The Gap

Five days. Only about 120 hours separate the conflicts in Rome during the demonstration organized by the “Indignant” form the one that broke out in Syntagma square in Athens on the second day of the general strike. In both cases, those who want to put an end to the world of money and authority – and prefer a few days going hooded to a lifetime wearing a tie – found themselves dealing with not just the bullies in uniform lined up to protect their masters, but particularly with the final defenders of a more and more indefensible state: the citizens in the most leftist and militant version.

They are the ones who in Rome tried to put in line anyone who didn’t march in rhythmic step, calling on and applauding the intervention of the forces of order. They are the ones who rushed to do the snitch’s work, consigning to the judiciary images captures by the most varied technological prostheses. And yes, they are also the ones who in Athens who lined up to protect the Parliament, greeting the angriest protesters with their clubs. The following was noted: extremely violent conflicts, the chasing down of subversives, under the amused eye of the police. Rocks and even molotovs flew, and an eager , voluntary guardian of the parliamentary building lost some skin, torn off by the tear gas dispensers of his colleagues in uniform. The next day, here in Italy the officers of the state reserve army threatened from now on public order sufficient for preventing future incidents. Meanwhile in Greece, the offices of the KKE – the communist party, which along with the PAME union provided men to protect Papandreou and his gang – and the gatherings of the KNE (the party of young communists, now rebaptized as the KNAT) were made the object of passionate and impetuous expressions of gratitude.

There are those who call these “fratricidal struggles,” to be deplored and avoided. This isn’t so. They are the obvious and inevitable consequence of the collision of two tension that are not only different, but even more, are opposed. In the face of a state that is tottering, there are those who rush to prop it up and those who rush to bring it down. Those who want to cleanse the Parliament of undeserving politicians because they think there are other more deserving ones to replace them, and those who intend to make a clean sweep of the whole mess. Those who think that freedom is the fruit of the exercise of a judicious, fair, long-sighted power, and those who think that only twits insist on practicing this “gymnastics of obedience.”

These are two tensions that have gone through all history and that unfailingly come to daggers drawn in moments of intense turmoil. This is so well-known as to make those bards of historical memory, which there would be no future for us, who now suddenly transform themselves into advertising agents for self-interested forgetfulness.

After having shown a mutual comtempt for decades, many exponents of the two spirits of what from pure linguistic convention some insist on describing as a “Movement” began collaborating a little while ago in these parts. First, little winks, then sporadic invitations, finally extended meetings and common initiatives. Holding their noses, plugging their ears and sometimes even covering their eyes (will they go on living?), the reformers of this world and many of its most bitter enemies have put in a great deal of effort to being, if not in love, at least in agreement. One only has to stop scratching at past scars. Let Genoa, about which so much could be said, go back to being just the name of a Ligurian city. Let the geography of conflict teach only the location of Chiomonte.

The more dramatic the situation has become, the wider the chasm has been opening, and the more absurd the time lost in mutually counting the differences would seem. Better to cling to the similarities. The enemy, for example. Do you or don’t you want to put an end to this vulgar, racist, militarist government? Well then, let’s all do it all together, putting aside the ideological dogmatism of theory in order to dedicate ourselves to the intelligence of practice. If one doesn’t want to remain immobilized in a rancorous and self-satisfied isolation, one must start to bustle about in a self-satisfied and rancorous clique. It is necessary to contaminate oneself, in order not to lock oneself up in an identity-based purism. May the authoritarians discover the beauty of decentralization, may the anti-authoritarians lay claim to the virtue of the republic! Eye to eye, Maalox for Maalox, pack on the back, between a soup on the tracks and a guitar around the campfire, we’ll all end up closer than we supposed. Perhaps not comrades, but surely political friends.

After Rome, after Athens, this induced hallucination is wearing itself out. Smashed like the statue of the Madonna1 as soon as it leaves the valleys of Piemonte. When the situation starts to speed up everywhere, when the game is coming to an end, you begin to lay your cards on the table. When a certain point is reached, those who presumptuously thought that they could do business with bankers will perhaps suddenly remember that there is an indissoluble link between thought and action, that means are never separate from ends. When they get denounced by their one-time allies, when they find the road blocked by the red guardians, they will realize that no nauseating rhetoric can ever hide the abyss that separates reform of the state from its destruction. The political class of the Movement may still bustle about to conceal or at least redimension the gap, but the material reality of the struggle itself is seeing to widening it.

More and more every day.

[October 22, 2011]

1A reference to the smashing of a statue of the Madonna in Rome during the Occupy Wall Street demonstration there on October 15.

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