People From Genoa

"Country is not a mere zone of territory. The true country is the Idea to which it gives birth; it is the Thought of love, the sense of communion which unites in one all the sons of that territory."

"So long as a single one amongst your brothers has no vote to represent him in the development of the national life, so long as a single man, able and willing to work, languishes in poverty through want of work to do, you have no country in the sense in which country ought to exist-the country of all and for all."

"So long as you are ready to die for Humanity, the life of your country is immortal."

"The new claim on the part of the toiling multitude, the new sense of responsibility on the part of the well-to-do, arise in reality from the same source. They are in fact the same “social compunction,” and, in spite of their widely varying manifestations, logically converge into the same movement. Mazzini once preached, “the consent of men and your own conscience are two wings given you whereby you may rise to God.” It is so easy for the good and powerful to think that they can rise by following the dictates of conscience by pursuing their own ideals, leaving those ideals unconnected with the consent of their fellowmen."

"I encountered the influence of Mazzini, which was a source of great comfort to me...To me personally the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Mazzini's birth was a matter of great interest. Throughout the world that day Italians who believed in a United Italy came together. They recalled the hopes of this man who, with all his devotion to his country, was still more devoted to humanity and who dedicated to the workingmen of Italy, an appeal so philosophical, so filled with a yearning for righteousness, that it transcended all national boundaries and became a bugle call for "The Duties of Man.""

"Mazzini despised the compromises of the "whigs" and would have no truck with the diplomacy of a Cavour. Yet he came to admit that the programme of insurrections upon which he built his faith implied the sacrifice of a generation. Disdaining immediate objects, reaching far into the future—working for all or nothing—he pointed to the reward that would be enjoyed not by his contemporaries, not by their children perhaps, but at least (let us say) by their grandchildren. Unfortunately, at this very point—in the passage from one generation to another—history seems in a particular way to intervene and to deflect the results of human endeavour; so that we may doubt whether this attempt to overreach Time itself is the proper kind of far-sightedness to have in politics. Apart from new factors that may change the course of the story, there is a process which may give efficacy to the ideas of a Mazzini precisely in so far as these ideas can be made to serve the cause of power; and it is not entirely irrelevant that though Mazzini was no Fascist he did attack the individualism of 1789, and he taught young men to sink themselves—to intoxicate themselves—in the Organic People. One of the things that may happen therefore in the transition to a new generation is the possibility that Mazzini's whole doctrine—and his glorification of nationality—when mixed with a little earth and entangled in a world of tricks and chances, will form but the raw material for the next Mussolini that may arise."

"I have the duty before the conscience of my country and to defend the vitality of my people to speak as an Italian, but I feel the responsibility and the right to speak also as an anti-fascist democrat, as a representative of the new Republic that, harmonising in itself the humanitarian aspirations of Giuseppe Mazzini ([an Italian 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason]), the universalist conceptions of Christianity and the internationalist hopes of the workers, is all directed towards that lasting and reconstructive peace that you seek and towards that cooperation between peoples that you have the task of establishing."

"I doubt whether any man of his generation exercised so profound an influence on the destinies of Europe as did Mazzini. The map of Europe as we see it to-day is the map of Joseph Mazzini. He was the prophet of free nationality, but free nationality based on right, based above all on duty—the rights and duties of individuals, the rights and duties of races, the rights and duties and ideals of humanity."

"The liberation movements of the last eighty years, not merely in Italy, but throughout Europe, were inspired by his fervent teaching. It was the thrill which came from his words that gave nerve and power and courage and daring to the men who were struggling for the emancipation of the oppressed nationalities of Europe. He said in one of his books, "We are on the threshold of a great age, the age of the peoples." His doctrines, his ideals, his example, fired the hearts that led the peoples across the threshold into the new age. Italy has crossed it; the oppressed nations of Turkey have been emancipated; the oppressed races of Austria and Russia, and let me frankly add, Ireland, have gained by the doctrines of Joseph Mazzini. The glittering Imperial fabric reared by Bismarck is humbled in the dust, but the dreams of this young man, who came over as an exile to England and lived in poverty here for years, dependent on the charity of friends, and armed only with a pen, have now become startling realities throughout the whole Continent. Here, after he has been lying for fifty years in the soil he loved so well, we find in the reconstruction of Europe the great principles of Mazzini—the emancipation of races on the basis of freedom—converted into a treaty and into action. He taught not merely the rights of a nation; he taught the rights of other nations; not merely the right of your own nation to be free, but the right of the next nation to be equally free. We have learned half the lesson of Mazzini, and whether this age is the "Golden Age" predicted by Mazzini depends entirely upon the extent to which we learn the other half of his lesson."

