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Title: Politics or Ethics?
Author: Anonymous
Date: november 2013
Language: en
Topics: anti-politics, law, ethics, Errico Malatesta, Luigi Galleani, trial
Source: http://www.finimondo.org/node/1377

Anonymous

Politics or Ethics?

So technique killed ethics. Because in front of any issue, human beings

do not ask themselves what is most right, but what works. They no longer

asks themselves this because at this point, in our world dominated in

all its aspects by technique, it is given for granted that what is right

is what works. Ideas become instruments to evaluate not for their

meaning but for their way of being used, for their functionality, for

their efficiency. All of this, as it has already been mentioned before,

is certainly one of the consequences of the intrusion into all aspects

of our lives of technique. However, it would be a mistake to think that

this phenomenon only emerged in the last few decades, through the

infestation of computers and cell phones, plasma screens and three

dimensional images.

What else would politics be if not technique applied to the

transformative actions of social relationships? Do we really think that

even in the distant past these same logics were not applied? Do we

really think that the political weight infests only the ruling class,

men and women thirsty with power, and not anyone who is ready to reach

compromises with ethics? To think again about these consoling

certainties it is enough to look back at the difference – at the end of

the Nineteenth century, within the anarchist movement, and while faced

with the same situation – between the behavior of an Errico Malatesta

and that of a Luigi Galleani. The first, the most famous exponent of the

anarchist Party, while the second was the most vivid supporter of an

informal and autonomous anarchy.

During the struggles for bread in 1898, those which then brought the

massacre in Milan by the hands of Bava Beccaris, Malatesta was arrested

from January on and prosecuted with other comrades at the end of April.

In that occasion his self defense, as he had already done during trials

in Benevento in 1878 and in Rome in 1884, and as he will again in Milan

in 1921, was particularly cautious, non provocative, leaning towards

making clear the “true thought” of anarchists but also aiming to receive

a softer sentence for him and his co-accused. So he began by stating his

trust in the sense of Justice of the Courts, then continuing by

countering the accusation of being the “leader of anarchist”, of

pursuing the destruction of the family and society, and of having

incited the bread revolt.

In regards to this, since in the moment he was talking – the 28th of

April 1898 – the revolt was already spreading in all of Italy, Malatesta

made clear that during his rallies he had clearly specified that “not by

looting a villa and stealing an oven can the social question can be

solved... bread is expensive, not because the mayor is a scoundrel, not

because Rudini [the prime minister at the time] is a malefactor, but for

a whole complexity of social causes that cannot be solved if not through

the organization of the masses”.

Then, to cast an even more amicable and uplifting light on himself, he

thanked the prosecution: “The prosecution gave me a very high honor, an

honor that if it had been made seriously would have been enough

compensation for the three years of prison that you want to give me, he

said that since I went to Ancona the murders and the robberies decreased

and there were no more bombs launched. But if this had been true, please

lock me up, you will send me to prison with a halo of glory”.

It was not only this that gave Malatesta his “halo of glory”, who

continued defending anarchists also from the accusation of inciting

hate: “ask those mothers who would come thank us, when their sons became

anarchists and stopped getting drunk, and would become more affectionate

sons and harder workers.” Those anarchists, what great folks! Where they

arrive, robberies and attacks diminish, the wild kids get their heads

straight, they curb their excesses, they give honor to their mother and

father and go to work! Perhaps convinced of these words the Court made

its decision. The sentence was exceptionally mild. Malatesta got away

with seven months of imprisonment, partially already served, the other

accused with six months and one absolution.

Just four years before, in 1894, in Genova the big trial against Luigi

Galleani, Eugenio Pellaco and other 33 defendants took place, with the

accusation of “criminal association”. The arrests were made between

December 1893 and the beginning of January 1894, and the court case

began in May, in a very tense atmosphere. Galleani, considered the

“head” of the gang and questioned first, proudly declared being a

revolutionary anarchist, of not believing in legal means, and of always

having made propaganda of his ideas. An ex-law student, therefore aware

of the court proceedings, and also great public speaker, Galleani was

able to dominate the discussion claiming his own anarchism (“I am not

here other than to defend my own idea, an idea that has put me here on

the dock as a malefactor, taking little care of the sentence that you

bourgeois judges will inflict on my person and on my comrades”) while

embarrassing the main witness of the prosecution, the ex-mayor of

Genova, to the point of being more times silenced by the presiding judge

and by the public prosecutor. In the end, faced with multiple attempts

to silence him, Galleani raised his voice: “I cannot help but observing

that I expected all this: I knew that in your role of bourgeois judges,

you could not do more or less of that which you do; I expected that the

public prosecutor would be afraid of the truth, that he would prohibited

me to talk because he knew that I would have concluded with saying that

here, where I sit, him with the judges should have sat, because the

present society really deserves the name of a society of malefactors of

which, consciously or not, you belong to”. The audience present exploded

in an ovation and the presiding judge had the court cleared out.

Galleani, defended by Pietro Gori, was condemned to 3 years of

imprisonment, aggravated by a sixth spent in isolation, plus 2 years of

surveillance, Pellaco to 16 months, and the others to lesser sentences.

After the three years of imprisonment, Galleani was put under house

arrest with the maximum sentence: five years.

Different style, different bill to pay.

Malatesta's court statement worked. But was it right? The one of

Galleani was right, but did it work? Was Malatesta wise? Was Galleani

dumb? Was Malatesta a coward? Was Galleani brave? Neither one nor the

other. In the end both did in that courtroom what they were doing also

on the outside. The first one ended up putting aside his own ideas for

the tactical necessities of the moment, just like a smart politician

would do. The second outspokenly expressed his own thoughts, like those

immune to any political calculations would do. Politics or ethics?

We are certain that Errico Malatesta was satisfied of the outcome. But

we are also certain that Luigi Galleani did not regret his choices.

It is not about a strategic choice, but a life choice.