Essayists From Italy

"The same truth we trust to finally prevail is the same truth [Freedom of Religion or Belief] is made of. Religions and spiritual ways are not all the same. What is the same is the honest spirit that animates all believers in different religions. What is really true of all religions, including religions that a believer in another religion may regard as false, is the afflatus for truth that motivates them. No matter how different beliefs and believers may be, no matter how many conflicts they may have between each other, that single element, a thirst and hunger for truth, makes them similar, make their devotees sisters and brothers, make them human and unique."

"Peace is the most desirable of all human conditions. It is a promise of Paradise. When all human worries and griefs will be over, we will participate in the fullness of being with no unrest, anxiety, or disturbance. For believers, this is our ultimate goal. It is also part of our nature. Peace is our fate because peace is our origin. Our human nature is made out of peace, and peace is what we are made for. All troubles are in fact caused by the disruption of our original condition, which is both our origin and our destiny. Peace is then quite a serious thing—something that may be cast in doubt today, if we consider how this precious word is too often misused. Peace is the opposite of war, in a broader sense, but it is not just the absence of war. ...Only deeply peaceful men and women can build a truly pacific society, one that would be able to resist and last."

"A disordered society—to use Kirk’s language—is both a mass and a mess of disordered souls. A band of disordered souls can hardly give birth to a justly regulated community. Order, both in the individual soul and in society, is the science of what comes first and what comes next in sight of decent behavior in all occasions. Order promotes a viable fellowship among human beings, a meaningful social existence, even a personal saintly life. It is a matter of priorities and hierarchy, of choices and waivers. Only an ordered community of ordered souls can feel the moral call to share one’s neighbor’s burdens."

"Education is not the idea of adding to persons something they do not possess. It is not writing anew on an empty blackboard. It is regaining the consciousness of something that was lost by recalling it to memory. Even better: it is finding what is valuable but is deeply buried within us, and bring it to the surface. ...Paideia is in sum an ideal of civilization, independent from how many material things one knows or is able to do. The civilization of the educated is in fact not a society of Einsteins who all know everything. It is a community of free people, whose freedom consists in the ability of reconnecting with their lost selves."

"…it is logically absurd to want to defend the environment by making humans suffer for this. In fact, the environment is for humans. As there can be no humans if the natural environment is inhospitable to life, an environment with no humans is not what all of us are interested in. …To function properly, [the society] needs to cherish the unalienable reality of its members. If someone considers a fellow human being or a group of humans or the whole of humanity as an enemy, a virus or a disease to be extirpated, societies become terrestrial hells. …From Tai Ji Men’s teachings one can in fact easily draw the idea that there can be no real care for the environment if there is no conscientious care for humans."

"When words, ideas and concepts lose universal meanings, and all becomes subjective perception, the chaos of conflicting interpretations, where the only absolute is that everything is relative, rips humanity apart—until Humpty-Dumpty-like masters find enough power to rise above others, imposing their vision to a world that will easily eat out of their hands, since it shares the same relativistic premises. ...No one can truly respect fellow human beings as brothers and sisters unless their inviolable dignity is fully recognized."

"Those who merely tolerate fail to acknowledge the full dignity and humanity of others, including enemies. Tolerance is in fact the concession of something that some who consider themselves superiors grant to some they consider inferiors, out of their graciousness or, worse, their haughtiness. When simply tolerated, people do not have an inherent right to exist because they are human beings: they enjoy existence only because someone else recognizes and permits it."

"French philosopher Paul Ricœur (1913–2005), in his book “De l’interprétation. Essai sur Sigmund Freud,” published in 1965, coined the expression “school of suspicion” to describe the collective cultural aim of such famous authors as Karl Marx (1818–1883), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). While proclaiming very different and even opposite philosophies, in Ricœur’s view the ultimate attempt of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche was to teach that reality itself cannot be trusted and fundamentally lies, and that all existing authorities are false. As “masters” (or teachers) “of suspicion,” their credo was not the legitimate critique of existing authorities for their mistakes and misdeeds, but the basic delegitimization of the very concept of authority in itself."

"Yes, we all know that curiosity killed the cat, but indifference kills people, both physically and metaphorically, every single day, when it surrenders to despots, aggressors, and villains."

"Freedom is immaterial and universal, and for this reason untouchable and undeniable. While liberties can be denied and curtailed, freedom cannot. While suffering for the loss of their liberties for more than a quarter of a century, Tai Ji Men dizi could always enjoy their freedom. Freedom lives in their souls and spirits and is not affected by external harassment."

"While violence is always something negative, force is the capacity and power to make the objects of will possible. It has a fundamental moral side in the cognate term “fortitude,” which is one of the four cardinal virtues, or the hinge excellencies that are required for a virtuous life."

