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Title: Incognito
Author: Anonymous
Date: 2007
Language: en
Topics: clandestinity
Source: Retrieved on July 11, 2012 from http://digitalelephant.blogspot.com/2010/08/incognito.html
Notes: Original title: In incognito. Esperienze che sfidano l’identificazione, Guido Mantelli, Cuneo, 2003. Translated from italian by Barbara Stefanelli. Published by Elephant Editions, London, 2007

Anonymous

Incognito

Introduction

This book is about living in hiding. It pierces the darkness and leaps

into the secrecy of the incognito, a parallel dimension in which even

what could be said often is not. Out of excess of tact, fear or because

one thinks it is not relevant. Or, in certain milieux and in the worst

cases, due to mere political tactics. But, even at a glance, the world

of clandestine people is not a desert land; on the contrary it is

populated by living beings, experiences and ideas that are very close to

ours, in both the most miserable and the most fascinating aspects of our

lives, close to our most ardent desires and passionate daydreams.

The following contributions tell of this world. They are the voices of

people who have lived or are still living in hiding, voices of different

tones and emotions, each bearing their own message. They tell their

experience of a clandestine situation, which can derive from personal

choice or causes beyond one’s will. For some this experience was a

result of their revolutionary struggle; for others, the many who, along

the road of exploitation and the atrocity of borders have nothing more

to lose, not even ID, this experience is a result of their social

condition.

If the names of the authors are not to be found in this book it is not

out of caution or ideological choice. It is more a question of, let’s

say, good taste. In fact, we prefer the clandestine experiences to speak

for themselves, rather than the identity of those who are talking about

them. Nevertheless, as identity is not just a question of personal data,

these written lines will inevitably reveal traces leading to the author

of the text.

When we decided to write this book we thought that would be the most

genuine and direct way to present the uniqueness of the experiences it

would contain, rather than a theoretical or historical discussion on

living in hiding as intended by revolutionary movements. On the

contrary, we chose a form that expressed the most personal aspects of

the clandestine dimension in complete freedom: the situations that the

authors of the texts had had to face, their reflections and proposals,

their practical and theoretical considerations.

With a great effort that often tore at our hearts and penetrated our

inner being, we managed to obtain a series of data and emotions that can

offer the reader a ‘guide’, also concerning ‘technical’ suggestions, in

the eventuality that he or she might one day face conditions like the

ones described in the pages that follow.

So it is a ‘guide’; but it is also a lens through which to look with

more sympathetic complicity at the nameless exploited, bandits,

refugees, and all agitators who run to ground and who still pursue, in

the links of the chain that grasp the planet, desire and the reality of

a free life.

Let’s talk about it

It is terrible when a man has to give up his identity. Living with a

good girl, deceiving her day after day and concealing a part of one’s

life and personality. Sometimes you feel a strong need to open up and

search for moral complicity, but you can’t do that out of precaution or

for fear of not being understood... you feel empty and don’t desire

anything in particular.

Horst Fantazzini

It is not easy to talk about certain questions. Moreover, the most

difficult thing is to start, especially, as far as I am concerned, as

I’m not what you’d call a ‘story teller’, but rather the opposite.

I had already thought of writing something about living in hiding, not

so much about my personal experience (I don’t like self-celebration), as

about the way we see clandestinity in our ‘milieu’.

Let’s forget any digressions as to the meaning of the word. Up until I

experienced this situation, both negative and positive at the same time,

I thought it was something that didn’t concern me. Then, out of the

blue, I found I had plunged into it. That is exactly how it happens.

Maybe you imagine it differently, but it’s just like that, from one

minute to the next you find yourself absolutely alone (even if you are

with someone when you first hear the news). Then, if you decide to live

in hiding out of choice, methods of struggle or simply bad luck, you

suddenly find yourself in a strange situation. A least that was my

impression. When I heard there was an arrest warrant out for me, I felt

completely lost. Perhaps if we thought about living in hiding as a

consequence not so much of our actions and way of life as of pure

repression against those who decide to live outside the rules of the

System/Capital, things would be much clearer. Those who want to rule our

lives know perfectly well how hard it is to find yourself completely

alone all of a sudden, how difficult (and frightening) it is to speak to

others and the fear and paranoia that other people experience when they

mention you. All this should not just be regarded as a repressive

measure (such as prison, house arrest, bail, etc.) but as a precise

method aimed at cutting off relations between individuals and

situations. The difficulties and fear involved in any discussion on the

subject in the environment where the individual on the run used to live

are extremely damaging to the latter, and extremely advantageous to the

enemy, whoever they are. What I think we should do when a comrade is in

the shit is TO TALK ABOUT IT. When someone ends up in jail he can

receive mail and visits from lawyers and relatives. This could also be

the case for those living in hiding (be it by choice or by necessity),

with due precaution and method. But people find it difficult to talk

publicly and openly about that. When I had friends living in hiding I

was scared to talk about them or even to organise solidarity

initiatives. But now that I have experienced that situation myself, I

think that it’s absolutely vital to start a discussion on the subject,

especially so that those living in hiding can feel they are as close as

possible to the situation they lived in before. I can assure you that

it’s not always like that, especially at first.

I don’t have the solution to this problem, but I think that proper

discussion and analysis (between those who have experienced

clandestinity and all those who feel like discussing this repressive

measure) could be very useful.

I think, as I’ve already said, that the System finds it easier to file

an arrest warrant and force those who don’t want to rot in jail to live

in hiding, rather than carry out arrests and then put up with solidarity

actions, demonstrations, initiatives, a lot of noise, etc.

Of course the repressors only allow this to happen on certain occasions,

according to the moment, but I don’t think this hypothesis is unfounded.

I believe this is a very important question because the System only

decides to act immediately when it is pressed by the media and public

opinion, and it often risks giving shit performances, as we have seen.

Moreover, given that the judicial system is making gigantic strides

daily with the intent of reaching TOTAL CONTROL, and that its disgusting

servants the TV and the press spread whatever news they are told to, the

System has plenty of time to control these situations as it likes. This

is also possible thanks to the spread of submission and conformity in

general (even if, in various contexts, there are faint signs of a

reawakening here and there).

If these aspects are taken into account, people living in clandestinity

might decide to put an end to it and, for instance, give themselves up

because they think this might be better than staying underground. I

don’t consider this choice to be a cowardly one, as some comrades do.

When you are living in hiding your perception of the situations you

lived in before changes, as you are looking at it from the ‘outside’.

You probably manage to be a bit more rational.

But it is exactly this ‘living outside’ that makes you feel alone and

sometimes unable to face the paranoia that goes with a clandestine

situation.

The importance of these few lines doesn’t lie in the fact that they fill

up a pamphlet but because they remind us of the many people and comrades

who, as we are doing our shopping, enjoying a gig or life in general,

are compelled to stay away from the people and places they love.

Being aware of the problem doesn’t mean that we solve it, but it’s a

good step towards making sure that people in hiding, and all those who

might become such, not only live this condition better but are also able

to keep on struggling alongside their comrades.

Keeping oneself out the way

I’ve never had any strong feelings of belonging to one specific country,

with its traditions and culture. I’ve never felt any roots grow inside

me to such an extent that that could keep me in one place. I think that

this helped when I decided ‘to go to earth’ and hide from bureaucracy

and the law.

The first time my house was searched a cop asked me if I had been

expecting it. My answer was yes. I was an anarchist and known to them as

such, so I wasn’t surprised. Nor was I surprised when I realized that it

would be better ‘to have a change’. Choices like that are a question of

responsibility. When you are fighting an enemy you will also certainly

want to escape from it and its repressive grip, even if you have to pay

quite a high price and keep away from the places and people you love.

This was something that I had taken into account, something I knew might

happen to me. So I wasn’t surprised when it became real and urgent. But

I was pretty confused, both because reality is always different to what

you imagine and because I found myself in a situation I had never

expected: becoming clandestine, not on my own or with my partner, but

with my child. In fact, he was born a few months before, and I was still

under ‘new-mother shock’ when I understood it was not the case to have

my life ruined by the bullies of the law. There was no arrest warrant

out for me at the time, but they started harassing me after arresting a

comrade who was very close to me, and claimed they had identified a

‘Roman gang’. I didn’t intend to be under pressure every day and so I

chose to go to earth. The day after my departure I learned that my house

had been searched and that my partner had been harassed, which they kept

on doing afterwards, also to my friends and relatives. I realized I had

made the right choice.

At first it was very difficult. Even if, as I said, I had pictured that

moment so may times, I was not ready either at a practical or

psychological level. For example, I had nowhere to go and it wasn’t easy

to find a suitable place. My comrades were all well known to the cops

and that period was not at all calm or favourable. I think that many

people were really worried and solidarity, practical and effective

solidarity, was not easy to practise and therefore to find. I was really

sorry about that, and I am still absolutely convinced that this is

something that comrades should discuss carefully in the future. I mean

we should try to create the minimal conditions so that comrades are not

left alone with their problems and excluded from all their

relationships.

Coming back to my time in hiding, I felt the need to take all the things

that made me feel ‘at home’ with me wherever we went: certain books,

tapes and objects (maybe I’m a bit fetishist) that kept me in touch with

my previous life. In general, we succeeded in not being noticed wherever

we went: I introduced myself to others as a mum taking her baby on

holiday to healthy resorts. It was summer and certain places would be

healthy for anyone! I played my part very well; I was very careful about

what I told anyone about us and tried to be coherent in my role. I also

made my attention more acute by focussing it on even the most

insignificant details. It must be borne in mind that people (not to

mention landlords) are very curious about a new member of their

community, and that you cannot always answer the questions (too many

questions) they ask evasively, otherwise you would seem strange. You

have to be careful because in a ‘normal’ situation questions like ‘where

do you live’, ‘what do you study’ and ‘what’s your job’ or even an

invitation to dinner that you would rather refuse, could be annoying;

and an unfriendly and unsociable answer could cause trouble. When you

are in hiding it might be dangerous either to make relationships or to

be too reserved. It is quite a delicate situation. As I said, I tried to

tell people the same story about myself but I also tried not to give a

picture that was too different from what I actually was. I mean that in

the long run (I’ve been in hiding for 6 years) it is impossible to be

completely different to what you are. It was okay, for example, to be a

mother taking care of her child, but I couldn’t give a picture of myself

as if that was my only aspiration: just to be a mother! My opinions,

considerations and way of being couldn’t be completely repressed even if

they emerged in a softer and less obvious way. At the beginning this was

one of the most difficult aspects to cope with as I was a new mother, a

situation that in itself presents a lot of contradictions that are not

easy to sort out. Sometimes fear and anxiety were too strong, and I

thought that I wouldn’t manage to keep on going for long. I often had to

suddenly run away from the place where I was staying because of the

dirty job of the media (one of the TV programs that made me anxious and

angry was ‘Chi l’ha visto’ [‘Who’s Seen Her’, popular TV programme

calling for public participation in the sighting of missing persons] or

because my child’s father was being followed (who in the meantime was

living his normal life and meeting up with me occasionally). My moves,

therefore, often occurred out of the blue, without me planning them. I

often trusted my sixth sense (which I still do), which is not enough if

it is not accompanied with the greatest attention. When I felt it was

time to have a change, I prepared my stuff in a great hurry and moved to

temporary accommodation until I found a more durable and reliable

situation.