"His was an age of fierce hatreds. I wish I could say this was not an age of fierce hatreds also. Mazzini said you can build nothing that lasts upon hate. Hate, he said, will destroy ultimately the very thing that you love. Mazzini said: "I want free nations; I want a Europe of free nations; but I do not want a Europe of free nations hating each other; I want a Europe of free nations that will be a brotherhood of peoples." He is the father of the idea of the League of Nations."

"There are men who blame Mazzini for the present position of things. He is not responsible for the frenzied nationalism which is the peril of to-day, the extravagant nationalism, the nationalism which has no respect for the rights of others. Mazzini never taught that. His career was an embodiment and a symbol of the good feeling and good understanding that exists between British and Italian democracies. He called this his "second country." Here he found refuge, protection, encouragement, support, friendship."

"Lost golden ages can be a very effective tool for motivating people in the present. “Unity was and is the destiny of Italy,” Giuseppe Mazzini, the great nineteenth- century Italian nationalist, urged the divided peninsula. “The civil primacy, twice exercised by Italy—through the arms of the Caesars and the voice of the Popes—is destined to be held a third time by the people of Italy— the nation.” Mazzini was also a liberal who believed that a world filled by self-governing peoples would be a happy, democratic, and peaceful one yet there was an ominous tone to his exhortations: “They who were unable forty years ago to perceive the signs of progress toward unity made in the successive periods of Italian life, were simply blind to the light of History. But should any, in the lace of the actual glorious manifestation of our people, endeavour to lead them back to ideas of confederations, and independent provincial liberty, they would deserve to be branded as traitors to their country.” A great past can be a promise, but it can also be a terrible burden. Mussolini promised the Italians a second Roman Empire and led them to disaster in World War II."

"We who have seen Italia in the throes, Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now, Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough, All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those Who blew the breath of life into her frame: Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three: Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her free ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim."

"Of Mazzini we may truly say what he said himself of Father Paul, the historian of the Council of Trent, that he was two distinct beings. He was sower of the seed, the indefatigable organiser, the conspirator, on behalf of the idea that he had invented and brought to life, of United Italy. Besides his ceaseless industry in this vexed sphere of action, his was the moral genius that spiritualised politics, and gave a new soul to public duty in citizens and nations. As practical statesman, when we have applauded him for the exalting political conception which his energy, ardour, and fire forced upon Italy and Europe, we have perhaps said all."

"[H]e stood for the voice of conscience in modern democracy. Of all the democratic gospellers of that epoch between 1848 and 1870...it was Mazzini who went nearest to the heart and true significance of democracy. He had a moral glow, and the light of large historic and literary comprehension, that stretched it into the foremost place in the minds of men with social imagination enough to look for new ideals, and courage enough to resist the sluggard's dread of new illusions. He pressed his finger on the People's intellectual pulse and warned them against the feverish beats that came from words and phrases passed off as ideas, or, still more dangerous, from fragments of an idea treated as if they were the idea whole. He warned them that human history is not a thing of disconnected fragments, and that recollection of great moves and great men in the past is needed to keep us safe on the heights of future and present. He did more; though figuring as restorer of a single nation, he was as earnest as Kant himself in urging the moral relations between different States, and the supremacy and overlordship of cosmopolitan humanity."

"I realized that if my friends and followers were to read Mazzini’s articles that will increase their faith in our methods enormously. In 1906, I and my colleagues in Abhinav Bharat were hardly twenty to twenty-two years of age. Our leaders, both Moderates and Militants dismissed our activities as ‘childish’. They were the leaders of our society at that time. But then Mazzini and his fellow revolutionaries were similarly ridiculed as ‘childish’ and ‘absurd’ by contemporary elders in Italian society in 1830s. Mazzini had replied to such ridicule in his articles. The funny thing was that in 1906 persons like Mazzini and Garibaldi were regarded as ‘great patriots’ by Indian leaders without realizing that in their days Mazzini and Garibaldi too were being branded as ‘foolhardy’ and ‘childish’. Mazzini’s articles were going to make firm our plans of action and induce faith among people of India in our methods."

"Italy would remember for ever the wonderful hospitality accorded by the English people to the great Italian exiles who had been the principal actors in the drama of their long national struggle towards freedom and unity. Mazzini's teaching was never more applicable than in these critical days when Europe was still suffering from the consequences of the Great War and was desperately striving to find its moral, political, and economic equilibrium, and to restart towards a reconstruction, not only of its shaken financial resources, but of its fundamental spirit of peace. He was proud and happy to affirm that both their countries, in close connexion with their Allies, were determined to try to accomplish that moral and economic settlement of Europe towards which the teachings of Mazzini pointed with the religious fervour of an apostle and a prophet."