"…all human beings are guardians of other fellow humans. Being the keeper of somebody else does not in fact mean stripping others of their liberty and right to self-determination. It means to be always there, if and when needed—spiritually and, when possible, also materially."

"In 2010, Kilgour and Matas were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, who works more for peace than the one who debunks lies, defends the innocents, and saves lives? Of course, Kilgour and Matas were never awarded the prize, but this tells us more about the world we live in than about the two [civil] rights defenders."

"Shifu and Shimu are the spiritual parents of the dizi, and the Tai Ji Men community would not have existed with only one of them."

"…Senator Hatch taught us that an abusive tax system is particularly dangerous for freedom of religion or belief. Religious and spiritual movements are vulnerable, and ideologically motivated bureaucrats can do much damage to them. Tax reform and the defense of freedom of religion or belief are inseparable."

"Religious freedom does not mean that all religions are the same: it means that truth matters, and this is what religion and the sense of the sacred are all about. Every man and woman has the right to know the truth, but only full freedom allows them to progress in that direction."

"Taxation imposed in an exaggerate, unjust, or unlawful way violates citizens’ fundamental rights to liberty and private property, and amounts to persecution, which is another name for violence."

"[Civil] rights and democracy cannot be protected when independent media are routinely intimidated."

"…laws should always embody justice, otherwise justice becomes what laws arbitrarily decide it to be. And, as the Tai Ji Men case shows all too well after 29 years, and in this special year 2025, laws can sometimes be unjust."

"If an arrogant bureaucrat is regarded as a servant of the public good only because he robs aboard of a larger ship than common thieves do, what is really social justice?"

"Before discussing specific situations and conflicts it is essential to acknowledge that problems can be solved only after the primacy of conscience has been recognized."

"We cannot speak of [civil] rights without centering our attention on [the moral compass of] conscience, one among a few distinctive features that make humans human‒and humane."

"Di queste case non è rimasto che qualche brandello di muro Di tanti che mi corrispondevano non è rimasto neppure tanto Ma nel cuore nessuna croce manca È il mio cuore il paese più straziato."

"Il vero amore è come una finestra illuminata in una notte buia. Il vero amore è una quiete accesa."

"Chiuso fra cose mortali (Anche il cielo stellato finirà) Perché bramo Dio?"

"Siamo angeli con un'ala soltanto e possiamo volare solo restando abbracciati."

"A fully-serviced tower block that is empty for most of the year, whilst most Londoners can barely find an affordable place to rent in London. Houses in London are not being used as homes, but as concrete safes, looking after (often laundered) money."

"Have you ever asked yourselves why Mafias from all over the world are constantly opening restaurants, cafes or shops? Because this type of commercial activity has huge amounts of cash coming in. A Mafioso businessman’s number one priority is not to make money, but to hand out receipts in order to justify money that he already has. In Italy, where tax avoidance is extremely high, we know that when a shopkeeper is reluctant to give you a receipt he or she is almost definitely committing an offence, but almost definitely not a Mafioso. Businesses run by the Mafia will always give you a receipt. And the , in the years of the wavering ruble, safely stored away its money in London’s luxury homes, fuelling London’s property bubble with dirty money. The fictitious buying and selling of property is one of organised crime’s favourite ways of laundering money. ... This is how entire neighbourhoods in London are becoming unoccupied, turning into investments’ empty spaces. Money moves in, and people move out."

"But the problem is that the boundaries of tax havens themselves can become very blurred. London is an international financial system that sees trillions of dollars from all over the world go through it each year, and that offers the most sought after financial services. This alone would be enough to make this city a desired anchorage for those looking to launder and reinvest unlawful funds. But there is more; besides this, the British capital is at the heart of the world’s most important offshore system."

"The only company to have made a profit is the one in the , but because it’s in a tax haven, it doesn’t pay tax. This is how a company is able to generate revenue without having to pay tax anywhere. In tax havens, boundaries between what’s legal and illegal become very blurred. The recent leak on the Panama Papers revealed how international leaders, celebrities and businessmen from all over the world were using offshore companies to avoid making their assets public and, in some cases, potentially to dodge tax or hide illegal activities. Panama is where criminal capitalism and legal capitalism become one. ... Today in the heart of Panama you can still find the money of Mexican Narcos and major European businessmen. Different origin, same advantages."