In the long run I realized that my first choice, i.e. a period in hiding

while understanding what the judiciary wanted, would turn out to be the

only one. The game: ‘let’s see if I can fool them’ would go on. My

relationship with my child’s father deteriorated, pushing us further and

further apart. It is impossible to keep a love affair alive if the

parties involved don’t both make the choice to live in hiding. The two

lives inevitably become different and moments together are burdened with

tension because of the risks you are running. So we decided to split up

and I decided to make the big step: my child and I would go far away.

At this point I had to consider which place would be most suitable.

First of all I took into account the possibility of being able to walk

in the streets without running the risk of being immediately recognized

as a foreigner and therefore of being stopped by the police. I needed a

cosmopolitan town where I could be anonymous as much as possible. I also

had to avoid contact with comrades so that I wouldn’t be recognised.

Furthermore, having a baby would make things much more difficult: sooner

or later, be it owing to health problems, school or the need to

guarantee him normal social relations, I would risk finding myself in

the chains of bureaucracy. I therefore needed a place where structures

for non-official residents, the so-called irregulars without stay

permits could be found. A place where the minimum social needs of a

foreigner could be guaranteed and I could walk around without running

the risk of being arbitrarily stopped by the police (i.e. for no valid

reason). A place where I could go out without necessarily taking an

identity card with me and where it was possible to find a way to

survive. I chose the place and asked some friends of friends to put me

up for a while, until I acquired knowledge of the environment and the

capacity to live on my own. So I decided to venture, and crossed the

border without my child who was eventually brought to me. The separation

was terrible, and so was the fear of not making it. I crossed the border

with a rucksack on my back and snow up to my calves. I remember being

very excited at that moment, finding strength and a confidence that I

had rarely experienced before. Finally I made it, I was having a

cappuccino in a foreign country after crossing that cursed border. I

only hoped that my child would join me soon and without difficulty. I

stopped for two days at a very dear comrade’s place and then I left by

train for my final destination. I arrived on a splendid morning in May,

warm and comfortable even though I was in the north. This seemed to me

to be a good omen; and when my child joined me a week later, I felt

safer and more determined because I was also out of Italy. In spite of

this, I soon realized that the situation could become dangerously

relaxed, which I absolutely had to avoid.

So we started again... I didn’t know how long it would last but I did my

best to make our freedom last as long as possible. I think that in cases

like this you mustn’t stay in the same place for a long time even if

everything seems to be going well. You cannot avoid leaving traces if

you stay in one place (at least in Europe) for too long. You have to

move frequently, which I chose not to do. This wasn’t due to

resignation. As I said before, choices imply taking one’s

responsibilities and I had also chosen to have a child. I didn’t want to

involve him in sudden transformations and changes that only concerned

me. I also experienced periods of acute loneliness. I was afraid of love

affairs, as I didn’t trust anyone and I couldn’t find comrades to share

rebel choices with. But I wasn’t nostalgic because I had managed to

overcome any nostalgia for people and places. I convinced myself that

everything would come back to me and that I was living a break of an

unlimited duration. This break, however, was worth living intensely. In

fact today I miss the people, the places and the moments I experienced

during this long and very emotional journey. I can’t help saying, not

that it was the best time of my life (especially as my life hasn’t

finished yet!), but that it was certainly the period in which I

understood best who I was and how I face life. I also understood that

living beyond the rules and normality, with no name, surname, address,

and a false number on one’s ID card stimulates creativity, imagination,

and dignity, and makes you take back what’s yours. Time is yours,

choosing and overcoming difficulties is yours, the decision to play the

cat or the mouse is yours, the moment when you decide to say ‘Stop!’ is

yours.

And all this is also for you... wherever you are.

From setback to a prospect of life

I began living in clandestinity in 1980 and it was a necessity rather

than a free choice. At the time it was quite difficult as police

informers were springing up like mushrooms in autumn. It was thanks to a

couple of these vile disgusting people that I had to leave (not without

problems) the house of my parents in the suburbs of the town where I was

born. It was not at all the right moment, I had nowhere to go and fear

and diffidence reigned between friends and comrades. Many had already

received a visit of the police and Carabinieri, many others had already

ended up in jail and those who were clean just feared for their own

safety... and they were right. If you took someone on the run into your

house you risked being charged with ‘armed gang’ and sentenced to many

years in prison. I remember knocking on many comrades’ doors and their

astonishment and desperation: ‘We can’t help you’. The worst moment is

when you find you don’t have anywhere to go at night. Of course you

can’t go to a hotel like a normal person. At first I spent my days and

nights on trains: I took the 17.30 Milan—Reggio Calabria, reached my

destination 22 hours later, got off and eventually took another train to

Milan. I did that for days on end, it was hard but at least I had a bed

and a roof over my head, always moving. It wasn’t a solution, however,

it was just something temporary (and dangerous, as police often check

documents in stations) while waiting to find something better. After all

I was not prepared for being on the run.

I had just got out of San Vittore prison where I had been held only six

months and released due to a legal time expiry. I secured a simple job

as a representative for mechanical tools. I didn’t earn much and I used

to give all my salary to my parents. So I couldn’t save enough money to

secure a calm period in clandestinity, which would have been the best

thing to do at the time. It wasn’t easy to find someone to rent you a

flat or to find money to live on. The most difficult thing was not so

much finding a suitable landlord, but the money to live as a wanted

person, which costs a lot, believe me! A simple salary doesn’t allow you

to save enough to go to earth in a relaxed way when the time comes. One

solution was to rob banks, but when I left home I had no weapons, no

documents and very little money in my pocket. You can’t stay free for

long under such conditions. I could just count on a few armed

organisations that I knew. I was lucky, if I can say that. I knew a few

comrades who would help me, but under conditions that I couldn’t accept,

like joining their organisation as a militant serving it. So, after a

short break to reflect, I kept on looking desperately for another

solution. I didn’t want to join any organisation as the one I had

belonged to and created along with other comrades, the P.A.C. (Armed

Proletarians for Communism), had been dismantled following arrests and

the individuation of most members. I didn’t feel like joining another

one. This situation of instability lasted 6 months. I often found

accommodation in comrades’ houses but it only lasted two or three days.

As a dear comrade of mine used to say: ‘guests begin to stink after

three days’. So I went around, more and more desperately looking for a

hole to live in and helped by old comrades as regards money. Finally,

when I least expected it, I found the way not to have to depend on

others. This is the essential point: not to depend on anything that is

not your own will. You have to prepare to be clandestine before waging

war on the System... I don’t think I’m exaggerating.

What I have described till now is obviously a particular situation: the

condition of clandestinity as a setback that I had to face in a

traumatic and sudden way.

But the problem is wider if it is seen in all its aspects: to be

compelled to be clandestine, to run off, to refuse to join given

organisations whose ideology isn’t your own, to look for independence as

a way of keeping on the struggle you believe in, to have money, to find

the means to achieve all that.

At first I found living in hiding quite hard and pointless as I was in a

situation of total uncertainty. But in the long run I found the right

balance, i.e. a small group of comrades who had the capacity to carry

out big operations and launch strong attacks against the economic and

political system with a level of perfection that resembled that of the

big organisations. In the Eighties (and today) good results could be

reached by small groups of 3–4 comrades who were prepared at a military

level and had gathered essential information. Any project of attack

would be impossible otherwise.

When you live in clandestinity, be it out of choice or necessity, you

are waging war on the State. If you simply walk in the street with a

bashed up identity card, you have to make a sudden choice if you are

stopped: to run away, give yourself up or react. You can imagine the

consequences of the first two possibilities, as for the third, only your

ability and experience can save you.

It is not true that wanted people are alone, what is true is that they

feel as if they are alone. It is just a temporary sensation, which

disappears as soon as you have a document in your pocket that makes you

feel safe. The world belongs to us. The advantage of our time is that

you can always be well informed about anything, given that moving from

one place to another is only a question of hours... providing you have a

good document.

The problem is to keep relationships going. It is sure that if you have

a partner there’s only one choice: either your partner comes with you or

you must split up for good.

It is impossible to see each other in secret from time to time. Apart

from the work of grasses and the mistakes you might make, police and

Carabinieri manage to find you by systematically following those close

to you (including parents and relatives). If you decide to play cat and

mouse with them on this issue, you will certainly end up in jail in a

short time. Is living in hiding useful? I think it is. In these times of

war, the System wants to impose globalisation and one way of thinking on

everyone. Repression is growing as well as the militarisation of the

entire world. The US empire intends to wage war on all those who, in one

way or another, oppose its policy of dominion. The military budget grew

70% in six years during Clinton’s presidency. The EU is following in the

same direction and has created an army specialised in military

operations in order to defend the interests of the European

multinationals, including arms dealers that will compel countries to

purchase a huge amount of arms. The United States are the main agents of

this dynamic, as they know they won’t otherwise be able to face their

serious economic problems and national debts. Of course they are not

willing to pay for their economic crisis and are pushing other countries

into a paranoid union held together by the fear that a big front against

their worldwide hegemony could be created in the third world (see the

post September 11 situation). Let’s bear in mind that the western

countries’ main goal is to create an unstable and explosive situation in

order to justify NATO military interventions and destroy any strong

State that they can’t manipulate. Individuals and peoples who don’t

submit to the orders of the International Monetary Fund and the CIA will

end up in trouble. It is obvious that this strategy for world war has

already begun: the USA, backed by the NATO, have come into action in

various areas, which is fundamental in this strategy as it represents

Washington’s military supremacy over its allies.

In this context repression is getting stronger with the full approval of

both the left and rightwing political parties (which both win

elections), also thanks to media campaigns carried out by the four media

agencies that control international politics. The information they

spread is already a declaration of war and it is impossible to be

neutral. Their information is a lie, and they present repressive laws as

an absolute necessity. When I read the press, watch TV or listen to the

radio, I can’t understand anything of what is happening, and this is

very dangerous. The State has acquired new penal codes and new

repressive means that match the reality that the system wants to fight.

In Spain, for example, the new penal code doesn’t consider the terrorism

of the State but only that which strikes the State (be it buildings or

people). At the same time an impressive number of arrests are inflicted

on those who demonstrate, even peacefully, and quite heavy sentences are

meted out... for example 10 years imprisonment for burning rubbish skips

(like the latest laws concerning teenagers ‘offences’ approved in the

Basque countries). Repression is therefore focusing on groups and

individuals that represent rebellion against the System in general. The

message of the powerful is clear: put up with it or you’ll end up in

prison (if not dead) in the worst conditions of isolation.

Given that the struggle in the streets is losing its strength, we will

eventually have no choice but to live in hiding and organise in small

affinity groups.

Finally, I tell you, I only ever felt really free when I was in hiding.

Travel notes

Discuss ideas, actions and projects of people who want to be free along

with others who are free, in time and space, in the endless struggle

against the cancer of authority. As it is endless, it changes

continually, and faces, tensions, perspectives and possibilities also

change.

It’s a whirlwind and you are at the centre of the cyclone, on your hands

and feet, thrown towards a giant leap, and you try to ward off the blows

and hold on to an offensive position, and you improvise along a path

that many think is not worth taking. They think it cannot be proposed

because too many have attempted it already... and where are the results

of so many efforts and attempts?

Maybe those who really took up the challenge of freedom know the answer,

in the thread that links the steps of those who were, are or will be

enemies of imposed rules and commands.