"Perhaps of all men who have ever borne a great part in politics Mazzini was most entirely patriot. Through forty years of incessant thought, teaching, and action, in hiding or at the head of a revolutionary government, an idol or a denounced fugitive, in all countries and by all roads he pressed forward towards the same object, the transfer of Italy, once more united, from its foreign or semi-foreign despots to the sway of a freely elected Sovereign Assembly, which, as he trusted or believed, would be guided by something difficult to distinguish from direct inspiration from above. That he changed his means frequently is true, and that he sometimes subordinated means to ends can hardly be denied, for he was that rare character, a practical ideologue."

"In truth, he was neither anarchist nor Jacobin, nor even Revolutionist, but a calm and serene teacher and leader, a prophet possessed with a faith and absorbed in an object, who swayed men by the force of his ideas, the holiness of his life, and the unique loftiness of his character steadily onward towards an end which was not always theirs... This influence, rising in some cases to an ascendancy such as has hardly been given to the greatest religious teachers, was employed unswervingly for his single end, and it was employed successfully. Cavour made Italy, but it was due to Mazzini, and not to Cavour, that such making was possible."

"The idea of the powerless lawyer had penetrated an entire people, and Italy stood up unfettered and alive. In modern history no man armed only with spiritual weapons, strong only in his cause, his genius, and his character, has ever performed such a feat, or made so deep a personal impression on the history of mankind... It is among the greater Popes that we must seek for the analogue of Joseph Mazzini, the serene man possessed of and by a faith, who could use all weapons, and mould all men, and disregard all circumstances; whose gentleness was as inflexible as other men’s obstinacy; to whom earthly temptations had no meaning and earthly scruples no force; who could not pause, or change, or tremble, and who therefore at once achieved the lofty success and roused the undying hatreds which attend the course of the man who lives for an idea. Unstirred by the ordinary ambitions of men and unaffected by their ordinary passions, an ascetic by habit rather than conviction, incapable of envy as of doubt, irresistible in his power over hearts, which he used only to further his great cause; personally as gentle as a woman, but for his ideas implacable as a statue; eloquent with the eloquence which can persuade an individual or a Senate, yet averse to life in public; never induced even by his own genius to swerve for a moment from his appointed course; an immovable fanatic, with all the knowledge and all the tact of a finished grandee, Joseph Mazzini was what in the Roman Catholic ideal every Pope should be."

"We have to announce to-day the death of a man who in his time has played a most singular part upon the theatre of European politics; one whose name has for years been regarded as the symbol of Revolution, or rather of Republicanism; one in whose personal character there were many fine and noble qualities; but still a man who was feared even more widely than he was loved, and one whose departure from the scene of action, to say the least, will be no unwelcome news to several crowned and discrowned members of the family of European Sovereigns. He was the man who ever "troubled Israel" by his ceaseless efforts in the cause of Republicanism, and now at length he is at rest."

"In our own day classics have been dethroned without being replaced. But throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries our statesmen were so brought up that they thought of Rome as the hearth of their political civilization, where their predecessor Cicero had denounced Catiline; where the models of their own eloquence and statecraft, as taught them at Eton, Harrow and Winchester, had been practised and brought to perfection. And, therefore, the ruins of the Forum were as familiar, as sacred, and as moving to Russell and to Gladstone as to Mazzini and Garibaldi themselves. This was a prime fact in the history of the Risorgimento."

"He does not exalt the individual at the expense of the nation, like the disciples of Rousseau; nor the nation at the expense of the individual, as was the tendency of Hegel; nor humanity at the expense of both, as was the incurable aberration of Comte. Recognising that each of these has its peculiar function, he recognises no less fully that no one of them can put forth its energies without the others; that each of them is conditioned absolutely by the others; and that only to the most limited extent is it possible to mark off the sphere in which each operates even in partial independence of the others."

"Now it can hardly be doubted that the earliest writer to give its due place to nationality was Mazzini. He felt, as few men have felt, the force of the popular sentiment in this matter. He was alive also to its limitations. To him the nation is not, as it is to many, an end in itself. It is strictly a link in the chain between the individual on the one side and humanity on the other. He recognises, as no previous writer had done, what may be called the personality of the nation. He proclaims its right, or rather its obligation, both to defend itself against all encroachment, whether material or moral, from without, and to develop its inborn faculties to the highest possible pitch from within. He thus gives satisfaction to all that is either valid or worth having in the claims of nationality. At the same time, he marks out the limits beyond which the instinct of nationality becomes dangerous, or even harmful. He denies that it is a final and absolute principle. He persistently subordinates it to the larger claims of humanity. This at once bars out the possibility of any right to aggression as between one nation and another. It subjects all nations alike to the common ties which bind the members of one brotherhood, mankind. By the same stroke, Mazzini gives the only valid sanction to the real rights of nationality. He declares the free development of the national spirit to be essential to the true life of humanity. So far as it serves that end, it is nothing but good. As soon as it throws itself athwart that end, it becomes an enormous evil."

