Which Caucasus are you talking about?

Reading an article in the Repubblica I remembered that in the Caucasus they are fighting forgotten separatist wars: Cecenia, Inguscezia, Daghestan, Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and perhaps others that I do not know of.

Very forgotten wars. In fact, anyone who wants to report the facts and perhaps say a point of view other than government's risks his life. That is why we know little about these unfortunate people, except maybe that they are Russians (even if they have neither Russian language nor religion, nor history, nor genetics, nor especially the sentiments).

I challenge anyone to explain simply exactly what happened in these places in the last two years. Whoever can, he/she wins a complete smiling thanks from me and from the world of blogs and free thinking.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Medal of Disapproval for military valor

Is there anyone who remembers Franco Piperno and Potere Operaio (Power to Workers)? Who remembers the 1970s in Italy, when judges, policemen and politicians fell under the hammer of ideologues, revolutionaries and peones of armed struggle?
The first were called "servants of the State".
The second were called "terrorists".
It was a small war and the State won, writing the history that we read today.
I do not want any of my 5 readers to think that I justify terrorism. I affirm rather strongly the principle enshrined in the wonderful Article 11 of the Italian Constitution: "Italy repudiates war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples and as a means of settling international disputes".
I find this rather incomplete, I would gladly change it into: "The Italian people reject all forms of violence and offence as a means to resolve any dispute", without any hesitation!

Franco Piperno, interviewed on TV, said: "Morality is multiple. There are people who go to bomb a city, and are considered heroes, and people who shoot at a particular target, who are considered criminals. In the second case, only because they were defeated."
Some journalist has ridiculed this sentence.

Enrico Cialdini was a hero of the Italian independence movement. During the period of struggles against the brigands he was responsible for collective punishment and mass executions against entire populations of the south. But this has disappeared from history.
William Tecumseh Sherman was a hero of the American Secession war. During the Indian wars he was responsible for collective punishment and mass executions against entire populations of the plains. But this has disappeared from history.

Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Caesar, were they heroes or murderers? How many innocent deaths were they responsible for? How many innocent deaths were Stalin and Mao responsible for? How many innocent deaths were Roosevelt and Churchill responsible for?
Our leaders today, the major allies and enemies of our time, are they heroes or murderers? To know this we just have to wait for one to win and another to be defeated. The winner will write the history and will tell us.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Not in My Back Yard

On the frontpage of Carta, March 14, 2008, there was the following passage.

Perhaps the worst way to deal with obstacles posed by territorial movements that have emerged in Italy in recent years is to reduce them to numbers. The Sole24Ore, the newspaper of Confindustria, the Italian association of industrial managers, reported the results of a study on alleged cases of "Nimby syndrome", the tag the media put on the movement of citizens who contest 'apparently-public serving works'. According to the report, there are 193 works in Italy "blocked" by the protests of local people. And it's obvious that for the newspaper of Confindustria, this is unacceptable. Power stations, incinerators, landfills and regasification terminals are the most controversial projects. Numbers are misleading in many ways: they say nothing of the quality of the projects, or the reasons for the criticism, or the history of the territories and movements. Everything is summed up in one figure, which is to filter and interpret "economically". And instead often behind each 'no' there is a 'yes' to different models of energy, more sensible waste management or other forms of mobility, that the current policy and narration of the country given by the media and relegated, when we are lucky, in the notes of colour dedicated to "movements", are difficult to interpret and impossible to legitimise. As if the 'syndrome' speeches lead to uneven, ecologists delusions or illusions of energetic democracy.

To paraphrase the argument, reducing to numbers and slogans the countless movements, violent or less violent, that contest the established powers means ignoring the reasons behind the protests in favour of ethical or political opinions, rushed and incomplete. So those are terrorists, those other murders, here they do not know the history, there they do not respect geography, and nobody will care why people take a weapon and kill other people.

I remember a sentence that I have heard three times in my life, each time with slightly different words but not too different in meaning: "Those people are ignorant, peasants beating their wives and mistreating their children."
The first time was a Russian boy, speaking of Chechen independentists.
The second time was a Turkish girl, speaking of Kurdish nationalists.
The third time was an Indian boy, speaking of Kashmiri separatists.

I suppose that there is wrong done only when it comes to bombs and tanks, but I understand that, almost always, whoever shoots against the established power says "Nimby": Not In My Back Yard! If the established powers would hear the words perhaps no one would need to shoot ...

