Rome with an editorial a bit 'old-fashioned compared to the sensitivity of the time, with some old comrades as Umberto Marzocchi, Mario Mantovani, even if operating in the editorial office of Rome, via dei Taurini there were Aldo Rossi and Anna Pietroni, of the in between generation.
We are in the 70s: the '68 has brought forward a revolution in graphics and aesthetics publications. The magazine comes with an innovative graphic design achieved mainly by Giovanni Pieraccini, a radical and anarchist sympathizer in Milan. The magazine features an extensive and careful use of graphics and photos, the use of pictures was certainly innovative compared to UN, a newspaper all lead with its virtues and its flaws. The magazine "A" was born with an eye-catching graphics that hit the nail on the anarchist movement, so that after the first three issues it was decided to continue publications on the wave of the enthusiasm found.
The watershed
Piazza Fontana (and Pinelli)
The distribution was good?
Yes The first group of distributors was based primarily, as well as in Milan, in about four to five groups of militants belonging to the GAF (Federated anarchist groups), then one of the three federations at national level together with the FAI (Italian Anarchist Federation) and the GIA (Groups Anarchist Initiative). For example, the Turin group 500/600 is sent off copies to distribute. And then there were many groups and anarchist circles, mostly in Central and North, many of the FAI (I think among others at the Germinal of Trieste, that distributes continuously from the first issue).
Between '68 and '69 many political publications, artistic and cultural development start. Born around 1971 publishing projects such as the Manifesto, the Fronte Unito of the Student Movement Mario Capanna, Re Nudo (King Naked) that begins with a curious and irreverent campaign with graffiti in various cities, "Re Nudo?" Everyone was wondering who they were and then it was followed by the birth of this magazine. Newspapers like the Manifesto, and Re Nudo, despite their changes, they go out still today.
The militant distribution was a common finding, we would get up sometimes at five in the morning, we were also before the factories to sell newspapers. Although we were not the workers, often in the early numbers were written contract and the trade union situations and living conditions of workers. I remember one morning at the entrance of the State University of Milan, despite the presence of many newspapers of Marxist or not cutting, we could sell more than six hundred copies of the magazine. A great success that testifies to the need for information, taking into account that did not exist the Internet and private radio stations. There was a social awareness in general and in this context that the magazine was born, where almost all the things done well could have happened as there is also a major cultural attention.
In the first issues of the magazine were living together in a tumultuous way the need to reconstruct the history of the anarchists, the medallions on the historical figures of the movement, readings of Bakunin, Malatesta ... with the organic reconstruction work of drafting a coordinated re-issue after issue, the City of Paris, Kronstadt, the Russian and Spanish revolutions ... with so much news, the letter of an elementary school teacher, union issues ... and some of the issues bearing the first of which characterizes the magazine is the Valpreda campaign.
Milan with the massacre of Piazza Fontana looks overwhelmingly on the political scene, the scene of extra-parliamentary protest movements.
The massacre of Piazza Fontana. after April 25, 1945, is perhaps the most significant date in Italian history, the divide between a before and an after. Recognized by many a watershed moment even if it is true that in Rome there were unexploded bombs on December 12, but in Milan that there is a massacre, in Milan there is the press conference of anarchists Ponte della Ghisolfa on 17 December as a first response, it's in Milan that Pinelli is flying out of the window of the police, in Milan where were on 21 and 31 January 1970 the first two national events extended to the whole left with tens of thousands of participants, in Milan are starting the processes then moved to Rome, Catanzaro, Bari
I then I lived on December 12, on a personal level, with great intensity. My arrest, implemented in the transfer to the police station that night on a police car, the next night during the interrogation and detention in mini-cells in the basement of police headquarters until the late afternoon of December 13 (fate shared with many dozens of Milan anarchists) formed a kind of "baptism of blood". And when they killed Pinelli and, thereafter, sought and obtained admission to the group "Black Flag" by GAF - ideally, instead of Pinelli, because I was the first new militant in the group after his death - the conviction to confirm the slogan "When an anarchist falls, another takes its place" was exciting. In today remembering this I'm smiling, but then ... I was 18.
And then we were in Milan, the workers city, the warm autumn. In Milan, in particular a huge protest movement was born. It is becoming more significant (though still heavily minority) the presence of the anarchists, who from '68 (three years before the birth of "A") knew a revival of anarchism. Anarchism internationally, although this was historically from 800, from World War I to Fascism with factory occupations, the rallies of Malatesta that filled the streets, the daily Umanita Nova, was the logic of the Cold War that pressed us in a corner (even though our clubs after 45 were again well attended).
So the recovery of the anarchists is strong with 68 in Milan, and Milan, being deprived of an anarchist newspaper, is well known that when you join the anarchists and groups are being created not only the contrasts but also the newspapers, because anarchists believe they always have something to say (the tendency to write is one of the characteristics of the anarchists, sometimes on the edge of graphomania). It was the logic and tradition that was born in Milan, however, this newspaper, in fact already in the years 50-60 in Milan, there was at the time the Il Libertario of Mario Mantovani who had his own dignity and that played a significant role in keeping open the relationship between movement anarchic world of work. The revival of anarchism in 68, the reappearance of the red-black flags in the streets and in universities is the problem of the absence of an anarchist newspaper that weighed on the movement.
The eyes back and forward
With this background the first numbers were successful ... but what happened after the third number?
The evaluations were definitely positive, "A" in response to a need, even if not completely satisfied, but only partially, in fact the early 70s there are a plethora of other newspapers throughout Italy. UN magazine and the "A", from a quantitative point of view, were the major newspapers, in fact more U?N tailored within the anarchist movement, the magazine "A" more outward-looking.
The anarchist newspapers have always had a big feature of internal organization and so also was the magazine to advance and coordinate certain campaigns. The magazine "A" supported by a large militant movement that ensured a catchment area had the claim to speak and to speak mostly to non-anarchists. A newspaper of anarchists but not just for anarchists, using another expression we said we did not want to be "neither meat nor fish", "A" did not want to be a purely cultural magazine, but neither purely militant, this is important because it marked the life of the magazine and its evolution.
I am the only "survivor" in the original editorial staff. In recent years there has been a good turnover in the editorial collective. The promoters and the early editors and contributors of the original group of the magazine are still on track, even if someone has had personal experiences moving to other locations in Canada and Australia or is there who unfortunately died. The comrades of the core are still all working, I in the editorial department, the others have given life to cultural and other militants, but also as cultural Libertaria magazine, issues Eleuthera, the Libertarian Studies Centre "G. Pinelli". Over the decades, the initiatives have had other names such as Volonta and Libertaria magazines, the Committee Libertarian Spain, Anarchist Crocenera, Anti-Stato issues Eleuthera and other militant experiences. And with these comrades, these initiatives have remained operational relationships and valid for decades, sometimes with ups and downs on a personal level (and it seems normal). But we knew and wanted to avoid what too often characterizes the small movements (and not only), in which jealousy, intolerance, including legitimate differences of character or setting sooner or later lead to fractures, if not actual wars. And also the story of the anarchists is not exempt from such sad events.
We did not: the core group of the original "A" editors is still compact, each one with his ailments is still pledged to continue the discourse and activities ... of then.
The anarchist militancy over the decades is often patchy, but the group's journal is a pool of people who, despite all the differences, remained united around a project, of which the magazine is the first project, which in turn has germinated, with the release of persons, other initiatives of a shared cultural project. The same Amedeo Bertolo and Rossella Di Leo, important editors of the magazine in its first four years, as well as Luciano Lanza (who left the editorial office later, in 1981) continue their collaboration. It was so "important" the release of Amedeo and Rossella at the end of 1974, that for those who remained became a challenge to continue to do it ... But after 36 years "A" will continue to live.