They have who knows what secret joys and victories. Or maybe just an

obstinate desire to carry on and keep on gambling one’s self and all the

rest. A boost to engaging in this struggle without reserve, and so to

finding the courage to propose it to others; this means that the freedom

in one’s step and motivations has to be moulded and lived in first

person, it cannot be put off to some glorious future.

Today, in a world of slaves, banks, laws and chains, my freedom exists.

It is on the edge of experience.

Nobody pushes himself so high as the one who ignores his goal.

Cromwell

Traveling can mean many different things during one’s life.

There are monotonous journies, endlessly repeated along the tracks of

daily survival, taking millions of people to the temples of

exploitation.

In the daytime and at night, through the countryside or suburbs darkened

by the smoke of the factories and the misery of alienation; thousands of

hours and thousands of miles that change nothing... the same disgusted

faces, dirty windows, rituals to be repeated until flesh and soul are

consumed.

It is the pace of exploitation, it is a world dominated by artificial

and deadly needs and ambitions that are sweeping away everything natural

and balanced that the human race has conquered for itself through

hundreds of years of hard work and ingeniousness, in its confrontation

with the elements and other living beings on the planet, and during

hundreds of years of struggle against the inequality that other human

beings have imposed on their fellows.

Today, all over the world, what gives a meaning to one’s existence is

consumerism: consume, consume and consume again. It doesn’t matter

whether the product is material or intellectual, and it doesn’t matter

about the quality, what counts is that our purse can afford it. The most

important thing is that the economic machinery producing and

commercialising goods that are basically useless and harmful, but are

tempting in the market and can represent a goal to be achieved, keeps on

functioning.

Objects, food, experiences, kilometres, lands and culture are to be

consumed in order to make people feel satisfied with the way they spend

their days.

It is the same ‘spirit’ that makes tourism fascinating, even though the

distances to be covered and places to be reached are cut out in

pre-confectioned packets and the duration, if there are no unforseen

unpleasant events, is known in advance. Moments of recreation from the

daily routine with which people hope to find, at least until their next

holiday, just enough boost to prevent them packing their suitcases once

and for all.

After all, the tourist industry, i.e. the transformation of journeys and

the planning of territory, resources and production into commercial

goods for this purpose, offers a considerable service to the maintenance

and reproduction of the capitalist disaster. On the one hand it creates

and spreads the market to places that couldn’t otherwise be exploited,

be it due to their natural features or particular demographic and human

conditions; on the other it guarantees that journeys be protected from

the risk of unpredictability and possibly really being able to change

one’s existence.

And for sedentary people, there is the option of comfortable journeys on

the sofa in the emotion of TV or substances, legal or illegal, it makes

no difference, to deepen one’s dissatisfaction.

But there are journeys that shock our habits and certainties. Not only

ours, but also those of the whole culture that has inevitably

conditioned our way of intending life, from the day we were born to the

day we set off.

I want to talk about this kind of journey.

These are journeys with no return, as others told me, because to retrace

one’s steps or come back to the point where one started off is simply

another adventure, another journey.

Day after day, step after step, you find sensations and places, faces

and experiences that make you understand who you are and what surrounds

you. It is a discovery that transforms your way of being and strengthens

and reinforces attitudes that will never leave you, and at the same time

it offers you experiences that can shock you and take you beyond these

‘certainties’.

A journey where nothing is mapped out in advance and during which all

your truths come out and blossom, the truths that you cultivate for

yourself and which make you behave and act. Truths that are continuously

put in question and become stronger or weaker under the blows of our

merciless critique. Intuitions and ideas and firm beliefs that are dealt

with, fight with one another and finally go along with other people’s

truths in a common path. These are the criteria representing the sense

of our journey, and show us where to look, where to go, who is on our

side and who is our enemy.

I’m talking about the truths that stimulate confrontation and growth far

from the monstrous Truth that is the same for everybody, social and

ethical dogma imposed in advance that fights and fears the other truths.

You always need to be ready to face new situations. The reality you deal

with is continually changing. Sometimes these changes lead you to paths

that, at best, you only ever visited in your imagination.

This can happen to anybody... but especially to those who cultivate a

desire to shake rules and regimes and open up their todays and tomorrows

to different ways of life, social relations and ways of getting and

managing what they need, both as individuals and members of a community.

In this case the chance of taking a path that goes beyond the codes of

availability and identification grows significantly. This is proved by

the experiences of those who have engaged in the struggle for freedom,

with all the meanings that these words have taken in space and time.

It is a path along which you can find yourself because it is the only

one left. But it can also be a choice made to follow your needs,

projects and desires, in your own time.

There are rules, conventions, pieces of paper, technological innovations

that organise the existent according to the needs of production and

social management developed by the ruling Power.

There are moments when all this is too suffocating for those who want to

blow up this huge prison. Then you need other spaces, abilities and a

different dimension in which to learn to move. It is the dimension of

secrecy, a series of expedients, relations, projects and actions that

allow you to keep your initiative and strengthen your ability of

intervention without being identifiable, controllable and therefore

locatable. The dimension of secrecy runs parallel to that of the

existent as we normally intend it, it penetrates it or moves away from

it according to our needs and goals.

13:28

I’m on the train. I left the last shadows that were following me some

hundreds of kilometres away, after a quick run between the shelves of a

double exit supermarket and a sudden ride on two buses heading towards

the suburbs. Trains also stop in the suburbs and there are fewer cameras

that you can easily avoid. Nobody is following me and in my wallet I

have documents with details that are not mine. A new haircut, a pair of

glasses, some anonymous clothes and it’s not me any more. Before

catching this train I took one of those bags that it is never convenient

to keep in your house. I’ve got what I need and I know that, thanks to

the precautions I took, I don’t run the risk of ending up at some

dangerous checkpoint, unless something very unfortunate happens. I know

my route, even if I’ll have to take roads I’ve never taken before and

visit places I’ve never seen. The journey of someone on the run is not

like taking a break from daily routine. Wherever you arrive you

immediately have to understand what the space you’re in is like. You

have to find the conditions that best satisfy your needs in that place.

You try to see the dangers as well as characteristics that could be

useful. The route you take is a photo album where you put strategic

spots, underground passages and one-way streets, houses of friends,

discreet bars, hotels where you are not asked for documents and parks

where you can camp without anyone noticing you. I’m here now, an unknown

person among unknown people and I know very well what I want to do. A

false step, a word said at the wrong time, a suspicious look or gesture

that attracts too much attention to myself: these are the mistakes that

I have to be very careful not to make if I don’t want to run any danger.

It is important to move now, determined but self-assured, like a fish in

water. Here he is. My guide is waiting for me under the clock in the

square. He starts walking a few metres ahead, on the other side of the

road. I follow him and I know that in the distance I’m watched by other

eyes, friends and accomplices. Good, I think that a journey like the one

we are about to undertake is more fascinating if it is made in company.

A journey undertaken by someone on the run is not at all carefree. There

are insidious passages and you always have to consider the possibility

of a forced return to the situation you are escaping from, with all the

consequences that this implies.

You learn to live with the possibility of facing death more than you do

in other circumstances. Such a possibility is not so unlikely within the

context of an unreserved struggle against Power and its guards. It is

not paranoia, it is just one of your thoughts, the awareness that death

is one of the many possible conclusions of your adventure.

It is not at all easy to face conditions like these, especially as they

imply running away from everything that surrounds you, in a more or less

drastic way depending on the specific circumstances of your journey. And

you might feel lonely without your usual friends and loved ones. It is

as if a part of you has been torn away from your inner being. You walk,

you have your legs, your arms and your brain but something is missing.

It is a void that it would not be too difficult to give in to.

This strange wayfarer can ease the nostalgia that accompanys him with

encounters along the way, soften it with new relations and experiences

that he wouldn’t otherwise have had the chance to meet. I don’t just

mean those who are living in the same condition in this open prison

without bars, or that he wishes he could meet.

We can say that he finds a new way of facing human reality in its more

concrete needs, depressing misery and real joy and sincerity. This

condition not only depends on your own new way of making relations

(because you need them or because they happen owing to some particular

circumstance), but also on the way in which others relate to you and

interpret these relations.

As you cannot count on identity, allowing others to recognize you for

things you have done in your life or for what people say or think about

you, the clandestine rediscovers the very essence of his choices and

aspirations. He realizes that the reasons for the obstinate desire for

subversion that animates him are deep, clear and meaningful. So he can

experience a more authentic and immediate way of communicating and

making relations that he maybe never had the opportunity to experience

before. And he finds a new language to express the essence of his

character and certitudes to others.

EL MELFI

We arrived in the town the night that the local football team won an

unlikely victory in the championship. In the bars, disillusioned people

gave vent to the habitual rite of hurling abuse and drinking in front of

big screens, at times not even allowing one to follow the ball. El Melfi

had already arrived and his presence was rife in the laughter that

accompanied our night.

El Menfi is a sensation that becomes alive and takes flesh and blood, a

way of moving among people, smiling or gazing in a way that hits your

face and transforms your muscles and nerves.

If you feel his presence it will never leave you.

El Melfi was on our side in the carefree fun to which we were dedicated

in the metropolitan green of the camp where we were guests. And he made

us taste, through the voice of memory, the exceptional quality of the

few moments we lived together.

El Melfi carries in himself the unique dimension of an individual who

has run away from home and is strongly convinced in his heart that if he

put everything at stake, and maybe also lost a lot, it was for an

overpowering change, not only in his own condition.

He is the sense of coming back to something that you had begun, to a

land that loses its shape in recollection and becomes something ideal

and that pushes you to look for it elsewhere, in people and situations

that you haven’t met so far.

For this reason El Melfi shows himself to the unknown person at the

half-open door and the colourful yard full of strong smells of peasant

cooking and of men, women and children looking for a future in the

chains of an existent that crushes freedom and hope.

For this reason El Melfi runs in the woods and across the rocks to

penetrate the heart of oppression and push his knife deep into it.

We know that; we look at each other out of the corner of our eyes, and

our thoughts go farther than the half words and curiosity of our

companions of the night can go, right there where our freedom meets El

Melfi’s.

That night we threw our bags in the corner of a mattress, and at dawn

for the nth time we left an oasis of temporary convivial tranquillity

and lost ourselves in the tangle of thousands of streets and ideas. But

we were sure that we would never abandon each other on any account.

But in the end, after all this moving, discussing, shouting and

planning, you are alone. You are alone in the face of your

responsibilities and your ability, real or imagined, when communicating

with others. You are alone in the face of your tenacity and obstinacy,

which you have to hold on to in order not to collapse in the slime that

surrounds you, in the misery of human relations and perspectives, in the

small and great resignations of daily life.

You are alone, but you have something inside you that pushes you into

making new relations, plans and struggles.

Living as a clandestine therefore becomes an attitude among the many

that can complete your way of being, thinking and acting. It is a

journey that gives you a filter to interpret what surrounds you

according to criteria that transform the way you see life, the time and

space of your movements and the way you settle yourself. I try to

reflect... to see what has been done and what not. And I find myself

following strategic and improbable choices. Improbable, not because they

are not appropriate to the social context in which I find myself or

because I made some terrible mistake in understanding the needs that the

movement of struggle against authority expresses.

Improbable because they don’t take into consideration what I really am,

the roads I cover, the gulf that, in the deepest part of myself, stands

between me and most of the people I meet.

This gulf cannot be insurmountable, on the contrary it must be overcome.