"I am very much moved, sir, to be in the presence of this monument. On the other side of the water we have studied the life of Mazzini with almost as much pride as if we shared in the glory of his history, and I am very glad to acknowledge that his spirit has been handed down to us of a later generation on both sides of the water. It is delightful to me to feel that I am taking some small part in accomplishing the realization of the ideals to which his life and thought were devoted. It is with a spirit of veneration, sir, and with a spirit I hope of emulation, that I stand in the presence of this monument and bring my greetings and the greetings of America with our homage to the great Mazzini."

"In a way it seems natural for an American to be a citizen of Genoa, and I shall always count it among the most delightful associations of my life that you should have conferred this honor upon me, and in taking away this beautiful edition of the works of Mazzini I hope that I shall derive inspiration from these volumes, as I have already derived guidance from the principles which Mazzini so eloquently expressed. It is very inspiring, sir, to feel how the human spirit is refreshed again and again from its original sources. It is delightful to feel how the voice of one people speaks to another through the mouth of men who have by some gift of God been lifted above the common level and seen the light of humanity, and therefore these words of your prophet and leader will, I hope, be deeply planted in the hearts of my fellow countrymen."

"[ ... ] The First World War had to be fought in order to allow the “Illuminati” to overthrow the power of the tsars in Russia and transform this country into the stronghold of atheistic communism. The differences stirred up by the agents of the “Illuminati” between the British and German empires were used to foment this war. After the war ended, communism had to be built up and used to destroy other governments and weaken religions."

"And they know neither sect nor idolatry, with the exception that all believe that the source of all power and goodness is in the sky, and they believe very firmly that I, with these ships and people, came from the sky, and in this belief they everywhere received me, after they had overcome their fear."

"It is true that after they have been reassured and have lost this fear, they are so artless and so free with all they possess, that no one would believe it without having seen it. Of anything they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no; rather they invite the person to share it, and show as much love as if they were giving their hearts."

"Of this voyage, I observe," says the Admiral, "that it has miraculously been shown, as may be understood by this writing, by the many signal miracles that He has shown on the voyage, and for me, who for so great a time was in the court of Your Highnesses with the opposition and against the opinion of so many high personages of your household, who were all against me, alleging this undertaking to be folly, which I hope in Our Lord will be to the greater glory of Christianity, which to some slight extent already has happened."

"I certify to Your Highnesses that in the world I believe that there are no better people nor better land. They love their neighbors as themselves, and have a speech that is sweetest in the world, and mild and always laughing."

"Princess Marie-Esméralda of Belgium: The fact that our public space is dominated by images to the glory of white men, conquerors, and certain colonizers or slavers undoubtedly contributes to the sense that history celebrates the supremacy of the white race. The "discovery" of America by Christopher Columbus, regardless of the explorer's merits, reflects a Eurocentric view of the world. Wasn't it a continent that has essentially been 'discovered' since it was inhabited? His troops plundered the local wealth, enslaved the natives and spread unknown diseases."

"I first ask the kids, "What language do you think Columbus spoke?" Some agree on Spanish; some of the more astute ones even venture Italian. When I ask them what the Arawak spoke they respond, "English." Which, of course, to them is the "American" language. By way of illustration, I call two Cantonese-speaking kids to the center of the circle and ask them to speak their native tongue. They do so, at first shyly, then with pride that they have something special to contribute to this lesson. The rest of the kids-African American, Latino, and Pilipino-respond that the words sound like nonsense to them. In short, it is gibberish. We begin to improvise. Five kids volunteer to be Columbus and his crew and another five an Arawak chief and his tribe. The two groups confront each other, speaking "gibberish"-gibberish that ends up meaning "I came for gold and if you refuse to give me what I want, I will kill you," which is exactly where genocide and greed meet. Columbus and crew raise and shoot their rifles and the Arawak drop dead en masse. They had not been directed to do so. This was an improvisation, which ended our rehearsal for the day and began our first lesson in colonization. And we, the kids and I, have fallen in love with theater's power to teach. Truth. Or lies. You choose, as Augosto Boal reminds us."