What life was like in the editorial department at the time, how it developed?
A curiosity is that the magazine, also published as a monthly, in a number of the early '70s had a warning like, "Excuse us, but last month we did not came out because we had too much to do," or the magazine that met in the evening, it was done by militants who during the day had their work or who were studying at the university. We were people who lived intensely their militant activities, now is not the case almost, volunteering fell and the context is very different. Then we came back from the manifestation and went to proofread. The meetings were very lively and full of smoke. I could not longer participate in those meetings, there was no anti-smoke sensitivity. Almost always ended up with the fight with the neighbors because the editorial office was (and still is) placed in a small apartment in a small block of a working class neighborhood, now populated by many Chinese and Egyptians, a suburb northeast of Milan. Neighbors with which today we have good relations as there is no longer the militant climate of late meetings, full of screaming ... there is no more the killer machine that stamped on the paper envelope addresses on cards made of zinc ... tong tong ... at every stroke followed the curses of those upstairs, even if we put the towel under the addresses "hammering" to muffle the noise.
The headquarters of the magazine was also one of the anarchist headquarters in Milan, you would often find a foreign comrade who was sleeping at the door with a sleeping bag and not always pleasant scents emanating, of course this is not enthusiastic for the neighbors, but even for the editors.
The magazine has had only two offices. The first, when she was born, and only for about a year, in the anarchist Circolo Ponte della Ghisolfa, the historical seat of Piazzale Lugano 31 near a bridge. Then we learned of an apartment owned by the anarchist movement, run by old anarchist, non-resident in Milan, which was unfilled. The apartment belonged to a family from Puglia anarchist named Monterisi that in the early 60's gave it to Giovanna Berneri, the widow of Camillo Berneri killed by the Stalinists in Barcelona in 37. Giovanna (who died after a few years) also took care of the colony Maria Luisa Berneri (dedicated to her daughter who died young) who had a house in Marina di Massa in the summer where the children of so many comrades were going to spend periods of holiday in this structure supported generously by many friends (including many fellow immigrants in the United States ... the generation of Sacco and Vanzetti). Among the young residents of the colony were often children of anarchic families who otherwise would not have been able to afford vacations at the beach for their children, as well as children of Spanish anarchists (and other nationalities) exiles. A beautiful experience, to sign the Community and libertarian.
Returning to the apartment where there is still the editorial office of "A", there was this apartment property, but was kept vacant and closed. When we knew it, we asked the loan to use to handle it and in the '72 (a year after the birth of the magazine, in fact) we entered the room of about 45 square meters with a kitchenette, it was partially converted to be able to do even a darkroom for developing photographs. Since then it has the headquarters of the magazine for several years and now is owned by the Cooperativa Editrice A. Therefore, it is officially owned by a property of movement.
Since 1986, under the apartment a basement houses the Research Center Archives Libertarian Pinelli, and currently the publisher Eleuthera and Libertaria magazine, a small publishing pool, our libertarian Arcore publishing in Milan (Arcore is the home town of the Italian media mogul, monopolist and prime minister Sivio Berlusconi, ndr).
A little 'daredevil and off-line, but ...
The magazine has always had attention to the past and the history of the movement. What were the relationships with the senior comrades?
The attention to the history of the movement was part of a cultural project. In 1973 he went out from the Anti-Stato Publishing house (then edited by a mason from Cesena, Turroni Pius, with whom there was a strong human bond), a leaflet signed by five companions, including myself, entitled "A new analysis for strategy of always. " A brochure that was our photo of anarchism and can then summarize our understanding of it. We were proudly anarchists, but also critically anarchists.
On one side was the pride of being part of a movement that had been kept in a corner for so long and that instead had a history, a noble history, which arose from the first debate between Marx and Bakunin, a movement that almost had no historians or professors, because also of its largely working-class origins.
The attention to the past was part of our being anarchists. The past was fundamental for us, but not enough. Anarchism must always look ahead, not stopping at his past. In the 70s it was the presence of numerous old, was the generation of pre-fascism "ran" the movement and stood for it. At the conferences and meetings of the FAI there were so many old beards and the elderly people.
With all its pros and cons, it was the generation to which I referred and had "two balls like that," people who were personally committed against fascism, not just in theory. In fact, many of them because of their consistency, they ended up in jail, in exile in France, Belgium, Spain and Russia where they also died as victims of Stalinism. Relations between them were very intense and meaningful, so that at the Congresses this experience was sometimes off, and many burst into tears and embraced one another.
In 1965 in the anarchist movement, organized almost complete in FAI, there is a painful division of a minority that does not recognize itself in new ways of organizing and creating a new federation, however, the repression and the events of 69 bunched in part this division, it will bring back meetings, reports, and conversations in common.
In Milan, the old comrades who meet on Sunday mornings at the club were few and relatively insignificant compared to the role played by their peers in many places. The anarchist recovery in Milan, after the immediate post-war boom and the almost desert 50s, date from 1962, thanks to a dramatic gesture (which had nothing to do with terrorism) that saw as the protagonist Amedeo Bertolo (still present on the scene) then a young anarchist, of abduction (in fact very poorly organized and crafted) of the Spanish vice-consul in Milan, a noble and significant gesture to avoid the execution of the death sentence of a fellow anarchist in Catalonia. The gesture had a dramatic response in the press and in the process, in Varese, Amedeo Bertolo surrendered, and despite the arrest of other comrades, the process became a process against the Franco regime. The defendants were sentenced to very slight (these days would be plagued by anti-terror laws) and acquitted. It was like a small triumph. Thanks to this episode and the newspaper Materialismo e Liberta, he went to join a group of young anarchists and libertarians. Then the 68 ...
In 1971, nationally, the old comrades greeted welcome the newborn "A", very few were those who were wary of excessive modernity of it. ....
The comrades in Milan with Amedeo, known by the events of 62, had a huge credibility with old friends, built credibility by of the militant presence of Giuseppe Pinelli, who together with Cesare Vurchio (collaborator of the magazine and also the Libertarian Studies Centre), today 78 years, then 40-year old ... were the two "old" militants of the young anarchist movement in Milan. They belonged to an age almost absent among the anarchists because they were born and grew up under the fascist regime. Pinelli had contributed to the growth of the estimate of the old comrades of the Milanese, and as railroad worker (and very outgoing) was considered the "foreign minister" of the anarchists in Milan, he was traveling for free with his family (wife and two daughters), he knew Alfonso Failla, Pio Turroni, Umberto Marzocchi and all the more prominent of the Italian anarchist movement.
The old enjoyed the birth of the new magazine and we saw this by the fact that when asked the apartment to place the editorial offices they conceded immediately its use. Credibility and appreciation also due to the weight we gave in the magazine to our sacred history, reconstructed page by page, issue after issue. It came to fall so that distrust for that part of our generation, it was clear we were not another wave of young anarchists who were staying little serious on the edge of the movement, criticizing and making chaos (sometimes rightly) but then disappeared.
There was always by old comrades, a certain distrust of '68, also due to the controversy at the congress of Carrara '68 with Daniel Cohn-Bendit. It was the testimony of a specific objective difficulties of the anarchist movement of dealing with the emergence of these big libertarian tendencies.
We in the group "A" were placed there without telling in the middle, but we were trying to take root with the old movement and not throw it all away ... the dirty bath water with the child inside, but to save the good of the new libertarian tendencies, certainly confusing, as the libertarian Marxism arose in both theory and practical form of close cooperation between the anarchists and Lotta Continua, Potere Operaio and the Student Movement ...
