Letter to the movement
by Francesco Caruso

"Justice means immediate amnesty for all"
Here are some long extracts from Francesco Caruso's letter to the movement
circulated yesterday by the Disobbedienti.
A million men and women in Florence have declared, repeated and shouted out
loud that another world is possible and necessary, a world without war or
"humanitarian" bombardments, a world in which wars will be avoided simply by
not fighting them; a world in which a house, a job, an income, water, and
land will be the right of everyone, rather than privileges only for some.  A
million is a lot of people.
Behind the bars of this prison cell, democracy, justice and dignity are
empty words, concepts and values which are impossible to perceive.
Paradoxically, I have to thank the Cosenza magistrates for having sent me to
the hellish prisons of Trani and Viterbo which are so reminiscent of Dante's
Inferno, with prisoners kept like battery hens, where even the most basic
right becomes a favour to be begged for.
Here democracy, justice and dignity can all be translated as immediate
amnesty for all.
But is it really possible to speak of democracy, justice and dignity in a
country where the political opposition is persecuted?  Isn't this the
dividing line between democracy and authoritarianism, the sign of the
inversion of democracy?
"We are all subversives" is the cry not only for rebels and activists, but
also for every member of civil society, every sincere democrat who believes
and hopes that we live in a mature democracy.  At stake is not merely our
release from prison (which is of secondary importance) but the viability of
the democratic opposition in Italy.
If the "Cosenza theorem" is accepted, then every activist, everyone who has
worked in recent years for the idea that "another world is possible",
everyone who was on the demonstrations in Naples, Genoa and Florence is
liable to be persecuted as a dangerous and violent subversive.
But it gets worse.  Especially in the political, economic and cultural
establishment, in the upper echelons of the power structure, there are
people who view the social movements as a dangerous virus to be fought, an
evil to be defeated, the disorder to be repressed, to re-establish "order
and discipline", so as to preserve their own power.
The rise of the anti-globalisation movement has caused certain sectors of
the power élite, the judiciary and the forces of order to fear the activism
of the movements and their potential for social transformation and
questioning of the present order of things.  Impartiality has been abandoned
in favour of an obsessive degree of political persecution, which culminated
in the violence of Genoa and the murder of Carlo Giuliani.
The absurd "Cosenza theorem" once again turns the spotlight on to the
special operations groups of the Carabinieri (the only body which has not
been investigated for its responsibilities in Genoa), and on to some crafty
magistrates.
The last time that the charge of political conspiracy was used was during
the Fascist dictatorship, and before then at the time of the romantic
Carbonari in the 19th century.  Of course, if we are compared with our
grandparents who fought the fascists, or our great-grandparents who were
Carbonari, then we are honoured.
The dangerous subversives, the true criminals are in fact on the other side
of the barricade.  They are those who try to push the movement on to the
terrain of physical or military conflict, because they well know that this
is the only terrain on which they can defeat us.
But the movement has shown, at Genoa and after, that it has the political
maturity to avoid being trapped in this way.  This ridiculous inquiry will
not shake us.
And that is not all.  As with the Genoa experience, this political attack
will not push us back or break up our movement.  It will reinforce our
knowledge that we must fight our battles with redoubled energy.  It shows us
that at stake is not just the possibility of conquering new rights and
social guarantees, but also the defence of democracy, the cancelling out of
the reactionary strategies that have been used in recent decades to attack
previous cycles of social mobilisation.
Therefore it is important for the movement to free itself from the grip of
those who would strangle it, and from the cycle of repression and resistance
to repression which clips the wings of the process of social transformation.
Therefore, quite apart from the essential battle to denounce the political
and persecutory nature of this operation, it is important to continue
promoting the movement and its policies.  At the same time, we have to speak
up for the practice of civil disobedience as a perfectly legitimate form of
mobilisation against the many, too many injustices which oppress our global
world.  No inquiry and no magistrate can stop us from doing this.
We shall be there with our hearts, but so many others will be there in
person, alongside the people of Melito who are fighting to get their houses
back; the unemployed who are demanding a job or at any rate an income; the
Fiat workers who are fighting to defend their jobs; the immigrants who will
demonstrate in Turin on 30th November against the concentration camps.  The
other side do not realise that their efforts are in vain, and they will lose
this battle too.  We are an army dressed in rags, but we are also, and above
all, dreamers.
This is why we cannot be beaten.

Francesco Caruso
Liberazione 26.11.02