SUMMARY: Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
Sixty years after the end of the catastrophe resurfaces the Nazi concentration camp universe.
Emiliano Alessandroni
terroriemo the U.S. against Cuba
Leonardo Pegoraro
Antonio Gramsci.
For a Marxist utopia
not overwhelmed by Emiliano Alessandroni
Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Sixty years
by the end of the catastrophe resurfaces the Nazi concentration camp universe.
"A period like Hitler can be seen in its memory
as finite and closed only when it is radically
passed the intellectual and moral attitude
the soul, which gave the movement, direction and shape. "
(Georg Lukacs)
We are in 1924, Hitler expressed in these terms what will be the prelude to a breakup unprecedented "because the Germans excel on all races, they have the duty and right to guide the world '.1 Now, three quarters of a century later, in a changed world order which sees the U.S. take precedence over the historical scene, Bush's statements do not differ that much from those of the Nazi dictator, "our nation is chosen by God and the mandate of the story to be a model for the world '.2
Yet there is no reason to fret so much whether the analogy between the two empires would end only in words.
Unfortunately not: now the U.S. has arrogated to themselves the right to measure the degree of democracy of all countries of the world set themselves up as the universal judge of wrongdoing in the world. Nevertheless
a question imposes itself: who will judge them? "
wearing the robe of the judge ingiudicabile and pursuing their own interests U.S. economic policy are a perennial threat ready "in the name of prevention ... to put the world on fire," 3 by also appeal without scruple concentration camp universe.
Guantanamo, the American naval base in Cuba where they are locked up "680 damned faceless chains forced into a segregation without end," 3 is a case in point. Let's see what it is.
If the entry threshold of the Nazi concentration camps stood out the word "work makes you free" at the entrance to Guantanamo you can read "Camp Delta - Honor in defense of freedom," but as was the case with the German concentration camps, so , even at Guantanamo, it's just the horror waiting behind the curtain.
cells, or the detention unit, measuring about one meter by one and a half each and are constructed of steel. Sale interrogation of all "free air" and "light ... because the prisoner did not tell day from night, not sure if you sat in front of his interlocutors for one, two, three or nine hours, as well as it happens' .5
The ninety minutes by air a week that are granted to prevent the atrophy of the muscles must be strictly worn while wearing the so-called "three pieces", lead to human "," a leather belt, in close life rings which are attached by sturdy six feet of chain that hold together ankles and wrists' .6
Because of desperation in which they are constantly surrounded by people in prison, are also frequent suicide attempts, but the only method at their disposal to put an end, which is to hang himself at the center of its cage, turns out to be every time a failure: the cell is so narrow that the contractions of the body hanging on the walls repeatedly beat it by calling the attention of the warders. No attempt to suicide has reached its end, at least until 2006 when, despite all three detainees are able to take his life getting a response by the American who painted their face and gesture as narcissistic simply to attract attention. But the horror
As we know, has no feelings and does not spare anyone, "in April 2003, a school bus dragged in chains, four ghosts orange-faced boy out of the sarcophagus of Camp Delta. Four boys under sixteen years' .7
is useless to talk about the Geneva Conventions or international conventions on children's rights: the economic and political power enjoyed by the U.S. to guarantee the absolute impunity.
But we hear the direct testimony: the wave of continuous "physical torture, sexual" and "mental" 8 which are being perpetrated against detainees, the father of one of the inmates who managed somehow to get the news, said that its son Moazzam "does not see sunlight for years. Is losing his sight 'and' torturers now apply the daily drops in the nose and ears, that action would be aimed at behavior modification. Is also rapidly losing hearing [...] During the interrogations, for 100 hours, every type of torture technique has been applied "including" the tearing of the nails. "
But unfortunately the history of abuse suffered by Moazzam does not start from Guantanamo, but from Kandahar, where "American commanders ... tied him to the ground with chains in his hands and feet. The stripped. For two hours, in turn, ... raced to urinate on him. They need remain urine for days, tied to the ground. Beat him, kicked him hitting anywhere in the body, sparing only one party. Was repeatedly insulted and treated like an animal '.8
Recently, 200 of the detainees at Guantanamo, imprisoned without trial and without opportunity to defend nor to communicate with other prisoners, nor with their family, unable even to take his life, have attempted a hunger strike. The response of the captors was "a particular type of force-feeding: hands and feet tied to their beds 24 hours to remove 24 to prevent the tube that was inserted into the esophagus to assure the food '.9 But what
accused prisoners are locked up in prisons these real horror? Since we do not have the right to a fair trial, the mere suspicion of living with terrorism is enough to wipe out once and for all the existence of these poor wretches. The practice is: first stop, then carefully inspected through torture, after which in cases of proven innocence, perhaps, release. It's exactly what happened to Sayed Abassin, 28, "U.S. Army was segregated in cells for over a year" before certainty on its actual innocence
was April 2002. I was a taxi driver and I was doing my run along the road between Kabul and Khost. I am stopped in Gardez a checkpoint of the local militia that gets me out of the car along with the passengers they carry. At this point, I am told that one of them is the cousin of a local warlord. I try to explain that I am only a taxi driver. That normally do not ask the name of those who get in my cab. But there is nothing to be done. I find myself at the police station in Gardez, where I first beaten and then delivered to a U.S. army patrol. Two quick questions and I'm on a helicopter to the Bagram airbase in Bagram base [...] I spent the first week in handcuffs and chained by the ankles. I was in a room lit around the clock and every time I fall asleep from exhaustion I was awakened by the cries of guards. I was interrogated six or seven times. The food was little and I was not allowed to talk to anyone. All the more so with those who shared a prison with me. I am often forced to remain kneeling in silence for hours ... During the trip [to Kandahar] I was hooded with a black bag secured with duct tape that I was turned around the neck. I had not even put headphones to hear. And once things got worse still in Kandahar. On that basis it was forbidden to look into the eyes of American soldiers. If you did it once, the punishment was kneeling with his head down for an hour. If you try again, became two hours a week .... after I was sent to Guantanamo.10
Next to Guantanamo therefore, we are also registered as places of torture prisons in Bagram and Kandahar in Afghanistan. But we can not forget about Iraq, the land where the U.S. have been directed to export democracy, however, able to begin to export only their sadism.