There wasn't, in my opinion, a right and perfect line but it certainly was a part of the old (mostly understandable, at least on my part) distrust, sometimes excessive, to the young, but it is also true that Cohn- Bendit at the Congress to Carrara and many others suggested in the wake of the experience of the Paris barricades, the dissolution of the anarchist movement. And the old men who had done, for example, the barricades in the San Paolo in Rome in '22, a few decades earlier, were not impressed from the harshness of the struggle.
There is one aspect that concerns me personally. I wrote for some time on the two "Major" anarchist newspapers from July '69 on Umanita Nova and December '69 on The International. And even after the birth of "A" I continued to cooperate, but irregularly for a long time, with those papers. When I met in April 1971 Marzocchi and Failla at the home of the latter, at Carrara, on the occasion of the Ninth Congress of the FAI (and "A" was born just two months), I remember the "jingo" Marzocchi said to me " but then you are the Finzi writing in Umanita Nova. " He had received and published several of my articles (and pride in me, when for the first time I saw one published as "editorial", the most important item, left shoulder) but did not remember me (I yes, I saw both he and Failla at a meeting of the GAF in Milan, the year before, to which both had attended as representatives from the Commission of correspondence of the FAI).
What I want to emphasize is that the fact that I was for more than a year and a half with the journalist of the FAI (and on the other side, with that of the GIA) and at the same time I was an editor of "A" predisposes good them towards the magazine, not just myself.
Absolutely non only for anarchysts
The magazine is then characterized by its openness to the outside without being afraid to confront others, looking for stimulation and libertarian thinking is what has characterized these 40 years.
Yes, it's been growing over time in our experience. If one goes to see the staff and the things that are there in the first decade, which are the best part of the nascent state teen magazine ... .. I am very close to that time ... I find it a very anarchist magazine. The A magazine that is the same now ... a magazine very diverse and open primarily within anarchism ... lively internationally, we were among the first to translate Noam Chomsky, his reflections on the new mandarins, but also on the Spanish Revolution and on Bakunin - Marx's discussion, we opened ourselves a lot. The anarchist movement was passing a lot and we tried many ideas in anarchism, we were boiling in 71 ... we started with a mess of things to say and tell ...
With hindsight, I see the early years of the magazine as a gradual relaxing of all we had to say ... and a bit 'at a time we began to tell it ... we speak of Gori, of Galleani, self-management ... is a process that has gone forward in time in parallel with changes in circumstances, we should see to understand the positions on the armed struggle and on many other issues ... the magazine has increased its characteristics ... in fact today, write more easily then than people who are not anarchists.
The relationship between the magazine and the times when it was published was a big difference compared to other languages practiced by these movements, then, read a page of the magazine of the '72 and read a flyer from other organizations, we find a different language, less and less demagogic, less closed, less self-referenced, more peaceful, this is what characterizes the magazine in the 70's ... the opening.
From the outset we set ourselves the problem of making us read from others, even by non-anarchists, we reject exaggerations like those of Lotta Continua, for example, on participation in parades for the police ... 200 ... 5,000 for Lotta Continua ... if you divide perhaps five you approach the reality.
Another merit of writing due to the richness of the anarchist movement not only Italian but also the Anglo-Saxon books are made of characters already well known as George Woodcook, Colin Ward, Alex Comfort ... anarchism is rich and multi-thematic and compared to some areas or anarchist movements of the left, the journal is not found the myth of the worker, as he called the operaiolatria Camillo Berneri ... It is a bit of everything and a lot of attention to this, the experience of a teacher, to the factories of arms, with trade unions ... For example, we sent our editor to follow a self-management in France at a factory in Besançon, the Lip .. we discussed of spaceflight if they made sense or not ... there are issues on topics that would be considered secondary to other movements, even anarchists. This is a big opening key.
I am still convinced that if a reader finds in the magazine two or three items that affect him, the objective has been achieved already.
In the complexity and cultural activist of the time, the magazine has always been multi-thematic, even in the early years of the campaign for Valpreda was the cornerstone with covers "Valpreda free immediately," we were always busy with many other things. Which shows an outside interest, our target is our readers that is, anyone who wants to relate with us, we never give priority to a social entity, such as the proletariat ...
We went out with nine issues a year because anyway related to the student world and schools, but not for a magazine that was youthful even if then the writing was on the average age of 25 years.
We never wanted to "give the line" so as anarchists we are opposed to an avant-garde design. This has not stopped us to take editorial positions clear, as in the case of violence and armed struggle and other issues. The magazine had a precise location, but in general the magazine with its roots in anarchism was conceived as an agora, such as space available for those who had something to say with a libertarian sensibility.
Anarchism for us today is an emotional reference, a cultural reference as well as a political reference, we represent a true part of the anarchist movement but we are mostly a reviews gym. The articles tend to be signed and it is the responsibility of those who write them and in a context where the political struggle and the role of militant anarchist organizations are not bright day, we are convinced that they represent, and we are not ashamed of the word, a point of cultural reference, in the sense of the medium term ... .. neither fish nor fowl... not a magazine of great depth, but not intent to say or to make say trivial, a magazine that refuses the obvious.
Today, in an era in which it is reading less, the editorial work is to provide a newspaper which was reflected against other, the reader not only reads the magazine "A", also read other newspapers for example, The Manifesto, The Diary, The International, listen to radio, checks out the blog and the internet, we want to be a reference not only for the militant but also for many other companies working in fair trade ... ... in the basic catholicism even in the Vaudois, but always as individuals, not organized people ... in the Marxists in crisis ... all people who can come close to "A" without necessarily finding the right line, the new truth. We do not undertake to send Berlusconi home ... to do self-management and put everything in place ... but in reality in an objective crisis of values and not just the revolutionary dream ...
Today in the face of burgeoning unemployment statistic is clear, namely that young people for the first time in decades they think their future will be worse, not only from an economic standpoint, than that of their parents. This means (confirmed by academic sociologists) that is dying hope.
Anarchism has some strange ideas that seem to span the air: it provides a completely different world, that nobody believes that it can be seen from our generation, but even a good number of subsequent ones. At this stage anarchist ideas express a function of thinking that is not aligned within the intellectualism himself ... "A" is thus aimed at people (anarchist or not) with original ideas that can express ... broadly endorses the general project of anarchism.
The role of Bookchin and of the social ecology
The magazine has maintained its strong identity, in fact it is called "A" anarchist magazine, even if we consider it a laboratory. The name is her self-declaration and the laboratory and comparisons are made within this identity as being of the anarchist magazine. Is that so?
Yes, our project is to make an anarchist magazine, but one that is unusual ... I have resisted trends and also internal proposals to close and to make mostly in the 80's a kind of libertarian Espresso, or to make a leap forward on plan drafting, distribution, publishing, make a bigger magazine, with advertising .. more open to others ... a libertarian magazine (in Spanish is synonymous with anarchy, in Italy it is sometimes a synonym sometimes it is more restrictive, libertarian is an almost anarchist ...).
One of the most significant fact is A takes up the collaboration of many people who are not anarchists, and this is by no means coincidental. It means two things. The first one to collect the sympathies also spread outside of the movement and this in itself is no small thing. The second, equally important, is that the libertarian thought (which is often expressed very well by these collaborators) is not the monopoly of the anarchists (thankfully) but has a much wider significance.
I have always defended the role of "A" with conviction. But inside me I do not deny that at certain moments in which anarchists were subjected to "abuse" by the media (sometimes not without responsibilities), I was saying "Long live anarchy ... Down with the Anarchists", that was non-acceptance of a share and that lets the anarchist movement and the opening of the same magazine, made me feel, at times, and I recognize it as a sin, the will to break away from the circled "A", the ideological mark ... but in the anchoring anarchism prevailed due to the inevitable and inextricable link with the old anarchist I knew ...in the sense that I could be anything but the gratitude to that generation of anarchists, as it was and how I lived it, remains a central fact of my life.
