It would be wonderful to imagine an Italy where earthquakes are not experienced as if they were happening for the first time, an Italy that’s made better, constructed better, able to withstand seismic shocks. Instead we appear to relive the same tragedy each and every time. The anniversary of the earthquake in Irpinia has just passed and once again we seem to see the same things, hear about the same tragedies, feel the same despair, witness the same kickbacks and the same flaws and omissions. Some time ago I happened to read these words by the poet Franco Arminio of Campania, dedicated to victims of the earthquake in Irpinia, and I felt like I was revisiting what had happened in L’Aquila:

Conza della Campania, October 8, 2000

There are days when many people die. They are the days of great disasters. November 23, 1980 was such a day in this area.

Today is Sunday, in the cemetery of Conza it is eleven o’clock in the morning. Those who died in the earthquake are almost all in the same rows, a small cemetery within the cemetery. Faces of men and women of all ages. Faces and lives that I never knew. Now, for every person I see, I want to know what he said, what he did. From the photos adorning the headstones you can sometimes tell that they are individuals belonging to the same family. Here is Luisa Masini, nine years old, with a cat in her arms. Below her is Valeria Masini, twelve years old, then Maria, forty-three, their mother. Our thoughts fly immediately to the father: who knows where in the world he is, dragging along with his sorrow. Further on there’s another family: Gino Ciccone, forty-nine, then Michele, age ten, and Alberto, twenty-one. Those who are here certainly all knew one another.

6.

The Mudslinging Machine

For some time now I’ve had a kind of obsession, an obsession that has to do with the mudslinging machine, a mechanism by which any individual may be smeared. And I have this obsession because I was born in a country in which anyone who has decided to thwart organized crime has always been subjected to this type of utter delegitimization. Even those who are killed, those who died opposing the Mafia, are vilified. So I’m sensitive to it: it’s like I have an exposed nerve when it comes to this mechanism.

I feel that democracy is literally in danger. It may seem exaggerated, but it isn’t. Democracy is in danger when what awaits you the moment you go up against certain powers, or take a stand against the government, is an attack from a machine that slings mud at you: an attack that starts with your private life, with minuscule facts about your private life which are used against you.