Rome- The century we left
behind us just seven years ago was brilliantly described by the British
historian Eric Hobsbawm as "the short
century." But perhaps a more exact definition would be "the
compressed century," for never has a period of 100 years seen so many
world wars, so many scientific and technological advances, so many revolutions,
so many epoch-making events piled almost one on top of the other. Indeed, the
past century seems rather like a suitcase too small to hold everything that
happened: its too crammed with used clothing, some of which hinders us
from closing it and putting it away in the attic once and for all.
One such
hindrance is the case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti. In the previous century millions of men and women died in wars,
epidemics, genocides and persecutions, and unfortunately their memory is all
too much in danger of vanishing. Yet the deaths of Sacco and Vanzetti in the
electric chair 80 years ago today, as much as those of John and Robert
Kennedy by assassins bullets, are destined to remain in our minds.
Perhaps this is because, as with the Kennedy brothers, we still have
difficulty accepting the reasons, or lack thereof, for their deaths.
And in Italy, where
meaningless (or all too meaningful) killing has long been part of the political
landscape, this uneasiness is keenly felt.
In the case of
Sacco and Vanzetti, it seemed immediately clear to many in Europe and the
United States that their arrest in 1920 " initially for
possession of weapons and subversive pamphlets, then on a charge of double
murder committed during a robbery in Massachusetts " the three trials
that followed, and their subsequent death sentences were intended to make an
example of them. And this regardless of the utter lack of evidence
against them and in spite of defense
testimony by a participant in the robbery who said hed never seen the two
Italians.
The perception
was that Sacco, a shoemaker, and Vanzetti, a fishmonger, were the victims of
a wave of repression sweeping Woodrow Wilsons America. In Italy,
committees and organizations condemning the sentence sprouted up as soon as it
was announced. By the time the sentence was carried out in 1927, Fascism had
been in power in Italy
for nearly five years and was brutally consolidating its dictatorship, persecuting
and imprisoning anyone hostile to the regime -including anarchists,
naturally.
And yet when
Sacco and Vanzetti were executed, the biggest Italian daily, Milans Corriere
della Sera, did not hesitate to give the story a six-column headline.
Standing out glaringly among the subheads was the assertion: "They were innocent."
There is probably
not a single Italian newspaper that has not devoted an article to the case
every Aug. 23 from 1945 to the present. In 1977, much prominence was given
to the news that Michael Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts, officially recognized the
miscarriage of justice and rehabilitated the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.
In Italy, their
story became the subject of a drama that enjoyed great success on the stage
before it was made, in 1971, into an excellent film by Giuliano
Montaldo, with splendid performances and a soundtrack
by Ennio Morricone that
included songs by Joan Baez. (Woody Guthries 1960 album, Ballads of
Sacco and Vanzetti, also enjoyed wide distribution in Italy.) And in 2005,
the Italian state TV network RAI produced a long program on the two executed
Italians. (Oddly enough, for some reason the network has never shown "The
Sacco-Vanzetti Story," a 1960 made-for-television movie directed by
Sidney Lumet, even though it acquired the rights long ago.)
And now an
Italian Internet site has an active discussion of the two anarchists case.
One of the many contributors writes: Those poor guys were only guilty
of fighting racism and xenophobia." Another: "What has changed?
The death penalty still exists in America, even for those who are
sometimes innocent, and racism and xenophobia are on the rise ...- And a third:
"It is impossible to compare that period with this one. Nowadays the
courts make mistakes, serious ones, but mistakes nevertheless, whereas back
then outright murder was committed, for purely political ends. And even if
racism is still alive and well in the United States, great progress has
been made." Finally, a conclusion: "That was a nasty affair in a
difficult time."
A nasty affair
indeed, if Italians, generally indulgent toward the land that has welcomed so
many of its destitute emigrants, are still dwelling on it after all these
years. Apparently the debate is still ongoing. A sign, perhaps, that the
wound has not yet healed. And that we still cant close the suitcase, no
matter how hard we try.
Andrea Camilleri is the author of "The Patience of the
Spider" and other novels in the Inspector Montalbano series.
This article was translated by Stephen Sartarelli
from the Italian.