Abu Ghraib has gone against the enemy from a political to a despecificazione despecificazione natural or ethnic-racial: the suspicion of terrorism at Guantanamo who was trying to provide some kind of rational justification of horror, you go to Abu Ghraib to a imprisonment of detainees based on the mere fact of being Iraqi. The coexistence or not terrorism or resistance becomes a factor in this case is irrelevant, "the general Karpinski, particularly bitter about being the only to be criticized for the torture scandal, "it maintained that" the former army number two in Iraq, gen. Walter Wodjakowski, in the summer of 2003 was ordered not to release any more prisoners, even if certain of his innocence: "I do not care if we take into 15,000 innocent civilians - would tell his superior - We are winning the war '.11
is clearly out of these declarations, the American superpower and the impunity that it has. This dominance allows the U.S. in fact, that a country rich in resources and oil located in an attractive geographic area, to invade militarily announcing the export of democracy and kidnapping, torturing and killing up to "15,000 innocent civilians" and receive in return political control of an entire nation in the Middle East. On the other hand, the same torture practiced at Abu Ghraib were deemed so obvious and peaceful for the Americans to lead the soldiers to click each photos with mobile phones to send to their families. It is in this way that have emerged to light the abuses of power and the violence perpetrated by the United States decades to the detriment of prisoners of war and that Amnesty International had reported some time without alcun'ascolto.
of those pictures we also have some direct evidence of quysi al-Haj Ali, the hooded man behind which they laughed enjoyed his jailers. He recounted the horror of Abu Ghraib:
... the freed one hand from the handcuffs. "I'm putting in the position of the cross," said the man who questioned him. Now the beatings had become continuous, as well as dirty water jets that were pulled on him. Pulls a gun at the genitals ... underwent this treatment for three days. The more they change positions, they did stand on his toes. They told him that his hand was "rotten" ...
"During the whole period I heard screams, screams of women, screams of children. Whoever passed in the hall struck me" ... took him to a cell and handcuffed him to the bar. "It was the fifth day that I did not eat" ... "I was put in cell number 49. I snapped a photo before you remove the cap, then take another picture. I looked in front of my cell ... All the prisoners were stripped. Do not worry - they said those poor - we so for three months ... "Each of us had received a nickname from the Americans ... one of them was Big Chicken, another Dracula, there was the Wolf Man, Joker, Gilligan. I called I was Colin Powell." The next day came
Specialist Charles Graner ... Haj Ali had a bandage on his hand to cover a wound, the blood had clotted half. He took the blindfold and pulled away, with the meat. Haj Ali fell unconscious. "The next day I asked one of the women a painkiller. She told me to stick my hand out, passes under the door. I thought he would see his hand, but she went over and said: "This is the painkiller American "....
"When they wanted to send food to the prisoners, they sent us of naked men." The prisoners were hostages for brothers, fathers or sons. "The scream heard '...
A friend asked a woman soldier: "Why do you humiliated?". She said: "These are the orders, humble yourself in this position."
then took him to the interrogation room ... In this room the incident occurred which has since been seen worldwide as an example of torture practiced by the American regime. "They made me stand on a box with a hood over his head and arms outstretched. I was told that I would be subjected to electric shocks. I do not believe him. Then they took two wires and slipped them into my body. I felt that my eyes shoot out of the orbits. Then I fell to the ground ... "Usually the doctors taking part in the torture. Determined whether the prisoners pretended or exaggerated in denouncing the pain and urged the torturers to go ahead "... subjected him to electric shocks five times. I tied his hands and head to a pipe on the ceiling, they put into the mouth of the dry bread .. .