You go through it one way then you come back through it the other. It is

a gulf that doesn’t prevent you from living common experiences with

others... but it is a gulf all the same, and when I run inside it I find

out what I am and what I have had the chance to know, develop and put

into practice in my clandestine journey, be it by chance or by lucid

thinking. Only in the awareness of the distances I inevitably covered in

my experiences, my abilities and my way of facing life and therefore the

struggle, do I feel I can fix my determined eyes on the paths of future

journeys.

Running away from the prison society

The repressive system is evolving. Like any sector of the big market

that society has become, it is testing new methods to control

individuals and subject them to its needs.

New measures of control have been introduced in addition to jail as

such, measures that simplify the problem of overcrowded prisons and

allow those who govern our destiny to earn a lot of money. House arrest,

for example, is a good investment: not only does the prisoner manage his

own detention, but an impression of democratic repression is also given.

And what about the electronic bracelets that are applied to the ankles

as though people were guinea pigs? These bracelets are provided by

specialised companies, so new jobs are introduced. Why don’t they call

them anklecuffs? Maybe the sentence ‘You are obliged to wear anklecuffs’

doesn’t sound good in court.

Prisons exist everywhere in our society and invest all aspects of life.

Aren’t certain factories and offices where you sell your time to get

what you need to keep on suffering and producing, real prisons? Aren’t

the structures of schools and universities where exploiters and

exploited are formed rather than people, real prisons? And what about

hospitals, where you go to die of cancer after a stressful meaningless

life; what about rehabilitation centres, where new methods of

rehabilitation back into the productive system are tested? And what are

the concrete cubes called houses, where people swear; what are the slums

where people enjoy their recreational hour; what are the supermarkets

where you can buy the rubbish that you produce; and what about the

streets where people die like flies?

Aren’t those who are compelled to work for a miserable wage prisoners?

Aren’t the idiots who perform in programs like ‘Big Brother’ their own

jailers? Aren’t all those who morbidly watch the exasperating monotony

of such programs also jailers of themselves? Prisoners in a world where

the only freedom is the amount you have in your bank account. By

creating more and more efficient networks of control and using more and

more sophisticated instruments, dominion has penetrated all intimacy and

turned all the places where people are forced to live into prisons.

More than 50,000 people are taken to prison every year in Italy alone,

prisons with bars and guards, where torture is constantly practised and

beatings are the normal procedure. Prisoners submitted to 41bis regime

in Italy and the FIES regime in Spain know all about that. Most

prisoners have committed crimes against property or related to drug

trafficking. Most are immigrants from lands where western colonisation

has left nothing but misery. ‘Laws are made by the rich in order to

exploit those who cannot respect them owing to brutal necessity’(B.

Brecht).

I will never have any respect for a society whose aims are profit and

war, and that locks up those who don’t accept it. When I heard that they

wanted to lock me up I had no doubts: in the face of the certitude of

reclusion I preferred to run away. It was an instinctive choice; a

choice that implied being taken away from what my life had been until

then but also the satisfaction of not being caught by the inquisitors.

The life of a fugitive is like that of an incognito prisoner inside the

big prison that is society. I can’t say whether running away is better

than being in an official prison or worse than being in the

prison-society. I’ve never been in jail but I know the alienation and

mediocrity of life when you are exploited very well. They are different

aspects of the same problem: that of not being free. I will never be

free so long as exploitation, prisons, and all kinds of property and

authority exist, as they are the main causes of social inequality.

Far be it from me to idealise the condition of clandestinity as a

winning formula for insurrection, but I cannot help pointing out its

positive aspects. If you must face a prison cell, it is worth trying

this adventure, which will also give you the possibility of discovering

the chances that life as fugitive can offer and the importance that this

experience can have in a revolutionary perspective. It is also a

question of principle. Your character and tensions play the most

important role when it comes to making such a decision. In fact, it is

better to stay at home and wait for events to overcome you rather than

become a prisoner of fear and of yourself. For me this is a journey on

the fringes of society during which I’ve tried, not always successfully,

to hide myself the least possible and to keep my own

individualism/identity even if I had to hide my story and my past. I’m

not scared about not knowing where I’m going to put my sleeping bag

tomorrow. I’ve always had a nomadic spirit and traveling was my school,

and the journey I’m making now is by far the most interesting and

authentic one. It is the journey that has taught me how to find new

equilibriums even if I had to keep moving. And, although with great

difficulty, it has taught me to remain an individual who struggles and

not become a shadow hugging a wall. The choice of being a fugitive

implies that you have to leave all public life, all relations with

friends and relatives forever and adopt a continuous tension and

attention in what you say and do. It is a choice that should be

considered carefully before being undertaken, a choice that brings

thousands of contradictions in itself but, if faced with awareness and

without falling into paranoia, it can keep your senses well alive and

strengthen your capacity to adapt to any circumstances. You start

looking at the country in a different way, you discover a new world when

you pick up a map in your hands, geography becomes a science that leads

you to consider territory as something global, to think beyond borders,

to look beyond forced passages and find ancient ones. It is a choice

that transforms your relations with others and with your daily life,

often in a disagreeable way. For example, when you meet someone you

know, you risk putting him/her in trouble, and when you ask him/her a

favour you have the impression that you are putting him/her up against

the wall. By contrast, solid relations, the deep ones in which

complicity is spontaneous, become more concrete and passionate.

Making friends without telling the truth is not easy. It is your

attitude and need for communication that will decide. To live on the run

is not easy. Your way of speaking, strange behaviour and the lies you

have to tell surround you with an air of mystery that could be

interpreted negatively. Everyone has a dear friend whom they trust

completely, and that way everybody gets to know everything. Discretion

is a virtue that is getting more and more rare.

I think that the safest way is to keep moving continuously so that your

enemy has very little chance of locating you. You absolutely must avoid

telephone calls to relatives and friends, visits and letters addressed

to known places. In fact, investigators turn their attention precisely

on to these people because they know that you will naturally feel like

listening to the voice of a loved one and letting him/her know that you

are all right. You have to bear in mind that there are at least two cops

on all long distance trains and that there are police stations in all

the big railway stations. You have also to know that if you are too

untidily or too flashly dressed you will attract attention. The total

militarization of the country compels you to find spots where you can

move about, the weak links of the net through which you can pass

unobserved, to see which hours of the day are more convenient and which

are the most convenient places to spend the night. It is not at all nice

to be hunted down, and it is even worse to know that the repression also

and mainly concerns the people you love.

Living in hiding, however, even if done with dignity, is still only one

side of the coin. The other, the thought of your imprisoned comrades

being submitted to humiliation and violence, cannot be forgotten.

Living in hiding is a challenge, an occasion to test your ideas out, a

choice that leads you into a life full of emotions, a reckless life that

can be very sad at times, as all choices are. Living in hiding is like

making a gamble, day after day, a gamble on your present because your

future is a dark cloud, a series of miserable dates in your diary. At

first you dream of cops and escapes, then you dream of visiting friends

and turning up in your usual bar. In particular, I have to say that my

dreams have changed and become terribly real. I often ask myself if

running away is still reasonable, then I realize that I will never want

to enter a prison. I’ll keep on running, as this is my nature, and I’ll

keep on cursing those who persecute me.

It is a choice that radically changes your way of life, your vision of

life, your judgements about things and your feelings.

You become a bit hard and you can only express yourself freely on the

rare occasions that you meet friends, but then time is always too short

to discuss what’s going on and what has changed. You have to content

yourself with a reality seen through the eyes of others. I think that I

could have many more possibilities if there had been a solidarity

network and widespread discussion on the question of living in hiding.

To offer space for discussion and real possibilities of surviving to

those who are compelled to hide is in my opinion an essential part of

any revolutionary experience. I think that the life of fugitives would

be easier if reference points existed, as they are indispensable in

order to keep in touch concerning any needs: information, legal

questions, solidarity, money. I don’t intend to put forward a proposal

for the creation of any formal structure with fixed responsibilities in

the long term, I am just thinking of a coordination of individuals and

groups that want to show their solidarity, or who already do that, to

those who are hit by repression. I think that such a coordination could

open gaps in the walls they are building around us, a coordination that

takes into account relatives and friends of the persecuted, who are also

hit by repression. And if the latter are sensitive to certain subjects,

discussions could be suggested to help them understand repressive

mechanisms better and get in touch with others in similar conditions and

maybe create their ‘own’ way of organising solidarity. If you hide

yourself too much, break off all contacts and disappear not only

physically but also from your projects, then you definitely contribute

to your own isolation. In this way you would be playing the same game as

those who want to get rid of us. For this reason it is extremely

important that if you are compelled to run away you keep on living with

dignity and don’t lose your chance to act or intervene in discussions.

As you have always done.

Getting rid of frustration

Why did you decide to leave your community and a situation that was

quite well known to you, even if it was also difficult and dramatic?

What did you expect and what did you actually find?

Maybe that is precisely the point. A situation can be known to such an

extent that there are no aspects to be changed, there is no will to

change your life or even to keep on living. Life is continuously

threatened and you can be killed from one moment to the next. But it was

not always like that. The threat of being killed has been hanging over

all Algerians, not only me, for the last few years, since the Nineties.

Before reaching this situation where your life is threatened, it was

already dangerous. When I was at university I was involved in a union, I

was an extreme leftwing activist. When the terrorism started, therefore,

politically active people were its main targets, I realized that I had

to become clandestine in order to act because I couldn’t do it openly

any longer. As long as the risk was that of being physically attacked,

both me and my friends and relatives, I could carry on. But when death

came to threaten the whole family, including the children on their way

to school, the only solution for me was to leave the country. To leave

doesn’t mean to surrender and go, no way. There existed a kind of fork:

on the one hand the Algerian secret services, on the other the

terrorists. At the time I was working for an Algerian public company,

the only telecommunications company in the country. We received letters

inviting us to stop working for the State. But if you stopped work the

police would come to your house claiming you were a terrorist; so if you

escaped from the terrorists, you had to face the police. I was disposed

to risk physical aggression for that before, but when the concrete risk

of being killed came I had only one choice: to enlist against the

terrorists or become a terrorist myself. I was not interested in either

of these options as it was not my struggle. The situation was forcing

people to take a position for one side or the other. The price was not

only having your house burnt or losing your job but also risking your

life and that of your relatives. This is the main reason that pushed me

to leave the country. Economic reasons are also involved in such choice

of course, but in my case I had a well paid job that allowed me to

survive. After the fundamentalist parties took power, however, and

religion became politics and society was subjected to moral rules,

freedom was no longer possible. The simple fact of going out with your

girlfriend carried the certitude that you would be assaulted. A girl is

not allowed to go around wearing the clothes she likes and she is

compelled to cover herself with a veil. It is precisely personal freedom

of choice that is totally threatened. It is a social problem because all

aggressions remain unpunished. For example, gangs of fundamentalist

students patrol the campuses and if they see a couple they will

certainly beat them up.

Who can resist and risk every single day?

Economic concerns were not relevant for me as I earned one million

dinari in Algeria, 100 euros more or less, you can live on this, as

prices are not so high there. Over the last few years, however, owing to

terrorism, economic reforms, sabotage of factories (they say perpetrated

by terrorists, but the Algerian State is clearly involved as it can sell

off factories for a dime), life has become much harder from the economic

point of view, and buying power is diminishing at a hectic pace even if

you have average wages. Prices have gone up 10%, 20% with the excuse of

terrorism. Once upon a time the State gave its support and covered the

price of basic needs (flour, bread, milk, etc) up to 80% so that people

were actually paying only 20%. All this ended with the advent of

terrorism. Deep economic reforms were introduced so that my salary was

no longer enough to lead a dignified life. Besides this there stands a

dream, a dream of Europe where you can live in freedom, and I’ve always

had this dream.

