The View from Bologna

"Those of us who can't wait". Luca Coscioni dies at the age of 39

Luca Coscioni, at one point in his life, was known as an Economics professor and enthusiastic marathon runner. During the 1990s though, his life changed radically as he was diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (also known variously as Lou Gehrig's disease or Motor Neurone Disease). The disease left him paralysed and unable to speak without the aid of a specialised computer system.

Coscioni became, though, one of the most outspoken advocates of stem-cell research in Italy, campaigning to remove various restrictions on scientific research in Italy and worldwide.

On Monday Coscioni died, at the age of 39.

It's not the intention of this column to suggest whether stem-cell research is right or wrong. It's a complex issue that society as a whole needs to examine. It's an issue, though, that society as a whole needs to examine urgently. In last year's Italian referendum to cancel a number of restrictive measures against assisted procreation, measures that also touched upon stem-cell research, less than 30% of the electorate turned out (urged, in part, by the Catholic Church's hierarchy not to vote - i.e to let the politicians, theologians, and bio-ethicists solve the problem).

A disease like Motor Neurone Disease affects a tiny part of the population. Most of the conditions for which stem-cell research may help find cures affect a relatively small percentage of the population. Is that reason enough to abdicate the responsibility to become fully informed on the debate? Reason enough to leave the decisions in the hands of moral experts?

Luca Coscioni wrote*:

Those of us who can't wait

There was a time for miracles of the faith. There is a time for miracles of science. One day, my doctor may, I hope, say to me: Try to get up, because maybe you can walk.

But, I don't have much time, we don't have much time.

And, between a tear and a laugh, our hard existences certainly don't need the anathema of religious fundamentalists, but rather the silence of freedom. Our existences need a cure, a cure for body and soul. Our existences need freedom for scientific research. But, they can't wait.

They can't wait to hear the apologies of one of the future Popes.

*From www.lucacoscioni.it: C’era un tempo per i miracoli della fede. C’è un tempo per i miracoli della scienza. Un giorno il mio medico potrà, lo spero, dirmi: "Prova ad alzarti, perché forse cammini". Il fatto è che non ho molto tempo, non abbiamo molto tempo. E, tra una lacrima e un sorriso, le nostre dure esistenze non hanno bisogno degli anatemi dei fondamentalisti religiosi, ma del silenzio della libertà. Le nostre esistenze hanno bisogno di libertà per la ricerca scientifica. Ma non possono aspettare. Non possono aspettare le scuse di uno dei prossimi papi".

Painting a Polemic, by Numbers

In events that received scant attention from the English language press, last week protests in Libya against those cartoons resulted in rioting, an attack on an Italian consulate, the death of up to 11 protesters (shot by police). The fallout in Italy led to the resignation of a high-profile minister in Berlusconi's government.

Enough column space has been devoted worldwide at this stage to examining the rights and wrongs of publishing the cartoons. That the cartoons have been used and manipulated by fundamentalists and governments throughout the middle east, for disparate ends, seems a given. What has escaped comment, certainly in Italy, is the political use to which the cartoons issue has been put by our own hardliners.

On the 13th of February, Umberto Eco, arguing for moderation (and good manners) in his regular opinion column (in L'Espresso magazine), commented that "it seems that in Copenhagen some NaziSkins proposed burning the Koran in the town square, but if for some reason the police hadn't stopped them, what sensible Muslim would have confused these demons with European public opinion?". At the same time, the Minister for Reforms, Roberto Calderoli, a member of the xenophobic Lega Nord party started a campaign to defend 'freedom of speech'. This culminated with his appearance on prime time TV on Wednesday 16th, participating in a taped current affairs programme, when he unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his paunchy chest covered in a t-shirt bearing one of the satirical cartoons. An act of solidarity with the Danish people and Government, we were told.

This, it's worth repeating, was not the act of a private citizen, but that of a government Minister and leading figure in one of the main coalition parties. The Lega Nord from the outset have been the most vociferous defenders of the Danish cartoons in Italy, offering free Danish beer and biscuits throughout their political heartland of Northern Italy*, at meetings organised to collect signatures for a petition to block voting rights for immigrants[1].