"One of the things I've seen," says Ali, "is the imam of the largest mosque in Fallujah. He is 75 years old. There was no content to drag him naked, but have also wear women's underwear. Another story is this: a prisoner ordered to urinate with a bag over his head. When I saw his father took off in, and they photographed the scene ".12
But as defending the U.S. government in the face of allegations about Guantanamo where prisoners are tortured in addition to also beaten, thrown" against the walls "and constant threat of "summary execution" and Abu Ghraib, where 13 naked bodies hanging from the ceiling and exhausted are interrogated by force of electric shock mistreatment and humiliation? The former Washington rejects the accusation calling it an insinuation 'ridiculous' .14 In the second case where the photos circulated on the Internet are quite unequivocal answer is falling from the clouds as if they knew anything, fuller hypocrisy in expressing "deep disgust"
.15 Indeed, if one thing is there is no doubt that the U.S. government not only knew about the torture perpetrated against detainees, but urged, trained and financed by the company: Cofer Black, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA tells Newsweek, "" At one point the Bush administration has formally made it known that the CIA had free hand to the use of any torture technique that does not result in death or permanent invalidity of the prisoner. " A government source confirms to the weekly "torture light is a tool to be used with restraint, but indispensable in the fight against organized terrorism. "torture light, how to put the prisoner in the head a cap of dirt and leave droppings on her knees, naked in a cold room without food or water, for some day in a row. It's just an example because the Americans in this field have been extremely creative ... Time public documents relating to the death of Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi arrested the night of November 4, 2003 in his apartment in Baghdad. The prisoner arrives at the Abu Ghraib prison with his face swollen and cracked six ribs. is dragged under a shower, hanging from a bar, their hands tied behind his back, a plastic bag on his head. "The blood flowed out of his nose like water from a faucet left open." In these circumstances, the CIA began to question him. It goes on for about 90 minutes, then the heart stops beating "16
But as we said, Amnesty International were years that had already denounced the torture of Americans in various wars, torture of which the government was fully aware and encouraged . As it is, in fact, have been found some real "manuals" of torture that the United States have respectively used in operations in Honduras ("the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983) and the war in Vietnam (" the Counterintelligence Kubark Interrogation - 1963), "the similarities with the techniques used at Abu Ghraib are impressive. " It derives from the above as "what has emerged in Iraq is therefore not the result of a deviation from the rules by few military unworthy, but a scientifically designed method which are trained soldiers' .17
Yet, to conclude , it is worth pointing out that the concentration camp universe is not the only way that expresses the arrogance of North America. Of course, it is true that Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are the cases emerged in the light of day, and the seraphic calm with which the torturers came even to take pictures and send them to family suggests that this practice was considered a routine action and that with probably will be many other places where it makes use of torture on detainees (now are emerging such as the cases involving the war in Kosovo), nevertheless we must not forget that even before the last military invasion of the economic embargo that 'Iraq for years suffered at the hands of the United States has cost more than 1,000,000 deaths among its population. This new and distinctive expedient war they use and abuse the United States against "rogue states" has been defined by the parliamentary DS Fulvia Bandol "the most ruthless and cruel weapon that you can bet against a country." I think it is only right at this point, as some historians have done, ask a question: "but we sure ... that the embargo is a form of post-modern concentration camp? That in reality there is no need to close an entire people in a concentration camp, but enough to cut the flow of food, medicines, and especially if a war has destroyed the civilian infrastructure of this country? "18
It should therefore try to take leave of passive absorption of the dominant ideology and those who own the media control, exposing the irrational from time to time especially when it is presented under the guise of rationality.
Emiliano Alessandroni
1 Adolf Hitler "Mein Kampf", Bompiani
2 by Domenico Losurdo, "The Bush Doctrine and imperialism global "to" Ernest "No. 6 of 2002
3 Ibid.
4 Carlo Bonini:" Guantanamo ", Einaudi 2004, p. 2
5 Carlo Bonini:" Guantanamo ", Einaudi 2004, p. 25
6 Carlo Bonini: "Guantanamo", Einaudi 2004, p. 30 7
Carlo Bonini: "Guantanamo", Einaudi 2004, p. 61
8 Patricia Lombroso: "The torturers of my son Moazzam" Interview from "The manifesto of the 17 / 9 / 2004
9 Mi. Co. "Guantanamo hell" from "Il manifesto" of 10 8/10/2005
Carlo Bonini: "Guantanamo", Einaudi 2004, pp.