"The , together with Wall Street, is the world’s biggest “launderette” of drug trafficking’s dirty money. It’s in , or in British branches or foreign banks, that criminal money gets laundered. And banks, in turn, are profiting by moving around and investing these huge amounts of liquid assets. Liquidity is what they’re after, especially in times of crisis. And liquidity is what criminal organisations have. All banks need to do is to lower their monitoring standards, their anti-laundering standards, and the job is done. The scandals concerning the relationship between banks and drug trafficking that emerged in the past few years are a proof of this. The case is an example. Europe’s first credit institute in terms of market capitalisation, one of the biggest banking groups in the world, has laundered drug money. ... Most of the world’s money laundering would not exist without the support of banks, who, in order to hide their account holders’ and investors’ identity, exploit the scheme: shell companies controlled by in turn by other shall companies based offshore, run by legal firms through trusts, in an infinite series of steps that make it impossible to track down the true account holder."

"Unlawful revenue which, after being conveniently cleaned, is then reinvested within the legal economy: polluting it, corrupting it, forging it, killing it. Whether it’s reinvested in the London property market, in Parisian restaurants, or in hostels on the . Drug trafficking money will buy homes that honest folk can no longer afford; it will open shops that will sell at more competitive prices than legitimate shops; it will start businesses that can afford to be more competitive than clean businesses. But one thing must be clear: these businesses are not interested in being successful; the main purpose for which they were created was to , turning money that shouldn’t even exist into clean and usable money. In silence, illegal assets are moving around and undermining our economy and our democracies. In silence. But it doesn’t stop here; organised crime is providing us with a winning economic model. Organised crime is the only segment of global economy to have not been affected by the ; to have profited from the crisis, to have fed on the crisis, to have contributed to the crisis. And it’s in the crisis that it finds its satellite activities, such as usury, gambling, counterfeiting. But the most important – and most alarming – aspect of this issue is that it’s exactly in times of crisis that criminal organisations find their safe haven in banks."

"If we were to ask which country is the most corrupt in the world, the first answer to come to mind would be dictated by the perceived level of corruption. Perhaps one might think of Mexico, of South American countries, of African countries, of the Middle East or Italy. But the most corrupt is the UK. It’s not a type of a corruption that concerns civil servants, policemen or mayors; it’s a type of a corruption that is consubstantial to economic system. The British economic system feeds itself on corruption. And in the midst of this, the and its citizens have not woken up to the plight that their country is going through. A plight greater than earthquakes, greater than terror attacks."

"A very interesting report on the London property market as a refuge for secret assets and dirty money – published in March 2015 by Transparency UK – spoke of money coming from corruption or corrupt individuals, without ever mentioning the word “”; nor did it ever mention “organised crime”. The reason is simple: with the exception of a few very rare cases, in the UK the mafia is not something that you can see or hear. There aren’t dead bodies on the streets, or shootings. In Mexico or in Italy, between corpses, blood and drug seizures it’s impossible to think that the Mafia doesn’t exist. In Italy and in Mexico Mafia is loud and it smells of blood. In London, as in Paris, it exists, but it’s quiet, it acts in the dark. And most of all it doesn’t have the pungent smell of blood, but the reassuring smell of money. It’s not true that money doesn’t smell, it does smell indeed, but you definitely can’t rely on your sense of smell to identify criminal money."

"The mafia itself does not bring anything to mind. Like the homeland, the dead of Solferino. Ancient things. [...] Sciascia was a civil writer, a schoolteacher who wanted to teach us good social manners. But revisiting him today is like rereading Silvio Pellico. His function has been exhausted. We no longer need Sciascia. We need a new reflection, another Sicilian consciousness."

"Non c'è niente nella sua pittura che la Sicilia non possa spiegare."

"They do not speak of boundless skies, of passing loves like silver clouds. They speak of cheerless towns, unwound: on hazy moors of muffled music."

"If you talk to the shadows, at least you know them well and the words, all of them, unfold themselves with ease on muddled walls and streets, when dusk comes on."

"Mattei pushed hard for a line of detachment, of critical participation in NATO and even of getting out of NATO and into a neutralist position. Mattei therefore not only annoyed the United States with his oil deals in the Middle East, which broke up the balance of the international oil cartel, and broke up the price equilibrium, but it was Mattei who pushed even harder for Italy's entire policy to take its distance from the United States and to open up toward the Third World countries, which were traveling in a certain way along a road similar to the painful and laborious road which Italy had had to travel. Mattei was very sensitive to these problems, because he had been a witness to this difficult road of Italy's and had had great difficulties at the beginning of his career. So he knew what it meant for a country to free itself from the colonial yoke and find its own way, its own balance, and a way of arranging its own economy which would not be an economy of pure exploitation by the great powers (p. 23)."

"Only the American controlled sovereignty of IMF and World Bank are allowed, along with the strong national sovereignty of the US. Little and medium countries have been encouraged to divide themselves - occurred in former Yugoslavia, in Czechoslovakia, and was attempted in Northern Italy - or to dismiss their personality in favour of supranational organizations - in fact directed by the US (p. 141)."