This crusading zeal, to protect freedom of speech, on the part of the Lega had been inexplicably absent previously, at least when dealing with the numerous cases of political censorship that have occured in the public broadcasting sector - Italy, we should remind our readers, currently ranks #77 (between Bulgaria and Mongolia) in the World Press freedom rankings calculated by Freedom House. The cynical might suggest that the Lega defend freedom of speech, when they like the speech...

On Friday the 17th, in the North Eastern Libyan town of Bengasi, a protest against the cartoons (organised by the local Mosques) diverted from its original route and arrived in front of the local Italian consulate. Reports differ as to how events proceeded from here - what is certain is that one youth attempted to rip down the Italian flag, and that (Libyan) armed police started firing into the crowd killing up to 10 protesters. Rioting ensued and Italian nationals were advised by their ambassador to leave the country for their own safety.

Berlusconi, and his Deputy PM, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and leader of the 'post-fascist' Alleanza Nazionale party, Gianfranco Fini(TIFOF™) immediately called for Calderoli's resignation. By Sunday morning it was received, as practically the entire political establishment, both right and left, denounced Calderoli's stunt as irresponsible.

Were calls for Calderoli's resignation by Berlusconi and Fini a signal that the Lega's extremism had become an electoral liability? Would the party be sidelined? On the contrary, due to some extraordinary political alchemy - however fuzzy its logic - the Lega by yesterday had managed to reassert itself at the centre of the coalition, setting the tone for the electoral campaign. The Lega's federal council, meeting to discuss Calderoli's resignation, and whether it changed the party's relationship with its coalition partners, announced a five point programme that would have to be adopted by the coalition in order to keep the party on-board:
1) The defence of the Christian roots of Europe and opposition to fundamentalism;
2) Fiscal federalism;
3) Financial support for the family - defined explicitly as that based on marriage between a man and a woman;
4) Reinforcements for the fight against illegal immigration, and the inclusion of a system to privilege, within the limits of current legislation, countries that recognise reciprocal human rights, civil, political and religious;
5) An explicit committment to support a yes vote in the upcoming referendum on the reform of the Constitution (The referendum is designed to repeal recent legislation introducing a form of devolution, strongly supported by the Lega itself).

Berlusconi and Fini immediately declared themselves in harmony with the Lega's points. Calderoli, adaptable to every media situation, got in touch with his t-shirt printers getting them to change the design from that of the offensive cartoons to that of a slogan 'Proud to be a Christian'.

Defending Christianity is the call of the day. The Lega, backed by other centre-right parties, have jumped head first into the media to defend their co-religionists in Turkey, in Nigeria, in Indonesia, anywhere in fact where they can find instances of violence against Christians - preferably committed by Muslims. Nigerian Christians living in Italy might raise a wry smile at this, considering the Lega's attitude to Africans in general (Party leader Umberto Bossi famously used the term 'Bingo-Bongo' as a catch all for African immigrants). Christian villagers murdered in Nigeria are important to the centre right, in so far as they give a pretext for discussing defence of Christian values.

It's unclear how the Lega would defend Christian values outside of Italy, and even more unclear as to why one would need to defend these values within Italy. That Christians are under attack in areas of the world is undeniable - that this does not include Italy is also undeniable. Roman Catholics are in a majority in Italy, Roman Catholic doctrine is in many cases legislated for, and the Pope's honour and prestige are protected, by law. How are these Christian values under attack, and by whom? Nowhere in the Lega's five points is any mention made to freedom of speech - presumably because it's not now, nor has it ever been, a principle 'Christian' value.

Were we really talking about freedom of speech, we'd be discussing the complete repeal of blasphemy laws in Italy. Laws which make it an offence to insult religions nominated by the State. Laws which once applied solely to the Catholic Church, but which have now been extended to a list of approved religions including Islam. Laws under which Oriana Fallaci is currently being prosecuted. Calderoli's actions last week are being investigated to see whether a prosecution should be initiated.

An unamed Lega member quoted by the Corriere della Sera was frank about the whole affair: "We'll impose our campaign against Islam. Because it's true, we've lost a Minister, but what does that matter? We're at the end of the legislature and this clash can only win us votes"[2].