74-75 11 by Stefano Chiarini: "Even children at Abu Ghraib "on" manifesto "of 12/3/2005
12 Lars Akerhaung" Torturatelo again, the doctor said Use "from the" manifesto "of Vittorio Zucconi 13
09/10/2005:" So the CIA tortures prisoners "from" La Repubblica, 27/12/2002
Goffredo Buccini 14: "Two Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo deaths' by Il Corriere della Sera 06/03/2003
15 From "La Repubblica" on May 9, 2004
Roberto Rezzo 16: "Torture encouraged by the White House" to "Unit" of 17 11/14/2005
Manilo Dinucci: "Here are the manuals of the U.S. torturers," from "Il manifesto" of 18 12/05/2005
Domenico Losurdo, "Why is the communism failed" from "Il Grillo" (11/09/1999)
Terrorism U.S. CUBA against
In September 1998 the Cuban René González, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labanino were arrested in Miami, South Florida's only a little more distant than ninety miles from Cuba, the island of Revolución .
The Five were convicted at first instance in which harsh sentences even three life sentences and awaiting the first trial had to endure for months on the barbarous segregation in the notorious El Hueco, the Hole, the prison of two meters by two illuminated day and night. The trial was then held in 2003 and nothing has revealed that flagrant judicial farce alleged, among others, the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (has representatives in almost one hundred countries), the National Jury Project and National Lawyers Guild, and sentenced to thirty-one members of the British Parliament. Until August 9, 2005, after seven years of unjustified detention and torture, the Federal appeals court in Atlanta has revoked the sentence as enumerated serious irregularities and omissions affecting the rights of defendants and the assessment of the evidence put forward by them and recognizing the ' obvious injury that has spoiled the whole process.
Despite their odyssey is not over. Time will face a retrial and waiting will not even be released.
Why were arrested and sentenced these sentences unheard? A question that most of the media did not respond truthfully and satisfactorily, revealing more and more ridiculous and corrupt. Suffice it to say that the same New York Times has eluded the history of the Five, until, to make it public, some components of an international solidarity committee (composed among others by Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu) had to pay $ 60,000 a page newspaper. In Italy, for example, the Corriere della Sera has not devoted a single line and the Republic has given a "short" without mentioning the reason why those Cubans were in Florida.
The courts of Florida accused them of breach of federal laws and in particular of having carried out espionage by transmitting information to Cuba on the U.S. national defense, which would have run serious risks to the country and its people. The same Minister of Justice of the United States argued that the crimes attributed to the accused are an attempt to "strike at the heart of national security and democracy of the United States of America." Five
But, at the trial, did not deny its work to combat terrorism but which for decades has hit the Republic of Cuba, giving it a dubious distinction: it is the country that has suffered the longest terrorist campaign in history. Their mission was to alerting their country, constantly victims of terrorist attacks implemented by the Cuban exiles counter-hosted, backed and funded by the United States. That they had a duty to inform in time the government in Havana on imminent attacks from Miami (the nest of terrorists) to avoid damage to the economy of the country and first in the population that has already seen die massacred 3500 Cubans. They fought against the terrorism (among other unarmed and only to prevent it) to fight against the government in Washington, at least in words. Too bad, though, that they were acting against terrorism wrong, "good." There are many
evidence showing the involvement of the United States either directly or indirectly in terrorist acts and sabotage operations, aimed to bring down and discredit the Cuban Revolution. Following the Bay of Pigs invasion heroically rejected by the Cuban people and the consequent embarrassment of the Democratic Kennedy administration, the attacks against the Caribbean island and its people, already started in October 1959, intensified. The country that had successfully challenged the boss of the whole world was punished. So in the sixties the Caribbean island was the scene of countless air raids and sea against targets such as refineries, chemical plants, railway bridges, cane fields sugar and warehouses. At the same time were infiltrated spies, saboteurs and assassins who massacred soldiers and defenseless citizens. All at the work of fascist commandos trained and financed by the CIA, hosted in Miami. What's more it gave start operations even more despicable: the use several times to chemical and biological weapons against Cuba, for example, in 1962, CIA officials and contaminated large quantities of sugar in the same year he received a Canadian agronomist 5000 dollars from a CIA agent to turkeys to inoculate the island of Newcastle disease virus, a deadly disease that killed eighty thousand heads. Between 1969 and 1970, the CIA devised a system to affect the weather conditions and damage the Cuban economy: aircraft took off from a laboratory located in the California desert flew over the island seeding crystals in water-laden clouds, which unleashed torrential rain on non-cultivated areas (causing devastating floods), so as to leave Dry those planted with sugar cane. In 1971, the CIA handed over to Cuban exiles a virus capable of triggering the African swine fever, which forced him to cut half a million pigs, before the epidemic is rampant throughout the country. A decade later they were targeted human beings, when struck on the Island of hemorrhagic dengue epidemic (disease transmitted by mosquitoes that, after breeding in the laboratory, were released into the environment) which caused in 1981, recording more than 300,000 cases and the death of 158 Cubans, of which 101 were under the age of 15 years.