An example of such moments can be negative in July 2001, Genoa, the front pages with the Black Blok with banks and cars burned, which overshadow all the work and the specific presence of anarchists in the movement, ....
For over forty years with the magazine I'm with a mate - Aurora - daughter of Alfonso Failla, someone told me I was going to "take" a black woman of the aristocracy of anarchism, coming into the Failla house. I entered in touch with most of the generation of confinati at Ventotene (eg at the Failla home I met Arturo Messina, who broke the chair over his head to the Director of confinement - Tremiti, I think - who wanted him to do the fascist salute) as well as many foreign comrades ... I've known more thorough and the world that created my personal connection.
It is clear that the mark "A" leaves out a number of people ... your article, my dear Adrian, was fine and could go even in the Corriere della Sera, in fact, many items can be published in other newspapers. If instead of "A" the name was "B" surely someone more would have read us... I think experiences like the libertarian pedagogy and the Ferrer schools of Spain or in the newspaper antiwar SenzaPatria that have not been characterized with the label anarchist ... but our job is another, each must be true to himself while maintaining a critical mind .
We at "A" are born anarchists and the role we can play, although limited, will be twofold, a journal of the anarchists for anarchists, but that others are our proposals in a newspaper article because the same anarchist "A" article published in the Corriere even if read by more people does not have the same value. One of the tasks of drafting a magazine like ours is to create a domino effect ... the cover of the last magazine has a dossier on Pietro Gori, there is a reflection of Bifo (one that comes from a location outside the anarchist movement) and then to protest for the eviction of a community center. Surely this dossier on Gori will not move the world, but we believe in our small drop of the famous that everyone puts into the ocean.
Malatesta said that the social situation is the result of a tug of war where everyone pulls over to its side. It is clear that on one hand the berlusconis pull the rope with a steel wire and we pull with the needle. There is still an inscription on a wall near my house that says that even a small vibration can blow up the whole system ... work well done intelligently can lead to results well above the effort that is put inside.
There are issues within the magazine that return and have sewn a continuum over which it has expressed several times, as well as of course the theme of the Piazza Fontana bombing.
In Italy we are the ones who have discovered ... Murray Bookchin's social ecology that led Bookchin from trotzkysm to the anarchists, and is not purely a thing for anarchists, anarchy is not the most attractive, is an ecological style that gave rise also cooperation with the magazine, is an attention to the ways in which we live, our relationship with nature, with town planning, is a theme that began with the translation of Bookchin in the early editions of the magazine and that has given rise to many public initiatives, even leading Bookchin in Italy, and the magazine it was an accelerator.
Another recurring theme in the 70's was feminism through the interpretation of the American school of anarcho-feminism, is not an attempt to resell always the same product.
Anarchism while containing everything in his theoretical ideas, is important in its historical development, is its temporal evolution that must be built. For example, the magazine has always had a feeling for the punk phenomenon, young people, etc.. The last issue we had a dossier on veganism ... we got a call from an old companion of 85 years which makes us the compliments for the magazine but says that with all the problems we have in the world, who cares if one eats or does not eat the egg, which was too much to dedicate 23 pages, there were more important problems like unemployment. Of course I disagree with her, I consider it as a cover designed in the mid 80's where you see a stylized anarchist, an activist, a punk who asked themselves and did not understand ... that a dossier on the cover indicated Virus one of the "dens" of the European punk, where we of the editorial staff met with the anarchist punk, very human sympathy but with big difference (although some were closer to us ... there were also representatives of the south curve of Milan). Their music was deafening to me most of today's South African trumpets to the World Cup. We tried to understand this movement so that in the '80s began to collaborate with the magazine Marco Pandin that was part of that world and for 25 years has been one of our antennas in the world of music.
The criticism of the old comrade I refuse it, I am convinced that the magazine should also address these issues and should do it well consistently. At the same time one of vegans, who I only knew by e-mail and that had collaborated with the matter, he's not an anarchist, he asked us a regular column in the magazine since he also saw the vegan world's interest even of the anarchists. We we said no, because we are open to all issues, but we do not believe that veganism is part of anarchism as such .. but it is one of the possible choices. Unlike the antimilitarism, so that for this issue, we can also think of a regular column of opposition to the war, for other topics (such as veganism) while maintaining attention, we do not want to establish a privileged relationship. We have supported (and we liked) campaigns of the WWF, Emergency, Legambiente of course always on grass-roots initiatives, but we are not their bulletin.
The (giant) Question:
the use of violence
The issue of violence is an issue on which "A" had a particular focus has seen the emergence of a debate with different positions, which the magazine has taken a position very clear.
Exactly. The magazine since its inception has been confronted with two aspects of the violence, a matter internal to the movement (which is part of our history). Gaetano Bresci is often the only anarchist item on the textbooks, is the anarchist who kills the king came from America at the beginning of the twentieth century, and this has a meaning and significance in misinformation on anarchism. Even today it is associated with the anarchist bombings after Piazza Fontana. In fact the anarchists who used bombs and a dagger at the end of '800 were a few and in good company of other Republicans, but only the anarchists remained the label of bombers, also due to a number of weaknesses within anarchism.
The magazine was critical. never having expressed a nonviolent position. It has published nonviolent articles but it is recognized in a Malatesta position. Although personally, getting older, I become closer and closer to the reasons of non-violence. The position expressed by the magazine argued that violence is a negative and authoritarian element to be used only when necessary - we have always been opposed to the use of violence as a means of supporting a strategy. Faced with the BR (red brigates) we have always been convinced that violence does little good to the social movements in general and probably a lot of damage to anarchism, confirming a consolidated image from the outside, and often hurt those who make it.
So the issue of violence there was a clear editorial position. The vision of the anarchist avenger, blow by blow, has never been shared, in fact we fought, because the "strategy" of the anarchists to bring a link with violence is totally a loser. We believe that anarchism can express its positive potential tends to sunlight, which does not mean that people who have been forced to go underground are "mistaken". One thing is a forced choice in specific historical situations. But the Bakuninist conception (of a certain Bakunin) and conspiracy revolutionary vanguard (in fact) working in the shadows, that we have always refused.
The movement in the 70's was also characterized by the provocations of people with mental health problems ... there were also sick minds ... and it was neither light nor without consequences. On this we at "A" we have always been firm: an imbecile, even if an anarchist, if he goes to jail remains an imbecile. With us the "blackmail" of repression has never worked much.
The tendency to use repression that inevitably follows, and sometimes precedes certain "facts" in our country is stranded. Because repression is a given system, not always reach for some stupid ... or use without the nastiness of the Police as a tool or an excuse to drag the anarchism of violence on the ground we were never convinced.
We have already crossed swords with in 73 of the Tuscan anarchist groups then for that kind of campaign against fascism and militant anti-fascism.
We support the campaign for the release of Marini, an anarchist of Salerno as a result of fascist provocation stabbed one of them, Falvella, during a clash. Falvella died and Marini began an odyssey in prison, from which he emerged destroyed on a psychological level. We were not to non-violence, but there refused to believe that one of the goals of the anarchists was to prevent the meetings of the fascists.
Personally I tend to be tolerant as much as possible so that during the protest of the Liceo classico Carducci in 68/69, Milan, being one of the peak of the protest movement, I asserted the fascists' public's right to speak also at the meetings, which had not nothing to do with the decline of my anti-fascism. Since I was and remain convinced that the libertarian freedom is to claim that too. I thought then that the fascists were first ignorant and to make them talk was an anti-fascist move.