Islamic fundamentalists across the middle east have used the publication of the cartoons as a handy cause to consolidate their power base. How different are the Lega?

*The Danish beer and biscuits were, no doubt, consumed with a bitter aftertaste. After all, the Lega has long based its politics on protectionism and anti-European sentiments.
[1] http://www.leganordtrentino.it/comunicati/csvignette.htm
[2] "Lega Vince Anti-Islam" - Corriere Della Sera

Is nothing sacred anymore?

"Even Satire must stay within the limits of civilized and decent behaviour" - Maurizio Gasparri in his capacity as Minister for Communications[1]

"There was nothing to laugh about. It wasn't all satire. In certain moments [...] it appeared like a political manifesto. Without balance. It crossed the line." - Marcello Veneziani, member of the Board of Vigilance for RAI, the Italian State Broadcaster[2].

Italian politicians and pundits have a head start on much of the rest of Europe when debating the pros and cons of satire, in the light of the explosive, and delayed (to the point of choreography), reaction to the publication of satirical cartoons on Mohamed. They have the head start because, certainly in the case of the political class, they've spent years chasing satirists out of the public domain - before, during, and, no doubt, after Berlusconi's reign.

Not surprisingly the same arguments have been rehashed then, simply changing the political to religious.

When Sabina Guzzanti's satirical show RAIOT was broadcast in 2003, future episodes were immediately cancelled by the State Broadcasting authorities causing a short-lived scandal - which provoked the quotes opening this entry. The scandal was short lived because the political class on either side of the left-right divide saw fit to ignore the issue of censorship, instead suggesting that a)the comedy was political, thus not satire (!?), b)if it was satire, it wasn't funny, and therefore shouldn't be broadcast, c)it was a delicate period in which perhaps joking about things wasn't appropriate, and finally c) that above all else, it was all in very poor taste.

Fast forward to last week and Italy's talking heads were scrambling to express the same dusty, and in this Monkey's opinion mistaken, opinions. Some representative quotes outline the general position taken:

Centre-left leader Romano Prodi:
"I found the cartoons in extremely poor taste. In a sensitive period like this for the peaceful co-existence between people and religions an episode like this should be avoided...[satire, though,] can never be regulated by law"[3]

Minister for the Interior, Giuseppe Pisanu:
"I think that the symbols of all religions should be respected and should not be the target of sarcasm, satire, or mockery."[4]

Vice President of the European Commission, Franco Frattini:
"We can't say that we're free to write anything we want. Freedom of the press doesn't mean drawing anything that comes into your head. We have to think that the audience might have a completely different sensibility to our own".[5]

And, finally, obviously given that we're in Italy, a viewpoint from the Catholic Church - in the person of Francesco M. Valiante, writer for the Osservatore Romano:

"Obviously the legitimacy of criticism isn't under discussion here, nor that of the polemic, of dissent expressed even in radical forms. No Church or confession can expect privileges and immunity. But there can, and indeed must, exist a respect when at stake is the truth and dignity of an experience like the religious that forms part of the most intimate and profound dimensions of the human being."[6]

So there you have it. From the voices of the powerful, the guidelines on what satire should and shouldn't be. Nobody talks about censorship - God forbid - but there is no doubt that, from their perspective, the cartoons published in Denmark can only be a bad thing.

This is as it should be. Satire approved by institutional heads is unlikely to actually qualify for the title. A respectful form of wit that takes into account whether it will cause offence to its audience may indeed be appropriate for newspapers in these troubled times, but don't let anyone suggest to you that it is satire.

Jonathan Swift was accused of bad taste when he wrote A Modest Proposal, an ingenious proposal for breaking the cycle of Irish poverty by having the poor sell their children to the rich, to be eaten... A Modest Proposal is rightly held up as a shining example of satire done well. Respect and balance don't come into it.

No-one is suggesting that the Danish cartoons are of a Swiftian quality, but this monkey would bet hard-earned cash that the voices that have been raised in recent days defending the freedom of speech and insisting on 'good taste' would have shaken their heads admonishingly towards the Irish Archbishop's satire.