Even more numerous were the direct actions of Fidel Castro to hit delete or humiliate him. Attempts ranging dall'avvelenamento of cigars and dinner, the requirements of administering a chemical that did fall beard and hair, or to make him take LSD just before a speech in public, right up to more traditional systems based on 'use of firearms and explosive devices, such as when they tried to bomb a sports hall where he was holding a speech. Of course, other excellent targets were represented by all remaining members of the Socialist government as Raul Castro, brother of the President, and Che Guevara against whom were even fired shots bazooka while in the United Nations building in New York in 1964.
In 1981, Reagan, who distinguished himself for his political ultrareazionaria, founded the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), the creation of the CIA Director Casey. It was intended to accomplish, on Cuba, a work of manipulation and pressure to the Congress and the public to serve and protect the interests of imperialists in Washington. The ability to reconcile the interests dell'FNCA North American and the old political and economic elites, the custodians of the Batista dictatorship, made it the short time in the main lobby of the Cuban United States. From the beginning, the CANF was responsible for destroying the attempts of rapprochement between the two countries initiated by the previous government, that of Carter, the only president who tried to promote a policy of détente between Washington and Havana. The Foundation was characterized by strong early for the use of terrorism as an instrument of ideological expression. Luis Posada Carriles, former CIA agent and former militant of the terrorist network in Latin America, bragged in several interviews that he committed most of all attacks against Cuba proving to be one of the most cruel terrorists the world, and at the same time claimed to have been commissioned and paid by the CANF. If the Western media were truly free, would be known to everyone on 6 October 1976, just as it is known that on 11 September 2001. On that day, for the first time in history, terrorism plane was used as a means of political pressure: a plane of the Cuban flag carrier, from Barbados, exploded in flight. Seventy-three people were killed, including twenty-four members of the national fencing team, who had just won the Central American Games. The attack was claimed by Carriles, who, after a brief period of detention in a prison Venezuela, managed to escape thanks to his contacts with the CIA, the State Department and the CANF, which had provided $ 26,000 to bribe the prison guards.
The terrorist attacks in the United States have been continuing to this day on behalf of paramilitary organizations such as Omega 7, Alpha 66, the insurgency Martiniano, Abdala, Brothers to the Rescue, Cuban Power, the Cuban Nationalist Movement, the League Anticommunist Cuban and many others. These were responsible for attacks that involved not only Cubans, but also tourists, in order to undermine the island's economy hitting a fundamental economic resource, as when in 1997 a series of bombs explode in some tourist resorts in Havana, killing among others the young Italian Fabio di Celmo.
Cuba is also forced to endure the heavy and illegal embargo for over sixty years, is causing the discontent among the population, faced the highest cost per ton in the world of import-export. The embargo, costatole more than 70 billion dollars, was sentenced by the United Nations (for years every time they vote in favor only the U.S. and Israel), the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Juridical Committee, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, the World Trade Organization and many other organisms international.
Although since 1959 the direct military invasion, bio, terrorist attacks, sabotage of infrastructure, the waves of assassinations, war propaganda, political and diplomatic aggression, economic strangulation have affected the rhythms and styles of living of the people of the island, forced to live in a permanent state of siege, the Republic of Cuba has demonstrated that you can withdraw from the free capital market dominated by Western powers and evade the law of profit due to the nationalization of private property and resulting in the dismantling of the capitalist ruling class. The revenue of the state have been and are still managed by the government to be distributed to the entire population through services such as health, education, information, imports of raw materials and food, sport ... making Cuba a country, reflecting the breakdown in the social key collective and egalitarian, has eliminated illiteracy in one year with the highest rate of education on the continent and the highest in the world of teachers per number of inhabitants, which has increased the life expectancy of over 15 years thanks to the best system health of the world totally free, which gave a house and a job to his people. Not to mention that the island, with a great spirit of solidarity, is committed to Fight AIDS, putting his good doctors available to the World Health Organization, and has always supported the liberation struggle for independence of other peoples, far from claiming any property in their countries.
Fidel Castro
In this regard, is exemplary military and diplomatic to the decisive contribution of Cuba to open the doors of freedom in Southern Africa and, in particular, in Namibia and South Africa, from subdued ' apartheid. As noted by Mandela, "the entire history of Africa is the first time that people from another continent has risen in our defense." It is significant to know that this mission, which he called Castro "because the most beautiful", attended by Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández and René González (three of five Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. today), which, like all their comrades had gone to Africa voluntarily. Citing the historian Michael Parenti, "if forced to choose between a democracy without capitalism, or capitalism without democracy, the U.S. politicians prefer without hesitation the second, but still prefer to hide, if possible, behind a veneer of legitimacy by a subsidiary
In the nineteenth century, when Spain was fighting against the tyranny that raged over Cuba, José Matra, hero of the War of Independence, wrote:" Freedom is expensive and must resign themselves to live without or deciding to buy it for its price ".
Cubans have chosen the path of freedom.
Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René are paying the price.