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Leopardi candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This morning I took a few minutes to chat with a friend from Lithuania. A young girl, intelligent and educated, certainly one of the best people I have met in recent years.

Here is part of our chat:

me – What do you think of the BIPPIblog?
she - I like it
just I am very scared of these things
me - scared?
she - mhm
I don t really know how to help or change something
so that's why it is like closing my eyes
maybe there could be some other way of helping for simple people like me
me - the very important thing u must change, u, me and everybody, is yourself
closing the eyes is not the good way
if every of us would change a little bit, the world would be much better
she - I know but sitting here in a cozy home and saying that I am very upset about those things that happen means the same like closing eyes

I see this attitude a bit everywhere. Young people feel small and unable to intervene in major world issues, which is a lawless and evil jungle; better to deal with things which are closer and more simple: sports, mobiles and Big Brother. Democracy itself, which is activism and participation, becomes an unconscious and bored expression of the vote, with great happiness for famous people who have nothing to say.
Because rebellion is useless, nothing much will change, better to live in peace with themselves and ignore to the pain by closing our eyes, like the young Giacomo Leopardi.
The Leopardi that they teach us in school is a sad and pessimistic poet, students have had enough of him.

Instead Leopardi, the great Leopardi, when 38 years old, shortly before his death and at the height of awareness, hoped for a renewed society in a sense of solidarity, not by abstract moral or religious teachings, but for natural awareness that only resistance against the common natural enemy, evil, can make men really men, and life worth living.
This Leopardi, the great Leopardi, I would dress with the little BIPPI umbrella and put him in the front row to say no to war, abuse, impositions, violence, torture, injustice, xenophobia, forced assimilation of cultural minorities, the destruction of the environment, no to lies, fears generated and fed by the media, induced needs, ignorance of government.
This Leopardi would protest with me against the destructive mega-projects, against military occupations, against any governmental caste, against piloted disruption.
This Leopardi would be a great activist for peace.
I propose Leopardi, posthumously, for the Peace Nobel Prize.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Peruvian Amazon on sale

Vai al sito www.aiutalanatura.it/

I quote part of an article which appeared in Article 21 of January 29, 2008, entitled "Peruvian Amazon on sale". (Read the entire article, in Italian)

Peruvian President Alan Garcia has announced that he wants to sell to timber multinationals 8 million hectares of primary forest in the Amazon. According to Alan García only with privatization the forest can produce "oxygen, timber and work for the benefit of all Peruvians." But to make this announcement he had to go to Madrid, the so-called homeland, where he had the support of the multinational timber companies. This sale would finally exceed the limits established by the laws of the 1970s, which gave lands in concession only and not for sale, and only in small lots so that the state could monitor its use and encourage the traditional usage of the forest resources of the Amazon.

The privatisation draft of Peruvian Amazon regions is meeting strong opposition from the local people, indigenous and peasant communities that consider themselves not only excluded, but even at risk of extinction in a model of industrial exploitation of the forest such as the neoliberal model desired by Alan García. The Peruvian Amazon regions inhabitants traditionally live with an extensive model of forestry which coincides with long periods of rest of the forest. It is the model that has preserved the primary forest until today avoiding the primary forest depletion that characterizes large parts of Brazilian Amazon regions.

In reading the article I am reminded of what I have always regarded as an essential prerequisite to think about before any reasoning: it seems that in any financial or commercial event on a large scale – mega-concessions for exploitation, financial giants, hypermarkets or mega shopping malls, gigantic infrastructures, mega interventions on territory – the only real beneficiaries of all hyper, mega, giga, super enterprises of this kind are the major power groups in which the wealth of a country is concentrated, at the expense of ordinary people, of the needs, well-being and future of ordinary people.

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

An Italy to be proud of.

Watch an example of the fight between evironmentalism and counter-environmentalism.

I was struck by an article of March 13, on La Repubblica.

A small but growing group of countries is competing in an unwritten race to be a "neutral country" in emissions of carbon dioxide. A race against the greenhouse effect that is ideally called "Carbon-neutral World Cup" and that, currently is headed by Costa Rica, Norway, New Zealand and Iceland.
Reaching the "neutrality" of carbon dioxide emissions means balancing emissions of greenhouse gases that are produced by burning fossil fuels, with something that is able to capture them, such as extensive forest.
These days Roberto Dobles, Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy, says that his country has been awarded the 'prize' having achieved the goal of being a "neutral country".