"Eratosthenes... knew that the Sun was straight overhead in... Syene at noon on the , but that it was 7.2 degrees south of straight overhead in , located 794 kilometers farther north. He concluded... 794 kilometers corresponded to 7.2 degrees out of the 360 degrees... around Earth's circumference, so that the circumference must be 794 km x 360°/7.2°≈39,700 km... remarkably close to the modern value of 40,000 km. Amusingly Christopher Columbus totally bungled this... confusing Arabic miles with Italian miles, concluding that he needed to sail only 3,700 km... when the true value was 19,600 km."

"Columbus’s letter from his third voyage contains his description of the world’s shape as being that of a pear or a woman’s breast, with what he thinks he has discovered to be the Garden of Eden being on the nipple."

"Christopher Columbus made landfall in the western hemisphere in 1492. His venture was characteristic of the internationalism of the American enterprise. He operated from the Spanish city of Seville but came from Genoa and he was by nationality a citizen of the Republic of Venice, which then ran an island empire in the Eastern Mediterranean. The finance for his transatlantic expedition was provided by himself and other Genoa merchants in Seville, and topped up by the Spanish Queen Isabella, who had seized quantities of cash when her troops occupied Granada earlier that year."

"Christopher Columbus landed first in the New World at the island of San Salvador, and after praising God enquired urgently for gold."

"Columbus's fleet in 1492 - which consisted of three small ships manned by 120 sailors - was like a trio of mosquitoes compared to Zheng He's drove of dragons."

"One of the least known and studied aspects of US history involves the centuries-long trade in Indian slaves. Only in the last decade or two have scholars begun in earnest to piece together and analyze the trade in Indigenous bodies introduced by Christopher Columbus from his first voyage to the New World in 1492."

"I did barge around the library fully pregnant, that's true too, and in fact I became almost obsessed with Columbus for several months. I didn't expect him to come alive, or to become such an unwieldy, slyly teasing, deceptive, wholly frustrating subject. I used to throw my head down on the table sometimes and wish, just wish, I could talk to him. I know I could have made him understand what was going to happen, made him understand cultural history and ethnocentrism. He was brilliant, strange, and emotional, and very, very cruel."

"The Columbus myth suggests that from US independence onward, colonial settlers saw themselves as part of a world system of colonization. "Columbia," the poetic, Latinate name used in reference to the United States from its founding throughout the nineteenth century, was based on the name of Christopher Columbus. The "Land of Columbus" was-and still is-represented by the image of a woman in sculptures and paintings, by institutions such as Columbia University, and by countless place names, including that of the national capital, the District of Columbia.7 The 1798 hymn "Hail, Columbia" was the early national anthem and is now used whenever the vice president of the United States makes a public appearance, and Columbus Day is still a federal holiday despite Columbus never having set foot on the continent claimed by the United States."

"there was no Italy — Columbus was from Genoa, a city-state. He died in Spain. So, you know, it’s a very weak link to Italianness. And, of course, Italians have such illustrious people they can celebrate, that everyone celebrates — Michelangelo, Vivaldi and, of course, for us on the left, Sacco and Vanzetti."

"it is not quite accurate to say that the indigenous population gave of themselves and their land for that noble purpose. Rather, they were slaughtered, decimated, and dispersed in the course of one of the greatest exercises in genocide in human history...which we celebrate each October when we honor Columbus-a notable mass murderer himself-on Columbus Day."

"When everybody says "lesbian," a word connected with Sappho and the island of Lesbos, that automatically means that your forefathers and foremothers are European, that George Washington is the father of our country and Columbus discovered America-all false assumptions."

"Following the light of the sun, we left the old world"

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

"Weep for me, whoever has charity, truth and justice! I did not come on this voyage for gain, honor or wealth, that is certain; for then the hope of all such things was dead. I came to Your Highnesses with honest purpose and sincere zeal; and I do not lie. I humbly beseech You Highnesses that, if it please God to remove me hence, you will help me to go to Rome and on other pilgrimages."

"I came to serve you at the age of 28 and now I have not a hair on me that is not white, and my body is infirm and exhausted. All that was left to me and my brothers has been taken away and sold, even to the cloak that I wore, without hearing or trial, to my great dishonor."

"The tempest was terrible and separated me from my [other] vessels that night, putting every one of them in desperate straits, with nothing to look forward to but death. Each was certain the others had been destroyed. What man ever born, not excepting Job, who would not have died of despair, when in such weather seeking safety for my son, my brother, shipmates, and myself, we were forbidden [access to] the land and the harbors which I, by God's will and sweating blood, had won for Spain?"

"Your Highnesses have an Other World here, by which our holy faith can be so greatly advanced and from which such great wealth can be drawn."