Leonardo Pegoraro
Antonio Gramsci
To a Marxism swept utopia
Emiliano Alessandroni
"Del daydreaming and fantasizing. A lack of character and liabilities. One imagines that an error has occurred and that the mechanism of the need has been turned upside down. Their initiative became free.
Everything is easy. It can be what you want, and want a whole series of things which at present is lacking. It is, after all, this upside-down that looks to the future. Everything that is unleashed repressed. Instead, you must violently draw attention in this way it is, if you want to transform it. Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will. " [1]
is evident from the first citation as a trend was present in Gramsci demystify that accompany and characterize all his work in prisons, noted for its impeccable rationality and its glossy realism. The term utopia, that a large part of today's common sense associated with that of communism, not only is not claimed by the theory of this great thinker, but rather is used to expose many bourgeois conceptions which today stand at the rank of modern doctrines; of Moreover, you could probably rewrite the whole system Gramscian form of conflict between realism and utopia. But let's see. Leave must be taken first by the theories of conservative guidance, for ideological blindness, classified as a utopia is all that will change or transformation. As it is necessary instead to reiterate that "it is not unrealistic to attribute the political will in general, but the details will not know who connect the means to an end and therefore are not even the will, but wishful thinking, dreams, desires, etc. `. [2] but then, Gramsci asks," Is not the reaction is also a constructive act of will? It is not voluntary conservation? Why, then, would be revolutionary, not utopian [...] the will of those who wish to preserve the existing and prevent the emergence and organization of new forces that would upset the traditional balance and flip? ". [3] A historical example is called into question by himself during the French Revolution we see the Third Estate in revolt, supported by the theories of the Enlightenment is about the founding of the modern state, to battle a handful of aristocratic conservatives cling now to nothing but their own particular interests and weak doctrines obsolete. You must ask at this point, those who were in that case, the utopians, the revolutionary or conservative? Clearly then, the Conservatives were utopians, and subsequent history has come then to confirm it: the French bourgeoisie and the Revolution comes out the winner, albeit with great difficulty, he manages in the space of a century to clear all sorts of residual feudal political forms appropriate to find new social relations and consolidate its rule.
Central Gramsci appears to be in at this point, the category of "objective contradiction" or "real contradiction" derived directly from Marx and Hegel. Any theory that ignores these categories is for Gramsci strangeness from actual reality, and therefore a utopian yearning. If in fact the gap that is to produce between means and ends to fill a particular theory of abstract art, this gap can be filled only by recognizing and intervening in the "objective contradiction" which expresses the reality. The denial or repudiation of the "objective contradiction" or, even more pompous and haughty presumption of those who considers himself or his theory beyond this contradiction leads to inevitable relapse utopia.
In this sense, for Gramsci, "religion is the most gigantic utopia, that is the most gigantic" metaphysics ", which appeared in history, for it is the most impressive attempt to reconcile the contradictions in mythological form of real life historical: it says, really that man has the same "nature" that the existence of man in general, as created by God, son of God, so brother of other men, equal to other men, free, among others, and like other men, and that he can conceive in reflecting God, "self" of humanity, but also states that this does not of this world and this world, but another (-utopian-). [4]
The uniqueness and superiority of the philosophy of praxis (Marxism) in their own lives instead of Gramsci for his realistic nature, namely that it is a theory of contradictions, it is required to deal repeatedly with the real contradictions that unfold gradually on the historical landscape. In addition, the character of autoriflessività: that process which Gramsci calls for the application of historical materialism, historical materialism itself. The philosophy of praxis is to be reflected in this way as the "philosophy freed (or tries to escape) from any unilateral and fanatical ideological element" revealed how "the full consciousness of the contradictions, in which the philosopher himself, understood individually or understood as entire social group, not only includes the contradictions, but posits itself as an element of contradiction, this elevates a principle of knowledge and then action. " [5]
As you can see, therefore, the canons of realism and utopia are completely reversed from those of the conservative tradition which alleged realism has often proved to be futile fantasy: During the period of the Restoration, for example, "theorists of the ancien regime are well placed to see the abstract, ahistorical ideology of petty-bourgeois," and that assessment, however, stop the evaluation of others' without in any way the personal touch, is so that they end up generating "their hand, a historian," the people "that critical and petty-bourgeois ideology and the ideology of" aristocratic ", both explaining and explaining" himself "what is the maximum" historicism ", the total release of any" ideological, "the real historical world domination, that is the beginning of a new civilization of the original. " [6]
The philosophy of the practice just as Gramsci conceived therefore to overcome the old ideological abstractionism, it alone is able, according to the Sardinian thinker, to generate a historian who knows how to give reason of Jacobinism, and of his aristocratic conservatism birth, to explain that all the past and present through his system. This system is what history has then dragged towards the abandonment of the old to project it in the direction of modernity. The analysis of objective contradictions in short, is the first prerequisite to avoid falling in utopia. Assumptions or fantastic dream worlds are Platonic ideals out the system of Gramsci, and he fits on the heels of that Marx defined communism not as a perfect society to live as an abstract or country of absolute happiness, but more specifically as "the real movement which abolishes the present state of things present " [7] (italics mine).