You have often mentioned terrorism. Can you explain what you mean with

this word? What is the situation in your country?

The terrorism I am talking about is that of certain students’ or local

organisations. The leader is the Imam of the mosque and his aim is to

impose moral rules on society: women cannot wear miniskirts or drive a

car; men cannot let them go out alone, and if they do both of them will

be punished; it is absolutely forbidden to drink wine to a such a point

that fundamentalists went around smashing coffee-shops in the towns. The

police, who controlled this movement, left them to do their job. When

the latter won the elections in Algeria the military stopped the

elections and jailed the leaders of the fundamentalist parties. The

reaction of the most hardcore militants was to take up arms and carry

out massacres.

Once upon a time you could fight them with ideas, make propaganda

against them and resist their threats. Now they don’t limit themselves

to burning your house or throwing acid on women, they also kill you and

put bombs on buses. For example, when I worked we had to go out of the

building at least five times a day as they claimed there was a bomb on

the second floor, and all of us ran off. They sowed terror: 200,000

people died in Algeria between 1992 and 2002. They were harmless people,

people who couldn’t escape abroad or take up arms against terrorists or

defend themselves against the Algerian secret services. Algerian

security agents and the military infiltrate the terrorist movement and

have no intention of defending citizens against massacres, on the

contrary. If you stay there you have to kill, as you have no hope of

surviving or fighting back. I don’t want to kill anybody; I don’t want

to be a terrorist. There was a massacre one night in Algiers, I was

working there at the time, 400 people were killed in one night, shot or

butchered. The people who managed to escape from the village went to the

nearest military barracks, not police headquarters, you know, when you

are in danger you think that the authorities will help you, well, the

military shot these people and killed them. This is terrorism.

Terrorists have killed common people, poor people who couldn’t react,

they have killed farmers. Many farmers have been killed in isolated

spots over recent years with the complicity of the State. This didn’t

happen by chance: there is no private land in Algeria as all the land is

cultivated by communities and by people from the villages and it doesn’t

belong to anybody. Now the land is being sold thanks to a process of

privatisation that is bringing a lot of money to the State and the army.

But there are farmers who don’t want to leave, and it is exactly there

that people are being killed, from the eldest down to five months old.

Businessmen coming from abroad also want to buy in Algeria. I say

terrorism because it is not known who kills who, any of us can die but

we don’t know why, we don’t know who is going to kill us, we don’t know

what is going to happen next. If there is any sacrifice to be made for a

cause, that’s ok. But here the cause is incomprehensible and

uncontrollable and it is pointless to be killed under these conditions.

So you tried to emigrate...

I expected to find freedom here, individual and collective freedom. I

was completely wrong as concerns individual freedom, as for collective

freedom I realized that it is not so simple: as we ignore reality, we

are seduced by the western media that give us a false image of it. And

then emigrants coming back on holidays don’t talk about the real

situation. As I said before, it is a moral question: in a society where

nobody tells others their problems, emigrants who live a very hard life

abroad say that they are ok in the foreign country, that they can do

this and that. On the contrary for me it was different.

The first place I arrived at was a little village in the north of Italy,

where a friend of mine had come one year earlier. I used to talk to him

on the phone and it seemed that it was ok for him; he never talked about

his problems even if I can imagine what they were like. I used to say to

myself: no matter what problems I find in Italy they will never be like

the ones I face here... mind you, there are Algerians who emigrate to

Nigeria! As life is at risk in Algeria people also experience social

frustration: there is no freedom of expression because of both the

morals of society and the rigidity of the political system. You cannot

fail to be terrorised when you see the head of a friend or a relative of

yours hanging on a village signpost. And when you are terrorised and you

agree neither with the military or the fundamentalists you have no

choice but to leave the village.

When I arrived in Italy, I found this friend of mine who was an

agricultural worker and lived alone. He tried to get a job for me too.

In fact, as soon as you arrive you need to survive. I started working in

a vineyard and there I experienced everything I would never do to

others. What do I mean? I mean that I worked from 7am till sunset or

even 10pm and got 6,000 liras per hour. At first I was happy with that,

the important thing was not to starve. I kept on working hard and I

experienced things that I would never have imagined. I didn’t know that

such things existed; they don’t exist even in Algeria. At the vineyard

everybody cut bunches of grapes whereas my friend and I had to carry

baskets along the line, very hard work indeed. I remember it was very

hot and I told the woman boss that I needed to rest and asked to cut

bunches instead. She didn’t accept, as she wanted us to do the hardest

job. Then we were paid half what the others were, who were all Italian.

I found disgusting discrimination, which shouldn’t be possible in

Europe, the land of human rights. We were not even allowed to stop and

have a cigarette. I was very angry and thought of looking for another

job, but the village was small, I knew only one Algerian and didn’t find

anything else. So I kept that job, as I had to pay the rent.

Before finding a house to rent, we lived in an abandoned uninhabitable

house with an unsafe roof, which was given to us by another boss. We

lived there for two months, and then we rented a house in the village. I

kept on working there: it was ok to endure physical suffering, even if

it was not easy to adapt myself, but I could keep my dignity and pay the

rent. Physical suffering can be overcome, I repeated to myself, this is

just a passing moment. When the grape harvest finished and also the job

I felt alone. I didn’t know anybody and the people of the village were

scared and didn’t trust us. Not only ignorant people but also leftwing

militants were unwilling to open up to us. People considered me inferior

because I was from an ‘underdeveloped’ country. So I said to myself: I

must absolutely leave this place now.

Meantime another friend arrived and in three we rented quite a big house

in the village that was not so expensive. We stayed fifteen days in the

house thinking about what could be done, and we decided to get out of

the village and see what there was outside. We decided that it was not

what we wanted and maybe it wasn’t the same everywhere. So we decided to

go to a bigger town and approach some organisation, certainly not the

Northern League. We looked for the premises of the communist party, we

went there and talked about ourselves and said that we were Algerians

and wanted to meet local leftwing militants. Even if our Italian was

quite bad, we managed to make ourselves understood. They sent us to the

CGIL union as they said there was a member of the communist party who

spoke French and maybe he could help us. We talked to him for hours, and

then came back home. What for? Clearly that man was not in the least

touched by our problems, frustrations and the message we wanted to

communicate. We needed to find someone who could understand us and do

something, but we didn’t find anyone.

It was quite disappointing to find out what the western political world

was like. Political parties and the so ‘enviable’ western democracy are

not any different from the corruption and the tricks that characterize

power in Algeria: the same way of ruling and the same structure of

government, parties and unions. I can even say that they are

complementary because one cannot exist without the other.

We stayed in the village a little longer. The last friend to arrive in

Italy got a 6-month student visa and requested a stay permit. A couple

of months later he went to take his permit but was given a deportation

order instead. He had to leave the country within 15 days. At that point

his situation was worse than mine as he had a deportation order, so we

remained in the village. Problems soon arose between us. We were always

stuck at home and didn’t go out because there was nobody around. Maybe

people peeped at us from their windows to check that we were not

stealing anything. Moreover we were afraid we might meet some

Carabinieri, who would certainly arrest us in those conditions if they

found us alone in the street. Once a car of the finance police stopped

us. We spoke in our language even if we could speak a little Italian,

but it was better to pretend we didn’t understand. They told us we had

to go to the police headquarters to get stay permits but we knew that we

would be given expulsion orders. For this reason we didn’t go out and it

wasn’t easy to get on together. My friend who was here before I arrived

had regular documents and he wanted to leave the house, which of course

was rented in his name. The situation was very difficult: I couldn’t go

back to Algeria or sleep rough. I didn’t want to accept the fact of

having to sleep rough; it was something I had never considered in my

life. I mean sleeping outside not because you don’t have any money but

because you don’t exist, don’t have documents and can’t go to a hotel.

Nobody would say: you can sleep at my place tonight. I didn’t want to

accept this situation. So I decided to call a friend of mine who is now

in America but used to live in Italy. I told him I wasn’t ok and he gave

me the number of a friend who spoke French. I called him and found out

that he was Indian, married to an Italian woman and had children. I told

him I was living with a friend who had to leave and that I didn’t have

documents. He invited me to go and stay with him in his house. When I

spoke to him, there was a female friend of his there. Even if I spoke

poor Italian, I understood that she was telling him he would be fined or

risked going to jail if he gave me hospitality. But he said he would

risk going to prison to help me. So I moved into his home and lived

there for two months. He even tried to find a job for me in another town

but he didn’t find anything.

Then the work season in the village started again and I didn’t want to

disturb them further. I was living with a family and sometimes there

were arguments between them, which is normal, but I felt uncomfortable

even if my friend kept on saying there was no problem. I found another

boss who could give me accommodation and I came back to work in the

countryside, especially as I didn’t have any perspectives there, I could

only wait. But for what? I had to move.

I made an agreement with my new boss: I would be paid one million liras

per month and he wouldn’t declare I was a worker. Of course nobody in

the village, including him, knew that I was clandestine... it would be

trouble! He told me he wouldn’t declare I was his worker in order to

avoid paying a lot of tax and I accepted because I had no other choice.

I knew that my wage was a misery when compared with the working hours

and in addition I had no insurance. So we decided I wouldn’t work every

day and would stay at home when there was not much to do. I worked for

him for 6 months sometimes from 5am till midnight, and then I decided to

take a 5-day holiday to go and see my Indian friend. But the boss was

not happy and called me to ask me to come back to work. I came back,

talked with him and defended the agreement we had made. Everything

seemed to be ok; I worked for another two months without stopping and

then resolved to have a rest. This time he threatened he would sack me

if I didn’t turn up. That would be a tragedy for me but I didn’t intend

to accept his threat. I wanted him to pay me 10,000 liras per hour

because I was angry about his threats. He was scared that I would

denounce him and vice-versa. In the end he paid me not exactly the

amount I had asked but neither the misery he wanted to give me. So I

went away. I did a few days work here and there and sometimes I stayed

at home. Then the end of the season arrived and so did a very bad time.

Meantime my friend who had come with a student’s permit got a stay

permit for legal reasons. He left the village and I was left alone with

the other friend whom I had argued with. There was nothing to do from

October until March, just snow outside and us quarrelling inside. Once

again he said that he wanted to leave the house and I was left with no

choice but to get in touch with my Indian friend. He gave me hospitality

for another three months and tried to help me find a job and a house,

but it was useless. He had to go to India for 2 months and I didn’t want

to stay in his house with his wife and children. I had nothing to do,

which was terrible and really destroyed me. I’ve got a sister who lives

in France, where she is regularly married. My friend offered to take me

to her and a female friend of his agreed to come with us. We left one

night and tried to pass the border, which was not at all easy owing to

the controls. We tried to find a mountain pass but it was December, a

real disaster. We had to turn back but my friend was determined to go

through customs. He was always dressed smart, with suit and tie, and was

convinced we’d make it. On the contrary I was about to give up and told

him I wanted to go back to Algeria. In the end we tried. It was terribly

cold, it was 1am and there was nobody on guard. As the friend who was

driving saw that there was nobody there, she accelerated and soon the

guards appeared. She didn’t know she had to slow down and wait for them

to call; they already saw us as people on the run. They stopped and

questioned us. I gave them the details of a friend of mine who had got a

stay permit and the guards had confirmation from the police

headquarters. Then they accused my friend of being involved in smuggling

illegal immigrants. He was offended and said he wanted to be formally

denounced so that he could denounce the guards. In the end they let us

go. The French customs was one hundred metres further on. My friend

decided to get out of the car and talk to the guards. He said we were

very late and that we had already been controlled by the Italian guards,

and everything was all right. So we arrived in France, we slept in a

hotel and the morning after I went to my sister’s.

