Villa Giulia

Pier Paolo Pasolini (translated by e-flux)

Its sad. A critique of the PCI (Italian Communist Party) should have been done in the first half of the past decade. You are late, children. And it doesn’t matter that at the time you were not born. Now the journalists of the entire world (the t.v. ones included) kiss your (as they still say, I think, in university) ass. I don’t, friends. You have the face of daddy’s boys. Your clean appearance doesn’t lie. You have that mean look. You are afraid, uncertain, despairing (very good) but you also know how to be spoilt, scheming, and arrogant: petit-bourgeois values, my friends. When you were at the Villa Giulia yesterday you brawled with the police, I sympathised with the policemen! Because policemen are sons of the poor. They come from the outskirts, urban and rural. As for me, I know well, I know how they were as little kids and young men, the precious penny, the father who never grew up, because poverty does not bestow authority. The mother calloused like a porter, or tender, because of some disease, like a little bird; the many children, the hut among the orchards overgrown with red weeds (on someone else’s land); the slums over the sewers;or the apartments in the vast council estates, etc, etc. And, look how they dress them up: like clowns, with that rough cloth that stinks of uniform and poverty. Worse of all, naturally, is the psychological state to which they are reduced (for a handful of dollars a month): with no more smile, without any friends in the world, apart, excluded (in an exclusion without equals); humiliated at the loss of their human values in exchange for police ones (being hated breeds hatred). They are twenty, your age, my dear boys and girls. We are all obviously against the institution of the police. But try going against the courts, and then you’ll see! The boy policemen that you, out of the sacred violence (of the venerable risorgimento tradition) of the daddy’s boy, have beaten, They belong to the other class. At Villa Giulia, yesterday, occurred an instance of class war: and you, my friends (although on the right side) you were the rich, while the policemen (who were on the wrong side) they were the poor. A nice victory, then, yours! In these cases, to the police you should give flowers, my friends

Paul v The Silversmiths

Acts 19:23-41 (RSV)

About that time there arose no little stir concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen of like occupation, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only at Ephesus but almost throughout all Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable company of people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may count for nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”

When they heard this they were enraged, and cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”  So the city was filled with the confusion; and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s companions in travel.  Paul wished to go in among the crowd, but the disciples would not let him;  some of the Asiarchs also, who were friends of his, sent to him and begged him not to venture into the theater.  Now some cried one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.  Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander motioned with his hand, wishing to make a defense to the people.  But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all with one voice cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”  And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be contradicted, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash.  For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess.  If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against any one, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges against one another.  But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly.  For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, there being no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.”  And when he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.