In this regard it is necessary to Gramsci 'will apply to the creation of a new balance of forces really exist and operate, relying on that particular force is considered progressive and strengthened to make it triumph "always moving" in the land of reality but master it and overcome it (or contribute to it). " [8] So
regarding the question of the means of Gramsci's thought is in close continuity with the Marxist tradition which has behind it (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg): each attain a goal requires the intervention as a means to voluntary and practical ' internal contradictions of the real. But in regard to the purpose we find the same coincidence of positions? Unfortunately, we know that Marx and Engels had excited a theoretical battle with Bakunin, who did not hesitate, during the heated debates that were created, to accuse them of statolatria. The echoes of this "battle" and the charges are likely to have influenced part of the intellectual anarchist theories of Marx and Engels, and especially those relating to delineation of the future society.
The stadium will be defined as common humanity that correspond to Marx in the historical phase "in which this root [...] state will perish." [9] For Engels in the classless society is going to happen to the disintegration of the capitalist system, "the state will inevitably collapse. The company will hold back production on the basis of free and equal association of producers, will transfer all the state machinery where it will be the only place from that time: the museum of antiquities, next to the rock and ax bronze. [10] But this impression the messianic are at times in the two founders of Marxism previously: in The German Ideology they foreshadow communism as a society in which it appears "this thing can do today, tomorrow other one in the morning to hunt, fish in the afternoon, evening raising livestock, criticize after dinner ... without becoming either hunter or shepherd or critic. " [11]
Some influential Marxist critics of today have underlined the Messianic character of these places: in effect, "if we accept this definition, then Communism presupposes so prodigious a development of the productive forces to erase the problems and conflicts the distribution of social wealth and then for the work, and measuring and monitoring the work necessary for its production, even so configured, the demise of Communism seems to assume, in addition to the state, the division of labor, and in fact the same work, dissipated, ultimately, all forms of power and obligation '. [12]
to absorb this messianic component that is festering in the writings of the founders of Marxism is also the first Lenin: The State and Revolution everything written on the eve of October of '17 seems to be a true act of grace toward the anarchists: to accompany as a shadow, the entire work is an anarchist hostility to any form of state structure. "With the abolition of classes is also carried out the abolition of the state" [13] reads the pamphlet of the future Soviet leader, on the other hand if you see the state only as a means of oppression of a class organization on a 'other insurance without considering also the character that it holds to certain States to the same class, it follows the logical conclusion that "when there is freedom there will be no State' [14] and then" the disappearance of the state "should be" a consequence of the socialist revolution. " [15] In this way
anarchists and communists represent two movements that offer the same end but by different means, and the accusation that the Communists would move to the anarchists that would not "be for the abolition of the state, but to pretend that it is possible to abolish the state" overnight "» . [16]
radically changed the position of the Bolshevik revolution after the impact with the reality. After the end of the revolution and avviatosi Administration huge Eurasian country, Lenin realized that the terms of the real thing are totally different than the dreamy fantasies generated by revolutionary fervor. So far the country to address the elimination of the state, pushing its people to construction of "a state where workers maintain their leadership over the peasants, and enjoy the confidence of the farmers with the largest economy from the social eliminate all traces of waste", you must then try to manage their own "state with the highest economy ", ensuring" that every small savings will serve to develop "the mechanical engineering industry" to develop electrification, hydraulic extraction of peat, to carry out the power plant etc. Volhov. " [17 ] short, it is necessary to gather all the energy to try to "build a truly new system that truly merits the name of socialism, the Soviet Union, etc..." [18]
reflection of Gramsci takes exactly the moves last Lenin. Since the first flower of youth unrest, he clearly states that "the proletariat is not the enemy of the state in and of itself was not as enemies of the state in and of itself the middle class." [19] The battle leading the exploited workers, "the state they are fighting is really only the bourgeois state and capitalist, and not the state itself," similarly, "the property that they want to remove is not already "property" broadly, but the capitalist mode of ownership. [20]
Gramsci proposed for foundation of a "new order" more spontaneous and granted, based on consensus, not coercion and born emancipation of the subaltern classes, who can oppose the anarchic disorder and animal generated repressive authoritarianism of the bourgeois state: in fact 'myth anti-socialist state-barracks has become a terrible suffocating bourgeois reality, pushing the company to an abyss of indiscipline, the frenzy of murderous chaos. We are forced into a straitjacket that makes us mad and exasperated. " [21] In