"Keynes’s design was in favour of the liberalization of the economy and the capital’s transfers, for the main purpose of monetary stability. To avoid devaluation of currencies - a practice followed by governments in order to sustain their export - Lord Keynes planned to introduce “Bancor”, a money of account to be accepted by all countries in international exchanges. The international body to be organized would get interests both from debtor and creditor countries, in order to finance the balance of payments system (p. 130)."

"The intention of the US found its feature through a clear formulation in the Agreement for the IBRD. The “purposes of the Bank” were defined as follows: “To promote private foreign investment by means of guarantees or participations in loans and other investments made by private investors; and when private capital is not available on reasonable terms, to supplement private investments by providing, on suitable conditions, finance for productive purposes out of its own capital, funds raised by it and its other resources” (p. 130)."

"The inspiring theory for Bretton Woods was suggested by a well known economist, beyond any suspect, John M. Keynes. Lord Keynes - as in the meanwhile he has been appointed by the English Crown - appeared worried about possible troubles in the international system of payments, like those occurred after World War One, which contributed to the new conflict. He has published an article on this subject in 1946. Consequently he gave the blessing of his authority to the agreements. Lord Keynes, as chief of the British delegation, was appointed chairman of the Commission II, charged for the institution of an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - IBRD (World Bank). The Bretton Woods agreements represented a sort of solemn will for Lord Keynes, since he died out two years later the signature (p. 129)."

"After two years of exploratory discussions, and a conference (1st - 22nd July), the Bretton Woods agreements were initially signed by 44 states; the others followed in the course of time. A co-author of the project was the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Winston Churchill. Since the Atlantic Charter, issued by Roosevelt and Churchill (August 14, 1941), UK shared the US commitment for the postwar dominance, a multilateral payment system, and an international cooperation. The US was then the world biggest creditor country (p. 129)."

"The prevailing trend – from the Atlantic sea to the Ural mountains – seems to move towards a paramount blow up of nationalities. Such a trend – alive in the souls also under the centralized structures of strong multinational states – has been to weaken the Eastern socialistic countries. It appeared in the former Soviet Union, in the Yugoslav republics, and in Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Eastern regimes (p. 11)."

"The area spreading out from Scandinavia and England towards Maghreb and the Nile, from Ireland and Portugal towards Estonia and Iraq, makes up - even with certain internal peculiarities and divisione - the most unitarian system. I mean from the point of view of its breadth, its rich exchanhes, its sophisticated cultures and religions, its advanced social systems, its cohabitation of so many races and cistoms (p.19)."

"Going through the history of economic, cultural and human exchanges in the most cultivated, tumultuous, lively, and cosmopolitan part of the world-Western Europe being its centre-we discover a wide unted universe (p. 19)."

"It is in 1958 that the discussion becomes, I believe, more complex and starts to get really dangerous. This is the time when Mattei begins, in addition to the attack on U.S. oil interests, an attack on traditional Italian foreign policy. He opens up a foreign policy of greater detachment from NATO, greater opening toward the Third World, and potential neu¬tralism. This was the framework of the neo-Atlanticism in which Mattei, Fanfani, and Gronchi were involved, and oddly, also Christian Democratic right-wingers, for their own reasons, namely Guido Gonella and Giuseppe Pella (p. 25)."

"The balance had been upset and the reactions from the American press and intelligence services were enraged. In a secret American report recently found in the archives, we read that Mattei's power must be contained at all costs and his possibilities for influencing the government must be reduced. Mattei is not only a force in industry, oil, and politics by now, but he also has a hold on information, because in 1957, through ENI, he took control of II Giorno, a Milanese daily, which at that time was much more important than it is today. It provided very lively coverage, had the best and brightest writers, it was present in every country in the world, and most of all, it had a policy of true support for the countries which were trying to free themselves from the colonial yoke, a policy of open support toward Algeria, for example, which was at the time a French colony. France was losing this colony, but there was a war, a savage repression from the French to hold onto their colony. Mattei sent Italo Pietra to Algeria, who later became the editor-in-chief of Il Giorno. He was the first, unofficial representative of Mattei who negotiated not with the French, but with the Algerians, the National Liberation Front (p. 25)."

"Mattei was convinced that Italy, a poor and defeated country, nonetheless possessed notable energy deposits of petroleum in its subsoil, and he was also aware that the oil business, even if there were not really resources inside the country, was an important business which one could not stay out of and in which one could not be at the mercy of the big guys. So Mattei's program was to try to use all available means to exploit the country's energy resources, and if this were not possible, to seek international accords with coun¬tries which had these energy resources, so that they could be used by Italy in order to become a partner of the major pow¬ers, and not be at their mercy (p. 23)."