What Causes Neck Throbbing

Ecology and Freedom April 25, 2010

Dear friends, after considering the requests that were sent to me and my desire to share with you the full text of my speech at the celebrations of 25 April 2010, I decided to post it on my blog.

The theme of the competition for elementary and middle schools this year was the Berlin Wall, twenty years after his fall.

And it is the "Wall", or rather the "walls" that my action was concerned.

I would like to hear your opinion and critical about the quality of the writing and maybe, if you saw me, a few comments on how I made it.

I also take this opportunity to thank once again the comrades of the PNA-Valperga Perth, again entrusted to me the honor to be among the official speakers.

Now and Resistance!

ADDRESS April 25, 2010

The wall, in construction, is defined as a "continuous structure, usually carrying composed of elements more or less large, matched and stacked to form a compact mass and endurance." They create, mark an "enclosed space" within which the human being, like any other animal, he feels secure against the adversity of the environment.

The walls have accompanied the 'man since prehistoric times, in history many of them have acquired a high symbolic and anthropological meaning, to become "brands", "icons" marked their times. In the Paleolithic era to which date the first rudimentary houses of twigs, made by the nomadic tribes of hunters and gatherers in the absence of adequate natural shelters, their main function was to defend against adverse external environment, such as precipitation, winds and humidity or even attacks from other hostile tribes.

In the Neolithic, with the emergence of agriculture e dell'allevamento, le tribù umane iniziano a sedentarizzarsi.

I muri ora hanno anche la funzione di proteggere i beni materiali, quali frutti della terra ed animali: la necessità di realizzare opere destinate a durare nel tempo fa sì che vengano migliorate le tecniche costruttive ed i materiali da costruzione impiegati.

Con la comparsa dei primi villaggi, nasce anche l'esigenza di un sistema di difesa collettivo nei confronti di altre tribù ostili: ed arrivano così le prime palizzate in legname.

Con lo sviluppo delle civiltà e la nascita dei regni e degli imperi, grandi muri vennero costruiti per difendere i confini dal passaggio di eserciti stranieri ostili: vedasi such as the Great Wall of China to guard against incursions of the Mongols and the Hadrian's Wall to defend the Roman Empire from the incursions of the barbarians Britons.

parallel with the birth of the laws and state organization, walls also become an instrument of isolation of individuals violent and dangerous to the community: thus the prisons ...

The evolution of military technology and war make it completely useless in terms of strategic implementation of masonry, and the evolution of society, however, will not lead to the obsolescence of the walls of isolation and segregation of individuals, but to their increasingly common use for this purpose.

Starting from the walls and fences in many cities separated the Jewish ghetto, through the twentieth century and up to date, have made their appearance new walls: no longer to defend against incursions by foreign armies, but to prevent passage of civilians, to divide the peoples of the earth to hide from the world of the Nazi death camps or the Soviet forced labor camps.

On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, which since 1961 had divided the German city. This wall became the symbol of the cd. "Cold War", the world's division into two "blocks" or "spheres of influence", which occurred after the end of World War II.

Although in reality it was just the tip of the iceberg of a much more complex.

Following this division, West Berlin was found to be an enclave "Western" in the GDR, the construction of this work was subtle, almost hidden networks of barbed wire first, then the first, and then the precast wall itself, which officially was called "anti-fascist protection barrier".

So the horrible regime of former East Germany, in an attempt to stop the "leakage" to West Germany and preserve the inhabitants of East Berlin from the influence of capitalist society, was able to give further evidence of its inhumanity.

Similarly also his fall took a very strong symbolic meaning, though in reality, as he notes the historian Anthony Moscato, the Berlin Wall was "the most visible event in a chain of transformations initiated at least a year, and bounced from one country to another. "

The fall of the Berlin Wall has returned to the German people and Europe with a united Germany, free and democratic, has opened all eyes to the tragic failure of the CD. "Real socialism" and regimes of Eastern-Europe, fell under the weight of their contradictions.

The end of the world's division into two blocs, with the fall of the Soviet Union, raised a great excitement around the world and gave rise to new hopes and large: at last the era of the Cold War had ended, the risk of hecatomb nuclear permanently removed.

is announced, it was believed, in a future of peace and harmony: no more wars between nations, no more class struggle: globalization and the development of one large world market would solve all issues peacefully, social and between states.