And what of the suggestion that religious symbols should be exempted from satire? Let's take a widely accepted definition of satire, that it is "a literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change". Religious symbols are a handy shorthand for ideologies that order and control believers (and those unlucky enough to live in theocracies). As such, should they be exempt from satire?

An example: The Virgin Mary is one of the most potent and precious symbols of the Roman Catholic Church. As a symbol the Virgin Mary presents a rigid and ideological example for motherhood and sexuality. In Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy the Church has a definite view on sexuality and reproductive biology that bishops and catholic activists would like to turn into legislation rather than religious belief*. In this context, is the Virgin Mary above satire? Should one be allowed to joke about the notion of the Virgin Birth? Or should a powerful symbol of femininity that is anything but natural be above jokes, and equally criticism?

Many years ago, this Monkey invited a Muslim friend into his home, where, unfortunately, prominently (it's a big book) displayed was a copy of The Satanic Verses. A chill wind blew, as my friend tried to explain the insult of this book - "Writing this book, it's as if someone has raped my mother," he said. He hadn't read the book, because that in itself would be a grave sin. And so the cycle continues. A pre-programmed reaction, I hope, by a tradition that had taught him that religious symbols should be as dear to him as his mother (and her chastity). And before you can utter either 'islamophobia' or 'clash of civilisations', you would do well to recognise that the same prescriptions exist with virtually all religions, with many States still retaining blasphemy laws. While not minimising the fact that it is only in some 'Islamic' states, such as Pakistan, that the death penalty officially exists for blasphemy, it should be remembered that at least one BBC executive received a death threat after Christian groups objected to Jerry Springer, the Opera (which had a seemingly blasphemous portrayal of Jesus); that a New York theatre received bomb warnings and death threats when it put on Terence McNally's play Corpus Cristi (depicting a queer Christ); that Greece in 2005 sentenced, in absentia, writer Gerhard Haderer for his Life of Jesus, for 'blasphemy' and 'insulting religion'(he depicted Jesus as a stoned surfer).

Less respect for symbols, more for actual people, this naive Monkey would suggest, before the 'theocratical society for standards in satire' (inter-faith branch) drag him off for a flogging (don't be silly, the Church, since it lost the Papal States, of which Bologna was a part, no longer enforces public flogging for blasphemy). Then again, as Swift said, "satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own"...

*The examples are numerous - from legislation that made condoms illegal in Ireland, through to the Italian Bishops' Conference's recent pronouncements on assisted procreation in Italy.
[1] "Anche la satira deve rimanere entro i limiti della civile correttezza" - Maurizio Gasparri in his capacity as Minister for Communication, November 2003
[2] "Non c'era nulla da ridere. Non tutto era satira. In certi momenti Raiot appariva come un manifesto politico. Senza contraddittorio. Si è passato il segno". Marcello Veneziani - RAI NEWS November 2003
[3] "Ho trovato le vignette estremamente di cattivo gusto''. Il leader dell'Unione ha quindi sottolineato che ''in un periodo così sensibile per la convivenza tra popoli e religioni un episodio del genere poteva essere evitato''. Quanto alla satira, ha affermato che ''non la potremo mai regolare per legge" - Romano Prodi
[4] "Penso che i simboli religiosi, di qualunque religione si parli, devono essere rispettati e non possono essere oggetto di sarcasmo, satira o dileggio". Pisanu - La Repubblica 4/02/2006
[5]"Quindi non possiamo dire di essere liberi di scrivere quello che vogliamo. Liberta' di stampa non vuol dire disegnare tutto cio' che ci viene in mente. Dobbiamo pensare che il nostro interlocutore puo' avere una sensibilita' diversa dalla nostra" - Franco Frattini, ANSA, 4/02/2006
[6] "Qui non è in discussione, com'è ovvio, la legittimità della critica, della polemica argomentata, del dissenso espresso anche in forme radicali. Nessuna Chiesa o confessione può pretendere privilegi e immunità. Ma può, e anzi, deve esigere rispetto quando sono in gioco la verità e la dignità di un'esperienza come quella religiosa, che appartiene alla dimensione più intima e fondante della persona umana." - Francesco M. Valiante, Osservatore Romano 3/02/2006