Of Marcello Veneziani
Like today (yesterday for those reading, n.d.r.), fifty years ago, in the fateful '68, he went to the other world
Giovannino Guareschi. He left the small world that few had described, to reach the big world, the one where that Lord lived who in his House gave advice to one of his fiery dependents on earth, Don Camillo. At least that's what Guareschi says.
He left early, Giovannino, a 60 years, after a troubled life, between concentration camp, prison under fascism and anti-fascism, plus a host of books translated all over the world, of very popular films that represented that fabulous post-war Italy, and adventures in the press, like his impertinent Candide who played a decisive role in the defeat of the social-communist popular front in the 1948 elections.
Giovannino died on 22 July '68 but he had time to write his last Don Camillo dedicated to today's young people. The book was released posthumously and marked the striking contrast between the old communist Peppone (that the anti-communist Guareschi had made sympathetic with his irrepressible humanity), the tough Don Camillo and a young, beardless protester, who was traveling on a motorbike with studded and fringed bags and a black jacket with a skull and the words "Veleno". Which becomes the boy's nickname for Guareschi and also the metaphor of the protest. "The Chinese" also arrive in the town of Brescello and upset the ideological geometries of the Italian-Stalinist Peppone and also displace the religious ones of the parish priest. Guareschi links the protest to the advent of the consumer societyi. For him the antagonism between the two phenomena is only occasional, related, not substantial. Consumerism devours the small ancient world and the old faiths, but he catches Peppone who leaves his bike and rides in a red spider. Consumerism is the habitat of 1968. Read More
From Piazza Pulita a long report by Alessio Lasta on Verona. It begins with an excerpt of an interview carried out at the home of our Matteo Castagna (clear, precise and concise as always) and then continues with the World Congress of Families and with the friends of the Black Brain (our sponsor) e del The Firm, both clothing stores. Great space at Fortezza Europa, largest and most defined group on the Scaliger right “rising star”. Some of us are part of it as sympathizers or militants. Overall the service is biased, but it shouldn't be too surprising…