After all, during the CD. "Short Century", the world population was able to touch: the horrors

• the two world wars: the wars of unprecedented magnitude for the territories of conduct and the number of states involved, had been able to experience
• authoritarian regimes (Francoism and Fascism) and totalitarianism (Nazism and Stalinism).
• also from the economic point of view had been able to see how unfettered capitalism nor rules, that excessive control of the economy of the State gave results highly questionable.

What remains today of those promises, those hopes? Very little.

If we look at the course of events, is to say that the world population (or at least its leaders) have not learned nothing. While in the opulent West

still celebrating, War from "cold" and became a direct "hot", with the first Gulf War.

The neo-liberal globalization, far from relieving international tensions (long kept in balance by the opposition front of the two poles of Soviet and U.S.) and among peoples, they saw a worsening culminated with the bombing of the Twin Towers .

as a result of the war "hot" also became a "preventive" came as the war in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), military campaigns to date have not been closed, where seem to see trends similar to those occurring in the Vietnam War: a strong army equipped by the technological point of view can not be right, and certain number of militiamen, despite the high discrepancy between the techniques and equipment used. The

our country has participated in these missions, the war was "officially" over, calling them hypocritical "peace missions", in clear contradiction with the art. 11 of our Constitution, which states: "Italy rejects war as a means of settling international issues."

not only the promise of a peaceful world has proved to be completely fallacious, but full of ridges, began the construction of new walls!

1997 Ceuta / Melilla 1998: a barrier to EU-funded, costing € 30 million, is designed to divide the two English enclaves from Morocco.

But not enough here that since 2004 a 725 km wall along well is made between the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories: to defend itself against terrorist attacks of Palestinian suicide bombers (officially) in order to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state according to many experts in international affairs and geopolitics.

Another wall, started in 1994, is rising on the border between the U.S. and Mexico, to curb illegal immigration ..

All this speaks to us of another of the great tragedies of the contemporary world: the phenomenon of immigration. Since 1988 there are only as regards the European Union, some 15,000 dead and 6500 missing "borderline" men, women and children who are shipwrecked, dead of starvation in the wilderness, victims of road accidents or victims of weapons Firearms English soldiers in Ceuta and Melilla.

The impressive flow of desperate people to the rich Western countries tells us that even on the economic promises and hopes were not realized: the growth of so-called "Asian tigers", the growing political clout of the lobby and large corporations, have meant that were practiced in the western world practices of wage deflation, establishment of new forms of precarious work "to be competitive," relocation of production facilities in countries with lower labor costs.

The booming economy of paper, a model of development based on doped markets, such as construction, has come to drag the world into the vortex of the crisis, the most serious - and perhaps worse - than those have occurred since the Great Depression of 1929. Ironically appear

forms of government intervention in the credit system, which have been well defined by many, including former USSR leader Gorbachev, like "socialism dei ricchi".

Un sistema nel quale gli Stati "salvano" le banche, mentre nessuno salva le famiglie che cadono sul lastrico...

Ed ecco che i bassi salari e la mancanza di posti di lavoro stanno incominciano a costruire , in tutto il mondo occidentale, un altro è più subdolo muro, un muro più difficile da abbattere perchè fatto di milioni di altri piccoli muri costruiti - o che ci siamo costruiti - all'interno della nostra coscienza, del nostro sentire comune.

Così, quando il nemico non è più uno stato estero con i suoi eserciti od una qualche forma di totalitarismo novecentesco da combattere o scongiurare, ecco che esso viene identificato con il più povero, il più sfortunato. The "bum" who finds himself unemployed, the migrant foreigner who comes into our country in search of better living conditions.

latter becomes (not without the help, not fundamental, media and politicians interested) synonymous with "criminal", "rapist".

As if they were only "immigrants" to make these horrible crimes!

Thus the law, institutions and individuals move so punitive prejudiced against these people, the legislature moves the emotional, driven by the clamor of sad events of the news, instead of putting his hand to a reform structure of the penal code!

