“I am so convinced that I am right that if you had the power to kill me twice, and twice I could be reborn, I would live again to do exactly what I have done so far”
Bartolomeo Vanzetti – 1927
A few days ago – on November 9th – Carlo Sibilia, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior announced, with alleged regret, that: “From tomorrow November 10, marches will be prohibited, and this applies to all events, not only those no vax.”
Clearly lacking the reasons of public safety or security to appeal to intervene independently, the Mayors cheered in chorus, thanking the Interior Ministry for having removed them from the impasse. After all, believing that peaceful protests cannot be arbitrarily limited by the government sounds like a rather anachronistic concept: in the year of the Lord 2021, why do you persist to safeguarding this so rigid Constitution?
The Interior Ministry put pen to paper that: “Health measures (…) continue to be the subject of frequent protests and disputes that take place throughout the country”. Then, with marked irony, she took care to recall how essential is the protection of “other rights, even guaranteed, such as, in particular, those relating to the performance of work activities” [1].
Suddenly, that small group of possessed, criminals, contagious, fascists and lousy no vax ceases to be invisible. Dissenters must be stemmed. Therefore, they are prevented from demonstrating in city centers, already miserably used as Christmas Outlets (to be saved for the second time).
At the same time, they are kindly allowed to protest in static form: not moving, distanced, masked and possibly silent. Alternatively, they can safely parade outside the city, away from the already rather indifferent eyes of conformists.
As if that were not enough, more recent news reveals the opening of preliminary investigations against some demonstrators for a “non-crime’” – which today we discover to exist in the form of “prevaricating attitudes” – and for which you even be bother to carry out searches of “it is not clear what” [2].
Nevertheless, there are absolutely no forms of despotism … The State protects us and science heals us. Period!
While the MinCulPop [3] spreads its fake news, with which it imposes to charge any sort of systemic crisis to the unvaccinated, the subjects assimilate the narrative. A narrative that, frankly, not even a chronic alcoholic would believe anymore but which, in its absurdity, is dramatically predictable by those who suffer it.
The repressive vehemence increases day by day, nevertheless the resistance – on the square or individual – does not stop: the border line has been drawn with the cry of “no pasaran” and, the more authoritarianism attempts to advance, much less the dissidents will be willing to accept a surrender. Even if not giving up would lead to a painful defeat, as is plausible.
Yet, in this tiring scenario, it is essential to remain vigilant, it is essential to monitor, especially, all those actions that accentuate the clashes, including the recent Dutch agitations…
As usual, it seems that history is repeating itself.
It happened on November 11, 1887: Adolph Fischer, August Spies, George Engel and Albert Parsons, already convicted along with others for the events in Haymarket Square [4], were publicly executed. At the root of that hanging was the revolt of the Chicago workers, who, in May of the previous year, had protested en masse to claim the eight-hour work shift.
The usual frame: unheard protests, rioting masses, violent repression by the police and so growing tension that, on May 4, that bomb exploded in Haymarket Square that killed a police officer.
Here is the pretext for the real repression, here is the green light to hunt the guilty. Moreover, the booty was easy to conquer: Fischer, Spies, Engel and Parsons, together with Luis Lingg, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab and Oscar Neebe, for the sole fact of having addressed the crowd as exponents of the anarchist / trade union / movement who supported the protest, were accused of conspiracy and murder of the policeman.
At the dock did not sit the suspects, but the dissent, the spirit of rebellion and indignation towards despotic institutions but, as is well known, ideological processes always have a lot of luck. Verdict of guilt for all the defendants with the imposition of the death penalty for seven of them, despite the insufficiency of evidence submitted to support the ruling (as the Governor of Illinois will have the opportunity to ascertain a few years later). History will remember the events in Chicago due to the institution of May 1st, Labor Day, but it will easily forget the figures of the seven sentenced to death, including that of George Engel… especially that of George Engel [5], the one who – for one thing – was not even in Haymarket Square at the time of the bombing and, moreover, the one who refused to ask for clemency to the Governor of Illinois, to commute the death penalty inflicted on him. Engel himself wrote, personally, a letter to Governor Oglesby in which he expressed the reasons for his refusal. These are his words:
“I, George Engel, a citizen of the United States of America and Chicago, and sentenced to death, learn that thousands of citizens have addressed a petition to you, as the highest authority of the State of Illinois, asking you to switch my death penalty in prison.
I strongly protest against this for the following reason: I am not aware that I have violated any law of this country. Having a firm faith in the constitution that the founders of this Republic have bequeathed to this people and which has remained unchanged, I have exercised the right to speak, to free press, to free thought and free assembly, as guaranteed by the constitution, and I have criticized the current condition of society by helping my fellow citizens with my advice, and I have done so by considering it the right of every honest citizen. During the 15 years that I have lived in this country I have had experiences with the election and administration of our public officials, which have become totally corrupt, which have led me to eradicate all my beliefs about the existence of Equal rights between rich and poor, moreover, the way of acting of public officials, policemen and military have produced in me the firm conviction that this system cannot last long. In the light of this experience, I taught and advised. I did all this in good faith and according to the rights guaranteed by the constitution and in the knowledge that I have no fault with the power that can kill me but cannot legally punish me. I protest against the commutation of my sentence and therefore ask for freedom or death. I renounce any form of leniency.” [6]
Curiously, it was November 9, 1887.
Now as then, dissidents are sentenced to an unfair death. Today’s Engels are those who no longer accept to submit to authoritarian rules coming from unworthy authorities: they manifest openly to claim their rights and have the face of suspended workers, they have the face of a specialized metalworker who, fed up with having to demonstrate the obvious, he stopped buying – at the cost of a raped septum – a shift in the factory for 48 hours [7]. Even if this led to an economic suicide, his intent to “undermine public and private companies in order to bring the choice back into the hands of the workers” [8] shows, once again, that the real condemned to die are the others: those who fearlessly accept any conditions imposed on them.
[1] Directive of the Ministry of the Interior containing indications on the conduct of protests against the health measures in place, 10 November 2021.
[2] Italian only: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/11/12/no-green-pass-quattro-perquisiti-a-milano-per-le-aggressioni-ai-giornalisti-i-video-dei-carabinieri/6389553/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Popular_Culture
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engel
[6] http://www.chicagohistoryresources.org/hadc/manuscripts/m04/M04P010.htm
[7] In Italy you need a 48-hours negative swamp to enter offices and workplaces.
[8] To Pasquale and other daring ones
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Origina column by Ivana Suerra:
https://comedonchisciotte.org/uccideteli-poiche-non-potete-punirli-legalmente/
Translation by Costantino Ceoldo