There may be different views and also historically the anarchists of Carrara put themselves at the head of the population to prevent the gunner Almirante to hold a rally ... in some cases it can have a precise meaning. But going to challenge all meetings of the MSI meant to go to the clash with the police, we never had the pleasure of physical exercise of political activity, we never appreciated or stimulated the physical confrontation in the streets, we never appreciated during those who go out from a peaceful procession with violent actions and then fall back in.
We were tough in 2001, and in absolute minority in the anarchist movement, against the Black Bloc. The magazine also during social conflict has tried to never lose the light of reason and self-criticism. The fact that there is no justification for repression flattening also contingent on the position of partner. If an anarchist does an action that we believe is wrong and then is hit we send ... the oranges in prison but we distance ourselves from him and even though it may seem to some a militant attitude cagasotto not pay for the repression. We believe that freedom of opinion is crucial, we believe that membership of a family like the anarchist not necessarily lead to underwrite what does the idiot cousin.
It is clear that for this reason the magazine has been the subject of controversy especially with the organizational aspects of motion in 75/76 which was situated at the publication of the Anarchismo magazine, an anarchist magazine that takes positions that are very hard to dissent against us and relationship with the Red Brigades and the armed struggle. Were not always easy choices for the magazine ... In those years also published a document of Azione Rivoluzionaria (revolutionary action), certainly an element of libertarian inspiration in the world of groups of armed struggle, were known anarchist comrades were arrested for the acts of Azione Rivoluzionaria, and sometimes we took a defensive posture, as in the case of the tennis player Monica Giorgi who had taken a position explicitly innocent to the charges for the kidnapping of the son of an oilman.
We have always refused to engage the magazine in campaigns of solidarity with peers, even if anarchists to 100%, which have not taken before a clear distancing from their choices, when these choices were for us (I repeat, for us) unacceptable or not shared.
Man and women
In these 40 years there have been times when the magazine was better and some that did not go very well. How are the most tiring for your management of the magazine, not only economically but also in relations with the external and internal debate in the movement? What were the times when you feel more fatigue management?
We start from the data on distribution of the magazine. "A" was born with around 7000/8000 sales of copies. The magazine has a growing period and the number who printed the most copies (13,000, but the last two pages on the Marini case were printed in more than 50,000 copies in their own right) is the one of April 73, in the thirty years anniversary of the 43 the onset of Resistance, in which we did a special issue "The anarchists against Fascism," which was the first publication that spoke of the presence of anarchists nell'antifascismo. Although there was a generation of anarchists engaged in the Resistance nothing had ever been done, because they were companions used to do more than writing by intellectuals.
Then the run began to decline slowly and progressively. To console ourselves we can say that much of the publications born in that period have disappeared. Difficult times and uncertainty was precisely the period of armed struggle and violence that society has conditioned not only Italian but also in our magazine.
One interesting thing is the editorial structure of the magazine is on this front because we had difficulties. As already mentioned, the magazine was founded by a group, stayed with a group of Milanese characterized by a strong network of freelancers. In fact, there are articles of Turin (in fact an emigrant from Milan) Roberto Ambrosoli, the venetian Nico Berti, the Milanese like myself, Amedeo Bertolo, Rossella Di Leo, Luciano Lanza and many others. In the collective of "A" has passed dozens of people, a characteristic of our team in the 70's was, as only that the group of Trieste Germinal of the FAI, to be the only collective to have an equal and sometimes a majority of female .
Photos of the first movement before fascism were almost exclusively male, women ... when there are they are noble exceptions. It was not a theoretical fact, probably was linked to a practical fact. For males, even within our editorial staff, it was more the task of writing, while the administration has been the preserve of women, even if the cleaning of the premises was shared. Who was in the editorial staff usually stayed for at least two or three years. This experience of collective editorial went on up to 89 then a loop is closed, nothing to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism, but it is also due to the birth of my first child. The magazine, in fact, like many other initiatives was clearly made by people: that editorial collective of six people began to show the rope. Fausta was increasingly engaged in Utopia where she worked in the bookstore and cultural activities ... and others with personal problems more or less made for drawing an empty shell.
Currently I and Aurora, two of us (ie a couple) the current editorial staff of the magazine, the birth of our first child late in life, at age 37, involved a change in lifestyle such as the unwillingness to go out at night, accompanied by the fact that the meetings were almost purely formal because the other editors did not read the articles ... even brought that fact, since then, for a more informal magazine, that leaned almost exclusively on me and Aurora. Currently, the editorial meeting no longer exist thanks to the new Internet technologies, we have established very close relations with a number of companions (among whom there are you, my dear Adrian.). Let me mention at least the name of Massimo Ortalli a companion (pharmacist) in Imola and soul of the historical archive of the FAI, which, although not officially part of editorial staff ... but they are placed all the articles of A ... then takes a key role in our editorial work.
Personally, while appreciating more and more solitary work I think that a magazine should stand still on a collective effort. Although there is no editorial meetings, thanks to the Internet involved 4 / 5 people in powerful ways for years with their professionalism. The period of transition to the new management was, therefore, disorientation and difficulty, these forty years I have had to adapt to the times of the magazine, a determined work continued more than a publishing house that publishes books. You can not skip a number even when personal issues in fact prevail. You tried to take it into account and address them, but never to extremes.
The magazine has been an exceptional experience of life ... we have relationships with many people ... but all creative people who want a better world ... with a lot of strange ideas. Now we are very open to the exterior, especially since the beginning of the first decade of the century we have become (even) a production music tied to De André CD's, this allowed us to expand our relationships to lots of people.
I realized all these years that those managing an editorial staff as our magazine must first be a good psychologist rather than a great journalist. The perception we have of the world and people in recent years is great suffering in a world where loneliness has a devastating role, there is a great need for belonging and identity as well as communication.
From 28 to 180 pages
There is a very close relationship between the product and the people who make it, an individual bond, like many other initiatives of the movement that needs are turned into a problem of continuity or best of the succession, is the problem of passing the token, how do you deal with it?
Yes, it's true, but there is a problem even before the inheritance ...
This (albeit relative) personalization of the initiatives and particularly of "A" contains some very big risks, think, for example a road accident with the death of the internal component of the editorial staff. We start from a different example like that of Umanita Nova, the weekly of the FAI, has an editorial conference that changes hands in from Congress to Congress, often has consumed the energy of the group that takes care of it, as in the case of the group of Makhno in Palermo in the '70s but also to others. UN, which is certainly an artisan product, does not have such risk: he shot a dozen groups and even today there is a editorial staff which is linked electronically to people of other cities for meetings, then forever changed editors and this ensures that if a pole disappears for any reason it is replaced by another.
The magazine "A" historically has not had this story. We are not an organ of an organization, we have always been independent, even when there were the GAF, of whom "A" has never been the organ neither official or unofficial, although the editors in their entirety were among them. It has always been an independent initiative.
The vicissitudes of life have made that entry in the drafting of young people was, from a certain point, in fact difficult. In fact, even very good people approaching the end while working, had no time for the editorial work, so intensely engaged in studying those who work.
I could devote myself entirely to the journal in recent years thanks to a favorable work situation (such as a free-lance journalist I could manage my time well) and financial. The magazine of the beginning, when it turned in 74 in A4 format (tabloid) was 28 pages long with an editorial staff of eight people. Today in two we bring a out magazine with 180 pages, typically one hundred, and related ancillary products, there are more than 30 dossiers.