then the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci uses the name to designate the order of the community will be "regulated society" indicating by this complete a post-capitalist society bears all the effects of their regulatory function. This concept of "regulated society" therefore "can hardly be" identified "with anarchy. To understand the meaning of such a configuration, you must actually from Hegel that in bourgeois society of his time, characterized by the polarization of wealth and poverty, he sees a "residual state of nature", ie a state of violence and oppression. Overcoming this condition, defined by Marx and Engels of the prehistory of mankind, is identified by them in so that communism is the beginning of human history reconciled. But this historical cycle quality Gramsci is not new for the coming anarchy, by coming to fall on any rule, but to a society that is "adjusted" because of the fact that exceed the "state of nature, anarchy and oppression of its own a society based on class domination. The Prison Notebooks seem to recognize the debt to Hegel when trace "this image of the state without a state" or the "ethical state", which took the place of the state as organizer of class violence, and that is communism, "the major political science and law" ... and also explicitly and Hegel ... Communism is seen then as the realization of the "image" which in the author Philosophy of law remains at the level of "pure utopia," since no allowance colossal upheavals that materials alone can give it concrete. " [22]
Gramsci seems to be the author that "the more one is engaged in an effort to de-project messianizzazione communist 'than to question" the myth of extinction of the state and its absorption into civil society "noting" that civil society itself is a form of state ", he has repeatedly" stressed that internationalism has nothing to do with the disregard of the peculiarities and national identities, which will persist beyond the collapse of capitalism, then what the market believes that Gramsci would agree to speak of "market-determined
" rather than the market in the abstract. " [23]
So the "regulated society" far from being anti-historical utopia, in Gramsci emerges as the true fulfillment of modernity.
this fulfillment of modernity can only come about if, and only catalyze all the forces that express the contradictions of capitalism, in coordinating the direction of overcoming the contradiction.
We notice in fact that many critical movements we have today in our historical landscape which Legambiente, Greenpeace, WWF, Amnesty International, Emergency, animals, The Doctors Without Borders, the brothers Comboni, the anti-globalization movements, the Women in Black, the movements for peace, promoters of fair trade, etc.. etc.. are all expressions of the contradictions of the capitalist system brings with it, as soon as we raise our eyes from individual trees to put it on the forest. Yet the intent of each of these movements is likely to remain abstract utopia if: 1) these movements are not aware of the relationship that exists between the problem they are dealing with and the system or the systemic logic that produces it, and 2) not joins the fight to solve the problem that we deal with the struggle to overcome this problem the system has generated, 3) not leading this fight Walk through the contradiction that is backed by supporting and collective subjects that best represent this conflict and that, by necessity of the condition and maturation of conscience, willing to do anything to overcome it.
is important to specify that the concrete did not exceed the pace of a utopia where those persons have not yet reached the maturity required of consciousness. There he would be here to support embryonic subject of a struggle this only in your head (utopia) and not supported by any real, effective, and by dint of running after these will end up being sucked into the populism adopted by the primitive stage and primary which characterizes the unconscious subjugation consensus of the moment "economic-corporate". [24] Far from it, in this situation, it is still necessary and cultural battle with the means to provide the objective conditions for revolutionary collective desire to create and achieve the maturity of conscience. This is what in some ways Gramsci meant by "cultural hegemony". Only in this way can give a boost to the concrete and progressive march of history.
Bibliography:
- Friedrich Engels: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, G. Savelli
1975 - Antonio Gramsci: Prison Notebooks, Einaudi
2001 - Antonio Gramsci: The New Order, Einaudi 1955
- Lenin: Selected Works, Editori Riuniti
1968 - Domenico Losurdo: Antonio Gramsci from liberalism to communism critical
Shrimps 1997 - Domenico Losurdo: Escape from history? The City of the Sun
2005 - Karl Marx: Critique of the Gotha Programme, Editori Riuniti
1976 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, German Lideologia, Editori Riuniti 1971
[1] Gramsci, 2001, p. 1131
[2] Gramsci, 2001, p. 762
[3] Gramsci, 2001, pp. 761-762
[4] Gramsci, 2001, p. 1488
[5] Gramsci, 2001, p. 1487
[6] Gramsci, 2001, p. 443
[7] Marx: The German Ideology
[8] Gramsci, 2001, p. 1578
[9] Marx, 1976, p. 43
[10] Engels, 1975, p. 216
[11] Marx-Engels, 1955, p.
[12] Losurdo , 2005, p. 48
[13] Lenin, 1968, p. 896
[14] Lenin, 1968, p. 925
[15] Lenin, 1968, p. 899
[16] Lenin, 1968, p. 896
[17] Lenin : Better less but better, in Lenin, 1968, p. 1827
[18] Lenin, Ibid, p. 1816
[19] Gramsci, 1955, p. 398
[20] Gramsci, 1955, p. 399
[21] Gramsci, 1955, p. 3
[22] Losurdo , 1997, pp. 192-193
[23] Losurdo , 2005, p. 102
[24] see Gramsci, 2001, p. 457
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