Polvere da sparo

Dear sisters and brothers in Zuccotti Park;
it is with deep dismay that we learn of today’s appearance on your stage of Roberto Saviano, best selling author of Silvio Berlusconi’s editorial group Mondadori. We are ashamed of having such an impostor to be the first Italian to represent us in this day. And yet we are not surprised, because misinformation – or hijacking truths – is the first weapon of oppression we have to fight against. That misinformation about Saviano still tricking so many well-meaning Italians thanks to a mediatic empire, Berlusconi’s owning pretty much all mainstream information channels, from tv to right and left wing
press, is now apparently trying to sneak onto your stage. We expect it to be for need of self-advertisement on behalf of Saviano; we cannot understand what this man might have in common with the fight against that 1% he himself is part of. It’s years we fight against a corrupted government and its speculators, an organized crime stronger than ever, a piloted media, a growing oppression of freedoms; and in this struggle, we always found Saviano to be on the other side of the barricade, stressing our differences, judging us from his columns on
repubblica while enjoying the millions he made out of a book far less courageous than hundreds of others – but backed by Berlusconi’s editorial group, and therefore sold in all his supermarkets.

Freedom of speech is paramount, and never we would ask to prevent anyone from saying anything, let alone from stepping in Zuccotti park. Censorship is a weapon of those powers we are all trying to fight, no doubt. But still, we ask you all to listen to his words today with
double care. Don’t let the usual Saviano circus deceive you. Don’t let his mask trick you.
 
When today he will jump on your stage, beware of his words about oppression. For these are the words of a self-declared supporter of neo-fascism (april 2010), who always distanced himself by the culture of the Left praising the deeds of Almirante – frontman of a neo-fascist party which did not hesitate to arm its own ranks, in the 70ies, in order to shoot and beat those 99% who would go down in the streets during protests. And when we would go down in the streets these years to fight against the government, austerity, and corruption, finding ourselves beated and tear-gassed by the police; it would be Saviano who would lead the trashing campaign against us, defending law and order to the point of calling us criminals. Ourculture, he said, (especially after the anti-government riots of December 2010. You can check http://www.repubblica.it), does not belong to him. Well, his culture does not belong to us. For we fight againstoppression, we struggle to feed our families and keep our job, we fight against organized crime, we fight against that 1% he represents.
When today’s he will advertise his editorial empire on your stage, beware of his words about crime. Because crime does not just come from thievery and corruption. Crime comes also from murder. Always on the side of the most powerful, Saviano has been defending more than once the work of the Israeli aviation against Gaza after Operation Cast Lead, which killed 1400 palestinians, mostly civilians, 314 of them children, to avenge the death of 9 Israeli soldiers (another 4 Israeli casualties came from friendly fire). Saviano called this disproportion
“democracy”, tagging palestinians in the Occupied Territories as “terrorists”. This, at a time when Israeli intellectuals are the first ones to raise the alarm of racism and authoritarianism in their country. But there are no midways in Saviano’s system of thought, no questions. Your movement bears the support of Chomsky and Zizek – we do not deserve to be represented by Saviano.
When today he will advertise his editorial empire on your stage, beware of his words on Power. For that Roberto Saviano is part of that 1% of bankers and financial hawks who keep deciding of us 99%. One week ago his editorial protector, Silvio Berlusconi, stepped down under the pressure of yet another financial crisis. Our country has then been handled to a lobby of bankers, CEOs, and a list of doubtable people who have already been tried for corruption and fraud, and questioned for conflicts of interests of all sorts. The main Italian banking groups will now directly rule our country through this cabinet. We are now a de-facto protectorate of our banks. In all this, Saviano was quick to decide which side he’s take: he’s a regular guest at the house of Corrado Passera, CEO of Intesa banking group, and now promoted to the post of minister of development (development of his
own business, we can suppose).
When today he will advertise his editorial empire on stage, beware of his words on freedom of speech. Because that is the same Roberto Saviano who tried to secure the exclusive copyright of being the only hero who fights organized crime. At the cost of turning his lawyers against no-profit local grassroot organizations like the Peppino Impastato center in Sicily (October 2010); a local reality, the Center, exposed day-to-day to the real threat of a murderous criminality which spared millionaire stars like Saviano and his bodyguards, but does not hesitate to target activists and journalists who live and fight daily on the frontline. Saviano was not the first one to speak against organized crime and we know for a fact (since investigations completed in 2009) that his death threats were mediatic fabrications Thousands struggle against organized crime each day, without bodyguards – Saviano can afford them, they can’t – and tv
appearances. They write and enquire and speak as loud as they can,
they walk out of their house every day, they fear for their children at school, they pay out of their own thin savings all those trials for defamation moved against them by Camorra leaders, mafia politicians, or people like Saviano. You never heard of them, cause they are not
part of that 1% which chose to sell and promote him instead – an author ready to all sorts of compromises and columns against his own people for the sake of keeping his wealth and fame.

Because this is what organized crime does to our life, in the land of what Saviano calls Gomorra, or further down where ‘Ndrangheta and Mafia rule, or up north, where politics and financial speculators strike deals. It buys people like Roberto, and uses them to shut us.
It tells us that either you’re part of that 1%, like Saviano, and ready to defend your privileges; or else, breaking your silence will not make you rich – it will make you unemployed, broke, or dead.
Had your movement been in Italy, he would have called you “hoolingas of chaos”, as he did with us when we were teargassed by the police. To him, here, we do not even have the right to look into facts, to raise the question of state violence, to occupy or disobey.
When he will jump on your stage selling himself as an occupier like you,
think about it.

The 99% of Italy