Over the past decade, the publication activities of the De André CD revenue has enabled us to almost a billion old lire, € 450 thousand, approximately 60,000 items sold. The editorial work has become very demanding and you pull more than 4,000 copies, thanks to Fabrizio was put up a small factory. For eight years we have a person in administration, which is not the companions of the beginning, students or volunteers who came to help out for a short time and little money. Growth by working with products related to De André, in the last decade we have had a greater administrative effort and we will, as a rule, a person (and we're proud too often the the black labor triumphs in the structures that they say with words to fight !).
Once for the shipments we had many people today they are no longer available for this type of work. Or maybe you find one, but with effort and with no regularity. Employees are still living the proactive dimension, our employees are not paid and is not something so obvious.
The personal identification is not a bad thing, but is a characteristic of a magazine that after forty years and still has the continuity that is published without advertising. The Corriere della Sera has 150, but it's a business, with strong economic policy interests, it is the personal relationship with the product that makes the magazine "A" unique. Behind it there isn't a magazine in itself, but a person with all his relationships: it's like a basket that is filled with content.
I fully agree with you, because I suffered as a 'taxation and contrasted from the beginning that vision of my fellow co-founders (as we say today) who had a conception of the magazine "anonymous", they did not think it should customize. So they invented the symbol F. Bizzoni for the administration and GP. Vittore (the reference was to the prison) for the editorial signature. When we wrote ... we shared the mail and those who responded used the same signature. The thing was overcome in a short time and even today I always invite all to sign with their name and surname. I can not stand the anonymity or concealment, unless there are serious reasons (which there are almost never).
My relationships are the network of the magazine, a network of friendship and humanity. Is this mine, a community vision of the magazine and the customization is almost mandatory part of the history of the anarchist movement.
My ideal point of reference was the magazine that the Risveglio (Awakening) that almost no one knows but came out in Switzerland for almost 50 years in a row, made by Luigi Bertoni, a Milanese anarchist who lived in Switzerland, a bilingual newspaper and sometimes three languages: Italian , French and German. Pier Carlo Masini devoted a beautiful conference to Luigi Bertoni, published in 72 Volonta, of which I learned by heart various pieces. With the heat and the properties of the language that were his own (and that have made me a great admirer of his, beyond even significant political differences) the very tuscan Masini talked about this printer who composed and printed in Geneva and that the newspaper with a barrow was going to the central post office to ship it. It was an important landmark in Switzerland for many anti-fascists known, even by Sandro Pertini. It was all him, but Paolo Finzi.
Even L'Adunata dei Refrattari (the gathering of Refractories) for 50 years in the United States was linked to the figure of Raphael Schiavina.
The magazine with its 40 years begins to be something, Umanita Nova has celebrated 90, interrupted by the fascist period: first as a daily newspaper and then went out after the '45 as a weekly, has never ceased to be published. And I remember with a touch of pride, but also with the satisfaction of having given a sign of brotherhood in those years a bit 'too sectarian, when to Massimo and Mariella - then entrusted as editorial staff, in '76, of the FAI Milan - I gave the first text on the birth of the daily newspaper Umanita Nova in 1920. I was of "A", of GAF, I lived in another "sector" of the movement, but also working with the FAI and its newspaper. Then it was not granted. At least not for everyone.
Malatesta himself founded and edited several newspapers, but behind him, there was as an administrator and right arm, an anarchist of Ancona, Cesare Agostinelli, who took care of everything.
The problem of heritage is linked to the possibility of integration with other younger people within this initiative. It remains an unknown for now. In fact, many anarchist initiatives have been killed or have been interrupted by death or illness of the person who made them.
One example is l'Internazionale (the International), with which I had the pleasure of working. Expression of Anarchist Groups Initiative (GIA), born in 65, following a split in the anarchist movement, the International represented a mentality and an "old" age, there was Luciano Farinelli, an anarchist of Ancona, who led this newspaper: at his death, after 15 years of publication, it closed. That newspaper was the expression of a certain type of movement, of which Farinelli was the representative. Pulling 1500 copies, distributed free in large majority, but had a sense in that context.
The fact that we don't have "heirs" is not as negative, anarchism has so many resources, such as fountains strange facts of sudden jets of water, where the water comes out into the streets, first here then there. I'm sure that even if I would feel sorry for the possible closure of the magazine there will always be someone with similar or different initiatives that can bring forward the discussion, that the torch, as it was said in the old anarchist movement. It may seem a lot of rhetoric, but this torch summarizes the meaning of my commitment.
I've never been a dragon in physical education and the Olympics have never been on my horizon. Indeed, for that matter, not even the school competitions. But to think that until now I was a torchbearer gratifies me and I think reflects the (my) reality.
We speak now of the dossiers and everything that is out of the magazine, all the products coming out beyond the pages of "A".
My dear Adriano, you are here in full conflict of interest, other than Silvio Berlusconi! Because is this here Paolella and his partner Carloni are the authors of a dozen or so dossiers created for the magazine, the only ones thought of as a serial crime, designed and made in a systematic manner by the same person with issues of great interest not only anarchist. There are dossiers that draw from our tradition of anarchism such as those of Kropotkin, Proudhon, Bakunin and Malatesta made with the first issues of the magazine, others on history on the anarchist antifascism as the one on Emilio Canzi, a Piacenza anarchist partisan of particular relevance for the Resistance.
The magazine has also placed as a tool for political use, each dossier has an exact cost and a number of predefined pages as well as additional work, then is that the magazine is a tribute to the anarchist propaganda and more. As "Read anarchism," a reading guide created by Massimo Ortalli, the more valuable because it knows no precedent in the long history of the anarchists. Allows you to know what you can read anarchist, a reasoned and updated list of all the things anarchists and not anarchism that is coming out on anarchism, on the libertarian psychiatry, on ecology, etc.. It is a thematic tool for supporters of what you can find and order at the bookstore.
We made a dossier on Serantini and for local needs, as in the case of Germinal in Trieste with a dossier on their history, when after almost 40 years now had to leave their historic home on Via Mazzini 11, in the center .. Recently Francesca Palazzi Arduini has created a dossier on anti-clerical meetings, history and current events, which reconstructs the experience of the secular and anticlerical in the years 80/90. Now we make the 3 or 4 years of these files, they are a tool that we like and that's fine.
Our Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André deserves a separate discussion.
Sure. The death of Fabrizio has very much marked us. Back in 74 we had a relationship with him, the man Fabrizio, of course, had its own characteristics and its greatness, but I am convinced that his songs represent a great time of libertarian thought. He was a very educated person, read a book for night sleeping by day, a very exciting relationship (since I am always a fan of his), sometimes intense and sometimes you could not see for a couple of years, he's made concerts for the anarchist press, donated money and in particular to our magazine ... all in broad daylight in the list of our black funds.
On 12 January 1999, the day after his death, all the newspapers there was talk of De Andrè anarchist, underestimating its content and I felt almost like a "duty" to defend his anarchist part, which he declared as early as the 60s. Although no single definition can encompass Fabrizio for his multiculturalism and artistic vitality, he said he had known the anarchists when he was young and had never found something better could express his thoughts. When I met him in 74 to give him an interview for the magazine (I had a tape recorder that I did not turn on) was more timid than me and told me just to be an anarchist. He did not have certainly a militant vision and declared to be from the side of the whores and suicide, to us, who were militants, and we dealt then with other issues, to hear about whores, gypsies and suicides there certainly seemed not to be central arguments ... while having sympathy for them.