Le identità, le tradizioni, gli usi ed i costumi dei Popoli, improvvisamente, non sono più una ricchezza da coltivare, preservare e condividere orgogliosamente, ma diventano una fortezza nella quale cerchiamo riparo dall'invasione esterna, una clava da brandire contro le altre culture, un modo di vivere e pensare che vorremmo imporre a chi è diverso da noi.

Da occasione di crescita collettiva, per noi e per gli altri, si trasformano in un pericoloso strumento di involuzione e regressione, civile e culturale.

Pericoloso, pericolosissimo: e guai a chi lo sottovaluta e si sente "sicuro" e nel "giusto", perchè italiano, piemontese, canavesano, valperghese.

Gli ultimi news events have shown that the "holy war" against the latest and profits no longer applies only to foreigners, but also Italian citizens. Even worse: it even involves children, Italian or otherwise, sent to prison as bread and water, on account of their parents, in default of payment of allowances for school meals.

This decision by a Northern League mayor, who found most agree other parents of 250 children. do not know if I am more afraid of the administrative decision or the violent cynical indifference and acquiescence of Italian citizens, the silent majority. All this happens civilized in Lombardy region symbol of the cultural model of the Italian center.

Or if we want to stay nearby, how can we forget the 'absurd fence built in Turin, Dora Park, to avoid the "bad children" of housing could mix with the "good children" of residential housing.

In this regard, I was very impressed by the design of a child of Perth, which was explicitly represented the division between wealth and poverty, with the representation of two walls: one of them had been breached, but the ' other was still intact.

As a reminder that the current world is far from having solved its grandi contraddizioni, a partire dall'impressionante numero di esseri umani che ogni giorno muoiono di fame, dalle guerre, dalle violenze etniche, dai regimi autoritari e teocratici... o dalle crescenti disparità economiche tra gli Stati ed all’interno di essi.

Il mio ultimo pensiero vorrei dedicarlo ai recenti avvenimenti afghani, che hanno visto coinvolta l’ONG italiana Emergency, citando il discorso di un grande personaggio storico:

"Il governo peggiore trova un appoggio potente nei pregiudizi, nelle abitudini, nell'educazione dei popoli. Lo stesso dispotismo deprava lo spirito degli uomini fino a farsi worship and the freedom to make horrific and suspicious at first sight. The most extravagant idea that can arise in the mind of a politician is to believe that it is enough for people to enter at gunpoint in a foreign territory to him adopt its laws and its constitution "

These words were spoken in 1792 by the French revolutionary Robespierre, in a speech against the war, and yet still sound like much today.

Most of the major national media tried to "educate" the people Italian, now accustomed to a partial information and controlled, teaching that is taking place in Afghanistan a "peace mission" and that we are "exporting democracy".

Emergency

He tried to paint as a hideout of suspected terrorists, giving credit to the slanderous accusations made against him from governor of Helmand, which led to the arrest of three of our countrymen.

Men and women viewed with suspicion because they treat all the wounded and sick, regardless of sex, religion, ethnicity or political beliefs. Helping those in need, without discrimination or preference, is it not a great expression of freedom?

Is not it like opening a window nell'invisibile muro dell'odio, del razzismo e dell'indifferenza?

Che dire poi dell'idea, appoggiata da più parti, di risolvere i problemi del nostro Paese concentrando sempre più potere nelle mani di una sola persona, di rinunciare a risolvere le disparità e disuguaglianze tra Nord e Sud, certificandole attraverso un federalismo color menta, dal gusto di antipasto secessionista?

Noi, che crediamo nell'eredità e nei valori della Resistenza, siamo oggi chiamati a questo primario e difficile compito: quello di abbattere l'invisibile muro dell'odio, del razzismo e dell'indifferenza, un muro dagli effetti concreti estremamente dolorosi.

Proprio as the Partisans, who were able to restore dignity to our country before the League of Nations, putting aside ideological barriers that separated them to fight the common enemy Nazi ideals first and then write our Constitution, we should all be able to unite to fight this great battle for civilization and freedom.

like beacons on dangerous rocks, we should make sure that the light never goes out of Reason and the company indicates that the route leading to the port of peace and tolerance.

Outside the Wall is freedom!

W the partisans, the strength W, W Italy!