In France I found far more problems than I had experienced in Italy.

Even if I knew I was able to maintain myself I could do nothing, which

made me suffer once again. To want to do something but not be able to is

a condition that leads you to madness.

From a situation of solitude or even of troubled relations with the

people you worked with, you arrived at a place where you would certainly

find more people of your country and also your relatives. What was this

experience like, which in a sense reminded you of your country?

Relations with relatives are quite obvious. My sister knew I was

clandestine and she didn’t mind. The problem was in myself. In the

morning my sister woke up, got her children dressed and went to work.

Her husband did the same whereas I stayed there doing nothing. This was

not good at all. My relationship with the people of my country was quite

particular because there was a big problem: I absolutely didn’t want my

parents to know about my conditions. I couldn’t cope with the idea that

they knew how I lived. So I obviously never told anyone how things were

going and that I was compelled to call on someone and ask for a place to

sleep. The other Algerians didn’t tell me about their problems either,

so our relationship was quite superficial. We met, had a chat and a

drink together and then everyone went back home.

I also made many friends there who were clandestine and had exactly the

same problems as me. They were immigrants who, like me, had emigrated

during the second wave of migration, in the Nineties, to escape

terrorism. A special decree was issued by the French government for all

these Algerians, who were thousands. French intellectuals and a certain

political class pushed the government into adopting this solution, which

is a kind of asylum similar to political asylum. It allows you to stay

in the country and wait but you don’t have the right to work, actually

you don’t have any rights, you just have to wait. I still know people

who have been waiting for 4 years.

In the end 8 months passed in France, whereas I had planned to sort out

my situation in two months. Then the Napolitano decree was issued in

Italy, a kind of amnesty. My Indian friend called me one day and offered

to help me regulate my situation. I was very happy because I had wanted

to stop living as a clandestine for many years. There was still the

border to be crossed but I was able to make it thanks to him. As soon as

I was back in Italy I applied for documents and had to wait ages. You

need a job and accommodation in order to get a stay permit. How can a

person without documents get a tenancy agreement? That’s absurd!

Thanks to my Indian friend, an Egyptian sorted my accommodation problem

out. As for the work contract, my friend employed me as a member of the

household staff. In the end he managed to put together the dossier that

would allow me to make a request for a stay permit. I had come back from

France in September but I was not given anything until May. I just got a

document stating that I was waiting for a stay permit. At least I

couldn’t be arrested, so I started moving around looking for something

to do. I went to a big town, which was a great change for me, as I could

finally get out of the village! I found a job giving out fliers, but I

still had the problem of where to sleep. I was paid 30,000 liras a day

and had to travel in order to reach the town where I worked. The most

important thing, however, was that I could move, and even if my wages

were nothing I had the chance to know the town, its people and places,

not the monuments of course. The documents, however, didn’t arrive and

at a certain point I felt I was a burden on the family that gave me

hospitality, and I said to myself that I had to get the thing sorted out

as soon as possible. I had already caused a quarrel between husband and

wife as I was still in her house along with their children. And if I got

a stay permit, what would change? I realized that my situation was

related not only to a stay permit but also to the dreams I wanted to

realise.

For example, I had the chance to attend a welcome centre, which was

something I’d never imagined encountering in Europe or anywhere else in

my life. I couldn’t imagine that there were people compelled to

experience the situation I was enduring day after day.

To go there and ask for hospitality involved a total lack of dignity for

me, as I’m in good health and, most importantly, my father spent money

to allow me to study. I found it unacceptable to be in a situation like

that. So I went into the centre run by the church in the town suburbs,

where I slept with people of other communities, Albanians, Tunisians,

Moroccans... but my stay permit still didn’t arrive and there was also a

time limit for staying at the centre, you can’t stay there for long and

need to find another one after a while.

What kind of document did you have to be able to move around while

waiting for the stay permit?

I had a receipt while waiting for an answer to my request. So I stayed

in the centre that’s run by the church and kept on working giving out

fliers. But I didn’t have enough money as I got 30,000 liras per day and

sometimes I only worked one to three days a week. So I decided to work

in agriculture again. I called someone in the village where I had

already worked, he told me there was a vacancy and I started working in

the village again while still sleeping at the centre. It meant that I

had to travel (the village was 60 kilometres from the town), work all

day long and come back at 11pm. I felt it was something I had to do

especially as I couldn’t do that before... I mean, I was afraid to buy a

ticket and travel before.

Finally I got a stay permit, a year after I applied for it, and the

first thing I did was to buy a ticket to Algeria. Of course I didn’t

have the money, in fact it was my Indian friend who paid.

I acted this way because I had another big problem: my girlfriend was in

my country, which might seem nothing, but it wasn’t because she wasn’t

doing so well in Algeria either. The main difficulty was that her

parents knew about our engagement, which was unusual in that country,

it’s not like here where you can invite your fiancee home. It was like a

word of honour... and I couldn’t ignore it on any account because my

father and a series of social factors were also involved. We have been

together for ten years and during the three years I spent here I didn’t

see her at all, which was another cause of suffering, for both me and

mostly her. So I bought that ticket and a week later I was in Algeria. I

saw her and my friends again and stayed there for a month and a half. On

my way back to Italy I wondered where I would go, given that I couldn’t

go back to that centre. Once again it was my Indian friend to invite me

to his house as he had to go to India and said I could stay with his

wife and children. I went there until I said to myself: ‘Stop it now,

I’ve got a stay permit, I went to Algeria and saw my girlfriend and

friends, what am I doing still in this house?’. My Indian friend

suggested I take my time as it was not at all easy but I couldn’t keep

going on like that.

I enrolled in a council centre and got a room with another six people.

It was a terrible experience that deepened my disappointment in my

search for freedom. For example I had never imagined having to

experience things such as concealing drinking some wine. To drink wine

is a risk in Algeria too, but why was not I allowed to drink wine in

Italy, a European democratic country? In that centre drinking wine was

forbidden and I had also to leave the place at 7am. Anyone who goes to a

place like that is forced to do so because they have no money for rent

or cannot rent for other reasons. At 7am, therefore, even in winter when

it is 10 C below zero, a woman who works inside as a guard tells the

people to get out. At 9.30pm all the lights are off and you have to

sleep. A terrible disappointment to me, heavy treatment: wine cannot be

drunk because ‘Moroccans make trouble’ and discipline must be respected.

A real disaster! At the age of 30 I have to be told what to do because

they want me to be the way they like: what rage, what frustration...

Then although I had a stay permit I had to work in agriculture again.

Actually the stay permit didn’t change my economic situation much. I

also did temporary work, for example in factories, where I was even

injured. As I said before, I had never imagined this kind of situation.

I still hoped to get a job in Italy where I could use my diploma. I was

really confident in my skills and that I would be able to do this job in

Italy or elsewhere, especially as some friends of mine who had studied

telecommunications, like me, had found jobs in the field. The hope of

finding this kind of job kept me going. I did hard work in the hope of

finding something else later and so I also did temporary jobs for 15

days while staying at the welcome centre. Unfortunately the time limit

for staying in the centre arrived and I didn’t know what to do. It was

out of the question to go back to my Indian friend. So a friend of mine

who had also finished his time in the centre, and I, decided to rent a

house. Actually we had no other choice.

It took days and nights... If we answered some advert directly we were

denied everything and if we asked some Italian friend to make the

telephone call for us, when we arrived on the spot we were told things

like: ‘My daughter has rented the house to her boyfriend’, ‘My husband

has already rented the house’, all excuses not to rent a house to us.

The last week before expulsion from the centre a female Moroccan friend

found a house and she knew I was looking for one too. The landlord told

her that he could rent the house for 3 million liras because he had done

some work on it and he would also leave a washing machine. My friend

said she would decide with her husband. She was not my wife and this was

only an expedient for getting the house. They thought we were married.

When we went to see the administrators of the building, my friend wore a

veil and I said she couldn’t speak Italian. We wanted to avoid falling

into contradiction if they asked us any questions. It might seem easy,

like a game, but the situation was actually very serious as we risked

ending up in the street. My other friend and I agreed to pay 3 million

liras per month but obviously we didn’t have the money. A friend working

in another town, however, sent us some money, so we gave the landlord

1,700,000 liras plus the money for the rent and settled in the attic.

One week later my friend found a job with his diploma and his situation

improved considerably. Fifteen days later I found a job in a big

telecommunications company. We would therefore apply for a loan, which

we would repay with our work.

Now I had to keep my word with my girlfriend’s father and marry her. As

they say in my country, if you make a promise it is like a gunshot that

goes out and cannot be taken back. It was also a question of dignity

concerning my family and hers. So I went there and got married.

When I was in Algeria I got the money that we had borrowed from the

friend who had already helped us to pay the landlord: four million

liras, which is quite a large amount in Algeria if you consider that you

cannot earn more than 200,000 liras per month there.

As I came back to Italy after getting married, the struggle to bring my

wife to Italy began and with it new frustrations arrived. In fact,

neither my stay permit nor the job with my diploma could make me feel

free. I didn’t feel as if I had found what I was looking for. The

problems had simply changed.

What are the actual differences and perspectives in passing from illegal

to legal immigration status?

As you wait for the stay permit you have the illusion that your

situation will change, but when you get it new problems and frustrations

come as well. At least you have hope when you are waiting for the stay

permit.

In the end it is worse owing to the new problems that you have to face.

For example, when you have a baby in Italy you can get money for it from

the council. But when my daughter was born we were not given anything

because we were foreigners.

That is not a minor problem compared with the ones I had had to face

before: my daughter has been discriminated against since birth, as she

is considered inferior. I’m disgusted by the fact that she also has to

face problems that once only concerned me. And I can’t do anything

because it doesn’t depend on me. It is exactly the same as when I was

clandestine, that’s why I said that the frustration is the same. When I

was clandestine I couldn’t decide for myself but had to wait for others

to decide and give me documents. Even if I knew I had the physical and

intellectual skills to improve my situation, I couldn’t do anything

about it.

I’m experiencing the same problems concerning my daughter even although

in a different way.

Another problem is the illusion that you can improve your economic

situation. It is true that in Algeria I couldn’t even afford to buy a

shirt and that made me angry... I woke up at 7am, came back home at 7pm

and I got a wage that didn’t allow me to afford anything. I felt the

same anger when my wife was pregnant and we asked the administrators for

permission to use a lift in a part of the building that was close to our

flat. We preferred to pay in order for her to use the lift but this was

denied us, in spite of the fact that we regularly made written requests.

How funny: when I said that if my wife had any problems they would have

a weight on their conscience they answered: ‘We can’t have weights on

our conscience because we are catholic’. The fact that my wife had to go

up five floors when she could have used a lift made me so angry,

especially because I couldn’t afford a house with a lift. The problems

had changed but they didn’t let me sleep at night all the same.