After time I realized (with no flattery) that Fabrizio had anticipated us that he was a man with large antennas. His anarchism is not political, not militant, uneventful, was a deep and intelligent anarchism. The March 99 came out with Fabrizio on the cover and a series of articles (the number it sold out), but created a major controversy within "A", as some close cooperators did not agree to dedicate him the cover. Personality cult, was the criticism that lingered: and then for a character that still belonged to the show-business. We quarreled heatedly. I was convinced that the emotional wave that followed his death would open new and more room for anarchism. In defending the libertarian identity of De André, we were offered an opportunity to "ride the wave" of interest on Fabrizio. I then realized for the reactions and interest on his CDs then we produced that Fabrizio had affected many people in the libertarian practice not only in music but also in their personal lives (there were people who had refused military service). Fabrizio was on a libertarian sympathy and many had tears at the news of his death.
Following the publication of that first dossier inside “A”, in March 1999, and then his reprint, CDs, DVDs, dozens of conferences and presentations made by me a bit all over Italy, we received hundreds, thousands of e-mail, fax, telephone calls, handwritten letters, all of people who had with him a very intense relationship, even though they had never met in person.
One of the most beautiful things I've done in my life, an idea that I'm proud, perhaps after my children, was the conception, creation and distribution of that our first CD “ed avevamo gli occhi troppo belli”,which is now joined in music "official" by Fabrizio, thanks to that unknown boot-leg, authorized by Dori. This allowed me to consider myself ... a producer Fabrizio, a crap if you want, but each has its own. And then the presentation of this CD to press in a Rom camp...
Helped by a girl, sadly recently died of cancer, Iris Baldo, of Fabrizio press office, she was one of Radio Popolare with thousands of contacts, she had worked for months (free, I like to emphasize) to summon journalists, so we found dozens of journalists in a Roma camp in the north-eastern outskirts of Milan, with Dori Ghezzi, Don Andrea Gallo, Mario Luzzatto Fegiz and senators of music journalism ... with the Roma around to present this CD, who had a rom child on the cover. It was a tremendous success, the day after the Feltrinelli called us for the CD, it became so complex that we had to "hire" five people in the newsroom pro tempore, one of which was then that Michela that remained on the staff. For months we went every day the post office for shipping.
Journalists and the tam tam on the De André sites made us free publicity and a lecture tour with the CD has become the leitmotif of our ... and for two or three years, our revenue was three-quarters of the proceeds from the sale of De André, which then also supported the increase in the pages of the magazine. With this product we have broken out among thousands of his fans, which are of all types. I am convinced, listen to his songs, that Fabrizio was also a great anarchist propagandist.
When the LP was making Le Nuvole (the Clouds) he phoned me saying he was making an anarchist LP, I thought of a new "Addio Lugano bella" but then there wasn't the word anarchy and had nothing to do with anarchists in the specific sense of term. But if one takes his songs realizes, as in the Testament of Titus, that it is the anarchist program of Errico Malatesta, it is the same stuff put in the De André way, 100% anarchist.
Fabrizio acts as a link between anarchism and a certain world, they have learned to show respect for the way we did things, even if someone has accused us of having marched between loving singer, of having made money (and we did a lot!), all - every penny - always reinvested in the magazine and "products" as the last DVD on the nazi extermination of the Rom. This too was an outstanding success, more than 4,000 copies distributed at a price of 30 €, to schools, teachers, is a considered purchase, sold one by one, dedicated to Fabrizio because he carried out these issues which are also ours.
The reader of “A”
This activity is a great acquisition for Roma culture, has opened a forum for reflection and documentation which was quite marginal. In this you had a great vision and the DVD "In The Wind. The Nazi extermination of the Gypsies "is one more tool for reflection.
In addition to all documentation and self-interest, it captures all the news of the Roma issue, also taken by Fabrizio with the song "Khorakhanè-force to be wind" in "Anime Salve," a song where exceptional in every direction there is all the reading of many books. I know because Fabrizio was going to order them to the bookstore Utopia, an anarchist bookstore in Milan, I know what he read, I know the work that lies behind those songs, a work of deep culture, the study of history, contact with the Roma , his talks with Harvati Roma Georgio Bezzecchi, my dear friend.
Who are the readers of the magazine have changed in the past, what are the current features?
We've never done this in a statistical sense, we travel on data derived from our antennas, our perception. We rely on those who contact us, write us, give us a decision, and the reader "A", in my opinion, is everything and more, it doesn't strike a particular field, we could say that mostly are young but it is not a magazine seen as youthful, and indeed for many of them is a bit pompous.
The magazine has also been available for years online, (also in English since November of this year) yesterday we received a letter from the comrade in Sardinia that does the job of publishing online, she just pointed out that the number is already available on-line, when many have not yet received it at home. Through the "counter" we know our contacts are online at about 6/7.000 hits a month, we do not know what they read and for how long. We believe, between paper readers and online readers to have about 12,000 readers per month. The reader of "A" goes from the student to the worker, from a small village to the city, is a smart player and committed user of the media, uses our magazine to read up as well as using other sources. "A" is not experienced as internal organ movement, dropping the ideologies and sectarianism are read by libertarians and anarchists of all tendencies, because we make room in many trends, we lived in a very open. Our magazine is generally appreciated also abroad.
There are international relations of the magazine and what are they?
Here we are lacking, although there are contacts. Synergies occur only occasionally, as recently for Mexico and a dossier on the Russian anarchist movement. An example: an anarchist cultural center with offices in London and San Francisco has translated into English on its own dossier on our anarchist partisan Emilio Canzi.
There are to be hot topics that could be coordinated internationally, being anarchists instead while the international character is present in dozens of countries, in the press that did not work even with the dossiers to have objectives of common interest. In the past, during the "militant" period of the 70 was created a network of southern-European anarchist papers which included IRL, a magazine made in Lyon, France; but after a few meetings, the result was only to be able to get the magazine in some library or bookstore that also had foreign texts.
The magazine, in Italian, could be read in Spanish-speaking countries, but the distribution and collaboration is still a raw nerve for the magazine and to libertarian communication. Today, the Internet moves a bit 'the problem, because anyone can go and read the magazine also from Madagascar, and our site has always a short English summary of each issue, and we hope that the full translation on-line that we make available in English since the number of last November will change this situation.
I saw an interview with Ascanio Celestini made by Alessio Lega, in a time when culture has certainly major constraints from an economic standpoint and also a not declared censorship, to support these people can be significant.
I fully agree. Ascanio was interviewed by Alessio Lega, a songwriter with a lot of knowledge. Ascanio is also a great friend of Cristina Valenti that follows mainly theater in the magazine, and also of Massimo Ortalli. She lent her voice to the television broadcast of "When the Anarchy will be" proposed a few months ago by RAI with interviews with various anarchists. Ascanio had been filmed, but it is a party which was then removed in the editing.
Another famous person I know and made a big impression on me is Giorgio Gaber, he came to us in our editorial offices, at his death, we have dedicated a significant dossier titled "His generation has not lost", I also send a copy to the widow Ombretta Colli (Forza Italia) but she never answered. In this case there was not a state of anarchism, in Gaber, who was not there and there's never been on the floor of the auto-definition, but we have always maintained that Gaber, with his desecrating work, he was, too, libertarian an interpreter of our times. But we have not only followed Gaber and De André, but also groups that are located in the basement ...
The possibility of the magazine in this area is to act as a cultural side ...
Of course, he thinks that the deal made by Marco Pandin and the credit is all his own, he had done before the “Mille papaveri rossi” (Thousand Red Poppies) in self-production, then rescheduled by us for the bookstores, was also popular as Dori was a 'cultural operation with interpreters of the people of the cellars also of different languages. For example, there are songs of Fabrizio interpreted in Serbia, Romania, in Friuli, in Sardinia, in Occitan, etc.. It was a work of intelligent interpretation, which has pursued "dialect" issues so cleverly dear to De Andrè.