It does not matter whether Costa Rica is the first or not, this is not the news. In reading the article the many detractors of climate change came to mind: industrial lobbies, re-routed or ‘bought’ scientists, ignorant opinion-makers, irresponsible ministers and a lot of ordinary people, even educated, who do not consider this an issue worthy of attention.
I remember that I talked some ago with a middle school teacher, a good person, who said with conviction that man claims the power to change the climate on the planet while these are natural things to which we just have to adapt. This man should work in the small shop at the beginning of the climb of Salvator Rosa, in Naples, and then we could speak again.

I wonder: if only in Italy we put into action that beautiful law that provides a new tree for every new born, if we build better railways (not TAV but the regional ones!) rather than invest in highways to be given to Benetton, if the Park of Vesuvius magically transforms into a real park from the big tip that it is today (Bassolinooo!!!), if we were collecting more in recycling and less in incinerators (Bassolinooo!!!), more wind and less coal, if the middle classes would buy fewer SUV, if we turn off lights when we don't need, if the mentality of the people were less subdued to their immediate and exclusive benefit... Perhaps also Italy would be proud to compete with Costa Rica in the "Carbon-neutral World Cup" instead of despairing for the elimination of mercenary Inter.
Of such a country I would be proud too!

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)

Cheers! Cheers!

Watch the report on Chinese TV

Tibet. Everybody is talking about Tibet, that's why I also want to join them, I want to explain it all, but how can I?

Background: Tibet has been progressively and illegally invaded by the Chinese Maoist troops since 1949. The result of that invasion is a trail of blood and pain that, from a distance of more than fifty years, I have no fear of summarizing in the word 'ethnocide'.

The facts and figures (unfortunately not verifiable) reported by pro-Tibet movements are the following:
- Over a million dead
- 130,000 refugees (especially in India and Nepal)
- 6,000 monasteries destroyed
- Thousands of Tibetans imprisoned for political crimes
- Progressive destruction of traditional environment in favour of wild industrialization
- Massive militarization
- Forced cultural assimilation
View: http://www.comunitatibetana.org/it/uno-sguardo-sul-tibet.pdf (in Italian)

All true, or partly true, that may be, it's all really disgusting and I would smash all the windows of the Chinese shops as well. But ...
... before the Chinese invasion the independent Tibet was a theocratic monarchy (today the latest example, I think, is the Vatican) and was among the poorest and least developed countries of the world, yet anchored to a feudal system of exploitation. The caste of monks lived thanks to the hard working of the population, which was generally illiterate, poor and subject to a difficult life.
Tibet was not, as we believe, a peaceful state nor a pacifist one; it had its own army (although badly equipped in 1949, but still an army) and had a considerable military history, comprising wars, invasions, conquests, defeats, treaties, occupations and so on.
China, like every colonial country, claims the construction in Tibet of infrastructure, hospitals, schools, modern houses, as well as the improvement of the standard life conditions of the average Tibetan and their emancipation from the serfdom.

I personally would prefer to live free in misery rather than subdued in peace. But writing on a computer is easy, then I go to the kitchen to eat tiramisù. I do not know how many Tibetans feel like me. Those that today are risking their lives on the streets of Lhasa, would certainly agree with me.

The Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize winner, spiritual leader of Tibet and head of the Tibetan government in exile, is a great philosopher of nonviolence and, in general, an exceptional person. Reading one of his books is an enlightening experience. Many agree that his high standard of living and his force of propaganda are due to funding of the American CIA.

Epilogue.
I am the kind of athlete, who watches sport on TV, and I would certainly not go to celebrate the 'Olympic spirit' in the politically-oppressed China, the China of the 5,000 death sentences every year, but I would not even go to Morocco, where 2,500 kms of wall were built against the Saharawis, to Russia with its Chechen war, to the United States with their Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, to Burma, Cuba, Vietnam, Sudan, Uzbekistan, even not to France with its legion in Chad and the privatization of water, and perhaps even not to Italy with its Bolzaneto and Savignano Irpino, because, even in our country, human rights are not "roses and flowers".
But to be honest, if I were a professional athlete having only ten years to achieve all that I have worked for, and the Olympics were the opportunity of a lifetime, perhaps I too would go to compete in Beijing and would leave human rights to the politicians, who condemn and get upset but finally forge trade agreements singing from La Traviata: "Libiamo! Libiamo - Cheers! Cheers!"

Bruno Picozzi (in translation)