If once I was scared I might be discovered as a clandestine and face

deportation, my fears doubled after I had papers. As a clandestine I had

to repress myself because I couldn’t have a public life or react to the

abuse inflicted on me owing to the lack of papers. Actually I am even

more controlled now that I have papers, both in my public and private

life. I am surrounded by terrible fears. Nobody is pointing a gun at my

head, but there is this closure, this invisible encirclement that is the

fear of going back to the beginning or even of being deported to Algeria

after enduring so much sacrifice. In fact the stay permit is nothing; it

is just a way for the authorities to control you. I feel the same fear I

had when I lived as a clandestine. I also realize that I was safer when

I didn’t have any documents because Algeria doesn’t accept people

without documents. On the contrary they can deport me more easily now

because they have my passport and I am more exposed to deportation. I

don’t need to kill someone to risk this, being sacked is enough. There

is also still frustration at the economic level. Of course my daily life

has changed for the better because in Algeria an attic like this, where

you can live peacefully with your family, is incredibly expensive. Here

I’ve got the attic but the fact of not being able to use a lift produces

the same frustration. If I said such things to someone living in Algeria

he would say that I’m crazy, but when you face problems like these

directly they acquire a new dimension. Compared with living as a

clandestine it is still a question of surviving. You are not safe with

the stay permit, as you can’t get involved in any political projects

with others. If I take part in a demonstration, be there clashes or not,

I risk double because I’m an immigrant. And what is the result? Well, I

can’t go on a demo even if I’d like to. It is such a waste of energy not

to be able to take part in any actions, be it a demo or anything else. I

want to do something but I can’t because I’m an immigrant, not because I

killed someone or robbed a bank, but due to the mere fact that I’m an

immigrant. This is the biggest disappointment for those who are looking

for freedom and hope to improve their conditions and those of their

family.

Living in clandestinity was a passage in the conditions you had to face,

whereas being an immigrant, with all that you left behind in the search

for freedom and the fulfilment of your aspirations, is something that

never ends and which you can’t escape from. It is a status that pushes

you into overcoming all difficulties and going ahead to find some

improvement that can cancel the immediate frustration. Although you know

that you might face more frustration when you find yourself faced with

whatever problem. It seemed to me that your condition as an immigrant,

more than that of clandestinity, affects your life day after day and the

perspectives ahead of you. Being an immigrant affects every aspect of

your life, especially as you don’t choose to emigrate but you are

compelled to. When you have to emigrate you always have the hope that

you will improve your situation, but you really just change your

problems and frustration. If you are frustrated because you can’t live

your sentimental life or because you don’t even have water to drink you

can’t calculate the level of your frustration and say that this problem

frustrates you more than the other. It is exactly the same thing.

You live as a clandestine in the hope that it will come to an end and

you face this condition without going crazy because you have the hope

that it will change. When you are no longer clandestine you realize that

your problems are still there.

Maybe the only way out as concerns being clandestine is not to get

identity papers, which you think will help you, but simply really be

yourself and follow your aspirations without the frustration that has

always accompanied you.

A train in the night

It is not recommended that you catch the night train for many reasons.

But if you are in a hurry it is the only train that allows you to go

through the whole country in one night. It is always full of clandestine

people trying to cross the border, people full of hope and desperation

like me.

I resolve to catch this train because otherwise I will be obliged to

spend the night in the cold or pay for a hostel. It is something past

one am when we arrive at .. There are few people on the train tonight

and we are three or four in the compartment. As usual, two or three

groups of youths get on the train and wander among the seats, clearly

with shady intent. As I know the route quite well, I keep my rucksack

safely between my legs, whereas my documents and money are next to my

body. As I live in the street I’m quite wary. In this no smoking section

there is also an old woman with parcels and suitcases well placed

between the seats. She has also noticed the strange movements. An hour’s

journey later I realize that someone, one of the kids, sits down behind

me. I’m half asleep, so I wake up and see that another one is sitting in

front of me. I look at them without saying anything. The lights are off

but I can guess they are looking at me too, in defiance. They must be

fourteen or fifteen, but they are already adults with their short hair,

their older brother’s trousers and ordinary jackets and shoes. I see

them getting up and going to the next coach. I take advantage of the

passage of the ticket inspector and go to the toilet to have a big

spliff that makes me quite stoned. It is very good grass and I have to

pay attention not to let the smoke out.

‘Cowards’: the old woman is cursing the same kids who have tried to

threaten her. ‘I’m in the street too, shit!’. She looks at me

disconsolately and I understand that she doesn’t trust me either. The

first daylight brightens up the mountains far away. Even if there is a

lot of snow, it is going to be a nice day. It is early in the morning

when we arrive at ... A group of pupils going on holiday are standing on

the platform with their bags. The train starts again; a few more hours

and I will be able to get out and eat something.

I hear the doors open behind me, and then I see them. There are three of

them with hats, uniforms and the badge on the jacket. While the first

asks the old woman for her documents, the other two point to me. There

are three passengers in the carriage, and three cops. ‘Good morning,

passports,’ they say with forced courtesy. They have just started their

day’s work, as I can smell coffee and cigarettes on their breath when

they transmit my details to the police headquarters.

I’ve got an upset stomach, and sweat is dripping from my chest and

armpits. They stare at me for a few minutes, ask for my details then

wait for a communication from the headquarters. We are going through an

area full of tunnels and there are disturbances. I must keep quiet, I

say to myself while looking at the landscape and trying to absorb its

colours. I concentrate on the houses made of stone and their

characteristic roofs. I am thinking this is the last time I will be able

able to enjoy a landscape.

I wonder if my partner wrote to me and I also wonder how she’ll know

that I’ve been captured.

The youngest cop is not married, whereas the other two are: they have

well-ironed shirts. They have given a kiss to their wives before going

to work. They are hunters and I’m the prey. When a gazelle feels the

lion’s teeth sinking into her neck she abandons any attempt at

resistance. I’m suddenly wrapped in a strange calmness. I feel like

laughing and say to myself: ‘After all I knew this moment would arrive

sooner or later, it was even too good but now the day of reckoning has

come’. Where will they take me? It is the first time since I left that I

have been subjected to such a control.

They obviously have problems of communication with the headquarters. The

youngest gives me back my document and apologizes. I look at him as

though I wanted to say that they know where they can find me and that

I’ve nothing to hide. As they go, I get up to relax and have a cigarette

in the corridor. I ask myself whether I should sit down or to get off at

the next stop. But the route is still long and I don’t have any chance

of escape. If they get an answer from the headquarters they will come

back to me. I think of the possibilities that are left open to me: pull

the emergency brake and jump out of the train, lock myself in the toilet

and destroy anything compromising that I have on me.

The old woman was looking at me suspiciously when the cops were trying

to identify me, and saw how nervous I was afterwards. When we arrive at

.., the old woman gets ready to leave the train with all her luggage. I

offer her my help but she firmly refuses, while I notice with great

relief that the cops are getting out too. I will be at the border in a

few hours.

I resolve not to think about what to do next; I’ve got the entire day to

do that.

There are no cops at the station but I prefer to take a walk. I eat a

sandwich and look at the sea and its waves in front of me. The weather

is fine here. I enjoy the last spliff I have. It tastes so sweet, like

freedom.

Nomad for something precious

I’ve often heard that prison is a setback for revolutionaries because

those who are really convinced of the need to change the existent

radically and act consequently, will sooner or later face ending up in

jail. In fact it’s obvious that the enemy reacts by sharpening its

knives when it faces a threat to its existence, even if the latter is a

mere possibility. Phonetapping, following, intimidation and any other

kind of attention that the repression can bring about will become more

and more concrete, and the cages of control will surround us. If we

reckon that ‘getting the situation under control’ is not enough to face

the ‘evil’, then we will have to physically separate ourselves from the

social context and the danger we think it involves.

I think that, without falling into paranoia, this consideration must be

always taken into account by all those who decide to undertake the many

roads to their freedom and that of others. I’m convinced that nothing

could be worse than finding ourselves quite unprepared when faced with

the possible consequences of our actions, as though we were prey to a

dream that suddenly crashes against the thick concrete walls of reality

leaving us unable to react. I don’t mean that it is possible to be ready

for everything that might happen to us in advance; but at least we have

to think of hypothetical ways to react to certain situations in order to

keep on cultivating and arming our desires and practices.

I’m developing this argument because I had already thought about the

eventuality of living in hiding before it knocked on my door. Of course

I didn’t have any precise ideas about it but it was in my mind as a

possibility between controlled freedom (the one we experience when we

are not locked up) and reclusion. I had consequently prepared myself

concerning where to go and how to do it. I’ve never agreed with comrades

who consider living in clandestinity as the worst thing that could ever

happen to you; on the contrary I’ve always instinctively perceived it as

a stroke of luck and a chance to be grasped at once. I’ve never thought

that this choice implied hiding oneself somewhere and feeling hunted

down and deprived of all dignity or the will to act. And I’ve never

thought that running away means escaping one’s responsibilities: in this

case it was the judiciary that presented the bill, and I’ve never drawn

up any contract with them. On the contrary I think freedom is something

precious that is worth defending at any price.

I didn’t consider living in hiding as something you decide without

taking into consideration the conditions that go with it. The chance to

put this choice to the test came to me at a time when I either had to

accept it or face the bars of a prison. As for the unknown dimension of

living in hiding, at first I only knew that it would allow me to move

freely and look at the sky without seeing it through the contours of the

prison bars. This thought, strengthened by the practical attention that

I had dedicated to it in the past, was sufficient for me to decide to

run away.

If I had to say what living in hiding is like in a few words I would say

that it is like leaving without knowing your destination, for an

unlimited amount of time and with a one way ticket. It is therefore very

different from the journeys we are used to: it is not a parenthesis

between before and after but is a life spent on the move. As I’ve always

had a passion for nomadic ways of life to such a point that I’ve always

identified life with movement, that doesn’t scare me. During my period

in hiding I’ve had the chance to reflect on the different attitudes and

characters of human beings according to their sedentary or nomadic ways.

When you are on the road you meet travellers like yourself or people who

are settled in a given place. I observed that certain friends I made

wouldn’t be able to go on living if they had to leave their homes. Those

who don’t like travelling inevitably become creatures of habit, their

days are spent in the same framework and they establish strong, deep and

permanent relationships as only those that grow throughout the years can

be. Their life goes on in a specific place and there it takes form and

content, and it would lose its meaning anywhere else. On the contrary,

those whose nature is nomadic do not feel tied to one place, they adapt

easily and immediately feel, from experience, if the place where they

have temporarily settled is all right for them or not. These are quite

important aspects for those who are compelled to live in hiding. A

clandestine person cannot allow themselves to be identified and knows

that everywhere one goes one must make the decision to leave again

without any kind of impediment. It is a decision that has to be taken

out of the blue because things could go wrong out of the blue as well.

But let’s come back to the idea of leaving without forgetting that this

kind of departure is an imposition, as we are talking about the

condition of being a ‘bandit’, i.e. someone who cannot come back. What

you leave when you run away is a whole life composed of friendships,

relationships, beloved landscapes, familiar sounds and smells, and

things that you care a lot about: it is therefore everything that

contributes to creating your identity, and that’s no small thing. The

nostalgia for what you’ve lost can turn into a pain; a continuous pain

that can be so deep and lacerating that you cannot accept the present

serenely. I felt this pain too, sure I did, but I’ve always

circumscribed it and limited it in time. And I got over it in the

pleasure of being free and ready to experience life day by day, and all

that was going to happen. After all, as a person in hiding, you carry

within yourself the sensation that you have nothing more to seek in your

past and no certainty concerning the future. According to your

character, this can either throw you into absolute frustration or make

you feel dizzy at the thought that you are totally free from any links

and able to become anybody or nobody. The choice is up to you.