Sure there are many important things for the magazine that we do for lack of time, people who become deeply committed to follow them, and so on. I could stay here to list, at least a dozen: there's always the valid excuse that we are a few. But I am convinced that the ability of an editor is also to stimulate the energy of others, in part, but not enough is being done, we are able to exploit a potential only 10% of what could be done. In a meeting recently in Palermo, with representatives of Trapani and Catania. 25 people present, we have been told by a provocative but interesting that the way the magazine in uses the Internet is dead, we should create a blog, put the most current news on the deal: all the better but either he or she moved to Milan and it is here to do it or he does it from his location after he creates a relationship of trust with us. The potential from the new media are many.
This is a good sign because if there are any feedback from the outside it means that the magazine is in line or even anticipated.
The merit of the magazine such as in the case of Elena, who wrote about the Pink that unlike Black Bloc protests are nonviolent, very creative and anti-state. It's a girl who is part of the social center of Milan Torchiera with which we are trying to build a relationship with the magazine. It is clear that the problem is that of the antenna ... I'll never get to the Pink, I did not even know existed from my editorial bench ... but this editorial is the work of drafting, the innervated with the people who oversee various aspects of society. Another example is the commune of Campanara near Florence that has written to rebuild a connection with the realities of farming, with organic ... there are different realities in Tuscany and elsewhere who for twenty years have pursued these projects. Twenty years ago we followed this experience with Fausta Bizzozzero and Massimo Panizza (then both editors of "A") which toured for about a week in Tuscany to make contact and did a nice report on "A".
So does the magazine, acknowledging not only of things but also doing active journalism. An interesting recent phenomenon is the mobilization of families on the cases of persons killed by police in prison or on the street, Cucchi, Aldovrandi, and others. This is interesting because in the 70 reactions of the families were almost always individual, isolated, uncoordinated. While today has created a kind of solidarity between them, is a phenomenon that starts from the bottom where the magazine should be of interest even with a reporter. Like the case of Francesco Mastrogiovanni which is one of these cases and the magazine is working as it is linked to our environment anarchist again thanks to the excellent fraternal relations that unite us to Angelo Pagliaro, which "covers" the case with passion and journalistic skills (and it is common to find joint). It is clear that in these cases it is important that the victim is an anarchist or is not, is the drama (and often the tragedy) of the individual in front of the power. There are people who is dealing seriously for years, for example there is the association of Manconi doing a good job, let's contact them ... let's see if we can publish their material. Although too little, often we contacted and we gave space to those who already work in practice, in difficult reality. Less slogan, more practical. So here on our pages Emergency, Amnesty, Telephone Viola, etc...
Certainly the situation of the magazine in the 70s is different from the 80 ...
Sure, the 80 are known to the years of reflux, the Milan to drink, there is the symbolism of Berlin Wall, the fall of communism. We supported the subscription to finance the new groups of comrades in the former Iron Curtain ... the magazine is sensitive to changes of the time ... but we have always been a role that is independent of our times ...
Nico Berti has often repeated assertion very good "in history, but against history," our task is to be in time but not influenced by the historical situation.
This is interesting. Are you saying that the magazine has a range of external conditions, which interacts with external things but just its own path ...
Yes, but as editor I would say that the magazine is primarily a militant speech, and the way in which I have contributed to it and I do it, the crux of the matter is the belief that the militant, I am convinced that the magazine is a torch of anarchy, and that is why in times of trouble I would not even put the issue to close ... I put the soul in these 40 years, because when I approached the movement I had the impression that I have been given so much by older then, not "abstract" anarchy but anarchists, people of flesh and blood, heart and brain, I met and who - in many cases - I am fond of personally. It's a long list, which to those who not met them one by one mean little or nothing: Alfonso Failla, my father in law, and then Umberto Marzocchi, Umberto Tommasini, Maria Zazzi, Tommaso Serra, Vincenzo Toccafondo, Cesare Fuochi, Libero Fantazzini, Pio Turroni, Giuseppe Raffaelli di Montignoso, followed by the "Americans" (emigrated from Italy to North America, like Sacco and Vanzetti - so to speak) Attilio Bortolotti, John Vattuone, Alex Saetta, Marco Giaconi, John the cook, Bastiano Magliocca, Max Sartin, Ettore Bonomini, etc.. etc. ..
It is not the idea that gave me the "strength" or the prospect of realizing it (I have always had a healthy and deep skepticism about the feasibility of anarchist utopia, and the older I get the less I "believe"), this new world we bring in our hearts (according to the poetic expression of Buenaventura Durruti) has always seemed to me a great idea, and beautiful at the same time "preposterous." I'm sorry (maybe) but I believe in getting things done (I have taken this attitude from my father, whose skepticism was expressed in the love and disenchanted poems of Trilussa), I believe that this wonderful idea and / but "outlandish" might be the driving force of many positive energy, that the idea of approaching this is in itself positive, but it is not aimed at its realization. I do not think that any sensible person starting from Malatesta thought of arriving at a peaceful world.
From an emotional point of view, to take care of the magazine was a bit 'my way to thank those comrades.
I remember one day I had a newspaper thrown a little 'ripped into the trash and that I was scolded by an old friend, who remarked that I could leave it on the metro to read it by someone else. She was bornalso from here the militant view from these often self-taught comrades who had a great love for the printed word. The militancy resulted in long-continued work, regular, serious work in creating community, creating reports, creating solidarity, the small drop in the world that will be. And then it becomes more believable, using an expression of the hated military language we can say that seniority is rank.
Not always the last and last is in itself positive. I have never deluded to change the world, what interests me is how you do things ... I do not care not the plant but the seed ... or better the seed that at a time becomes a plant ... what interests me is the way and not the end ... all this is related to the belief that the end is in the means ... the medium that you use is the goal that you want to achieve, then the magazine is a small example of anarchy ... I joined my profession of freelance journalist with anarchy and my passion for the printed paper ... With so many contradictions, of course. But even with a satisfying end.
What which consolidates a magazine is the consistency over time, and is one of the hardest things to achieve in a world deeply inconsistent. 40 years of consistency as the non-advertising in the magazine is scary, draws attention. The magazine is a rarity, the realization of a practical idea, it has maintained its own identity.
It is true that it takes more from the outside. Consistency, though thorough, is a complex speech because if it becomes rigidity, arrogance towards others, if it leads to excessive autoconsideration can be dangerous ... the distinction is one proud to be an anarchist and overly confident of being anarchist ... Proud means to say that we know that cleared a number of things (not a few, sometimes), overly confident anarchism is a significant trend of history and thought and that can have a positive role. Is rather conceited to think that anarchists have already the truth in their pocket, which many are peacefully convinced they have. I believe that anarchism is also a fundamental tool for cultural transformation in the libertarian sense. Anarchism is vital, essential but not sufficient, anarchism is essential but insufficient.
In other words, one can not help but think of anarchism in social transformation. but anarchism is not enough.
Historical examples of Spain, Kronstadt, the Maknovcina, and existing ones as the community of Urupia, the Municipal libertarian community of Spezzano Albanese (I say this without any underestimation because I am convinced that they are concrete important experiences) are not sufficient to envisage a change of world. Our history and our thoughts are not enough. We must also drink of the other thoughts ... You have to be to hear others, particularly those who actually work, but who also reflects on the existing from other strands of thought, even religious. There are people in many parts of the world that are making interesting things without making any reference to anarchism. A lot of people. You can do good things, even very good, outside of anarchism (not against, though).
As anarchists we must regain credibility and everyday spaces. In his forty years, I believe that the magazine "A" has made a specific contribution in these areas and gain that credibility.
Translation by Enrico Massetti ("The other Fabrizio" + "Pinelli-Piazza Fontana")
anno
40 n. 357