Paradoxically, I often asked myself, what if it were precisely the

condition of being clandestine that is the dimension of absolute

freedom.

To conclude: you need to be ready to travel light, without your past.

You have to be new and wear only your enthusiasm and the promise that

you will never look back.

So, someone on the run arrives somewhere. His or her first thought is to

create another identity, which doesn’t only mean inventing a name with

which to introduce oneself. It also means that you need to create a

concrete, plausible and legal life in order to be able to make

relationships and avoid raising doubts about youself. You must therefore

create a past that can be talked about and a valid and credible reason

for being in that place; you also need to respect the time and pace that

the latter requires and pay attention to your looks so that they conform

to your new identity. It is a real job that requires a good memory, time

and energy, and I have to say that it is not at all easy to act a part

and get used to answering when you are called by your new name. It is

not easy to talk about yourself, about your life and interests,

especially when you had always done that, as I used to, with your

comrades and didn’t need to give many explanations, maybe doing wrong

sometimes. It is sad to pass for a collectionist of dreams when your

greatest passion is to subvert the existent and struggle openly against

authority and injustice...

So once you have got over doubts and suspicion about your interlocutor,

you find yourself talking about yourself by mixing truth and lies, real

memories with imagination; and you have to bear in mind that you must

remember what you have said and that it has to fit in with your new

personality and identity. You must constantly weigh up your words and

comments and always hide the reactions that you normally have when you

see certain things or hear certain kinds of news. In other words, you

have to be extremely lucid all the time and constantly keep the balance

between who you are and how you are presenting yourself. I often found

myself involved in conversations that left me exhausted from the huge

effort I had to make to keep concentrating. In fact, no matter what

discussion you get into, it will always reveal a part of you and your

way of behaving with others. Moreover when you meet someone particularly

interesting and your relationship with him/her grows through time, it

will be difficult to manage as you will find it hard to keep on playing

your part and avoid being discovered. Obviously you might feel quite

uncomfortable at some point, as you know that you are deceiving the

person you are dealing with and that the latter will never know you for

what you really are. Then you will feel nervous because even a simple

invitation to dinner might put your friend in serious trouble.

On the contrary, to sort out the problem of identity with the custodians

of order is much easier. For the latter the question is just a matter of

looks: you only need to become one of the many, nothing more or less,

avoid going around during ‘unusual’ hours and attending suspicious

places, especially regularly.

It is an effort of concentration, as I was saying before, it requires a

state of lucidity that must be held for long periods. It is precisely

absolute attention that you need in order to avoid enervating paranoia,

endless doubts and general stress. You can trust nothing other than your

own attention to make sure that everything is okay and the situation is

under control. You also need to look to your safety and make sure you

are always free.

If you are a person in hiding, a normal event might appear suspicious to

your eyes; and it is true that the more you look at people with

suspicion and insistence the more you catch their attention. Suddenly it

can seem that everybody is looking at you or that someone is following

you. Then panic might come, and that is always difficult to cope with.

The only way to get over this shocking state of mind, and you must know

this very well, is by keeping your mind and nerves cool, sharpening your

senses and doubling your attention. Besides this, however, it is

recommended that you keep your eyes wide open to what is happening

around you. You have to learn to recognize faces, particularly the

features of the people around you, in one second flat, to develop a

photographic memory that allows you to recognize them at once and so be

able to spot a new face that might appear in the usual environment

immediately. A clandestine person looks at the present through different

eyes to those of people who are not in his/her condition as he/she sees

and fixes his/her attention on details that escape those who are not

clandestine. One day, as I went into the square of a big town, I noticed

two policemen in plain clothes asking a passer-by for his documents in a

very discreet manner, almost hiding under an arcade. The square was

crammed with people and I realized that no one was aware of what was

going on, not even those who were strolling a few steps ahead: I was the

only one who saw that it was a police identification and that there were

two cops standing there.

As it is hard to keep this kind of tension for long, you need to have a

place where you can go to relax. The most important place is undoubtedly

that where you spend the night. You must be sure that no one can come

and find you there and that you really are alone once you close the door

behind you. Then you find yourself with your books, your comments, your

proposals, and free from your new identity.

It is best that the people you meet never know the exact location of the

place where you live. Your photos might appear in the newspapers next

day, and anyway the more people know where you live, the less you will

feel safe in that house.

If you have the impression that someone suspicious might have followed

you and that your place is no longer safe, you will never be at peace

until you leave it. In order to keep your place as long as possible you

shouldn’t do your shopping or attend bars and public places in the

surrounding area (sooner or later someone you know will see you going

into your house). On the contrary, if you go to places far from your

house and someone recognizes you, you will have time to go back home,

pack your things and leave. Packing is the activity I’ve undertaken most

in clandestinity, as what you always need to achieve is the certainty

that you are the only one who knows your secret. This awareness will

give you the serenity to engage in any initiative whatsoever.

If you used to have the impression that you never had enough time to

cultivate your interests, when you are clandestine time is the only

thing you won’t be short of. It is important, however, that you learn to

consider the timing and places of your interventions in a different way

in order to avoid frustration. I’m saying this because when I chose a

specific area of intervention, and decided to act promptly and quickly

in events concerning it, I often experienced a sense of impotence. In

fact, if you are living in hiding news from your own country and

comrades might reach you with months of delay, when it is too late to do

anything. Furthermore, when it comes to moving away from somewhere you

need time for gathering information about routes and means of

transport... you can’t just do things at random. I don’t mean that you

have to forget where you’re from, what you have to do is to look at it

in a different way, by planning long term projects and paying attention

to the details that you didn’t have time to do in your previous life,

even if you knew they were important. Consider that as a person in

hiding you have the chance to intervene rapidly in situations that you

didn’t even know about before. I realized how deep-rooted my idea of

borders between States was before and how little attention I had paid to

what happened ‘beyond the borders’, as I was also busy in the many

activities that life offers.

When you change your perception of time, you also change the way you

act. If you dedicate hours to a project and get to know all the details

involved, then realise it, the time you spent in planning it comes back

to you and gives more significance to every minute. Your sensations are

amplified by the total tension of your whole being in what you are

doing. It is a lucid awareness that keeps you away from the distracting

business of the people around you at that time.

I have reached the torrent after hours spent in a train, then walking.

It is hot and I can feel my shirt wet with sweat under my rucksack.

No one followed my steps along the road and through this little valley,

which means that still nobody knows who I am, where I am going or what I

am doing.

I walk along by the river, looking for a spot where I can stop and free

myself from the weight on my back and relax. I soon get the chance:

there is a large, clear pool of water surrounded by stones and a little

further on there is some shade under a few trees. This is the place.

I get rid of my rucksack and soon my lungs fill with air; I take a

couple of deep breaths and am full of energy once again. I have a quick

look around and I realize that I really am alone.

I get into the water, step by step, without hesitating, and reach the

middle of the pool. I plunge in and abandon myself to this embrace with

my face pointing to the sky. I am enveloped in a strong sensation of

freedom: at the same time I feel I am part of the totality and free from

any ties.

Soon my thoughts go to those locked up in jail who can’t enjoy any of

this.

Of course it is hard for me, but nothing will make me turn back. Moments

like this and the sensations they fill me with are sufficient to forget

any tiredness, they are the oxygen that keeps me going. I try to fix

this moment inside myself, my closed eyes turned towards the sun:

Now, in whatever part of the world, I am free.

The man at the window

I lived in a little town for many years; a normal life, as they say.

School, a job and a lot of time to dedicate to myself, my interests, my

passions and enjoyments.

I saw the world through a window, like a film full of images, some sad,

others joyful, without it making too much impression on me as though

what was happening around me was just the inevitable scenario of life

going by.

From my window I looked at other people’s lives and saw them as though

they were a frame around mine. Let’s say I was too busy living my life

to bother about that of others.

But I realized something was wrong and that is why I was not indifferent

when some protesters passed under my window or when some event in my

little town disturbed the monotony of my days. Moreover, this curiosity

and the attraction that I felt towards those who wanted to change the

scenery of everyday life pushed me into looking for these people,

listening to them and sharing experiences with them.

In the end I realized that I must do something to prevent the

wretchedness I observed from my window from entering my life

irremediably. So I engaged myself along with those I had met, so that

the scenery around us became an adventure worth living together without

laws, privilege and privileged people.

I started dealing with all kinds of problem and subjects along with the

others, who were certainly only a few compared to the population of my

town. And we tried to find concrete solutions that erupted into daily

life along with our discussions and proposals. We gathered and spread

information mainly concerning the most hidden and sliest aspects upon

which the collective wretchedness imposed on us was based: we

demonstrated in the streets and clashed with those who wanted to prevent

us from doing so, we tried to oppose any kind of abuse, or at least we

made it clear that not everybody would passively accept what power

wanted to impose.

We had very modest means perhaps, but we were armed with our tenacious

desires and the firm conviction that something, even if only in our

little town, would never be as before or as authority had planned. We

shared enthusiasm, ideas and practises for quite a long time, which also

gave me the possibility to widen my horizons far beyond the limits of my

little town and to meet people and situations similar to those I was

experiencing. I realized that big experiences are no more than the sum

of the little everyday ones: little rebellions gain strength and courage

from the bigger ones and give consistency, concreteness and reality to

the latter.

Then, step by step, the mosaic started to fall apart and we began to

take a distance from one another. Some also took a distance from

themselves, as they were anxious to find a decent place in the world,

which in spite of our efforts was not changing.

The situation was collapsing all around us: on the one hand there was

the most determined opposition to our demands, on the other there was an

unscrupulous use of our actions and ideas that were now being used to

renew the wretchedness, to perfect and reproduce it for future

generations. We were offered the opportunity to play an active role in

this process of developing the existent, i.e. the moderate voice of

dissent, and not a few of us accepted it. Of course they were not the

first to go over ‘to the other side’ nor were they the last. It is well

known that power and the crumbs it can distribute are attractive to

those willing to climb the ladder of success or who simply never really

believed in the dreams they used to boast about.

We remained very few, the strong and pure ones. In the long run we were

not so strong, and we were no longer pure. On the contrary we were

dirty... with impotence, regret, the lack of horizons to exhilarate

us... dirty with sad and bad drinking and with human miseries great and

small. Someone’s body and brain went off with the help of psychoactive

mixtures, before they fell into the abyss of doubt and desperation far

from the thrill of freedom that once touched them. For the few who

remained, the techniques of dissuasion employed by the guardians of

order lost both the formalities of the law and the tricks of the

cultural-democratic puppet-theatre. As long as juvenile exuberance was

recuperated and recycled into quieter spheres of opinion, those who were

still on the road of rebellion were simply seen as a question of public

safety, a threat to the tranquillity of the little town. Greater power

was therefore given to the repressors in order to persecute them.

What was left of our hopes and projects that we thought would illuminate

the future?

I could have gone back to my window, waiting for unforeseen events to

change the situation. But something still stirred out there, and it was

worth moving, even close to my town, to try to open up a glimmer of hope

in the darkness that was enveloping me day after day.

So I went away in search of the enthusiasm and engagement that were

sadly disappearing around me. In the long run, however, I realized that

my expectations concerning the destruction of the existent were not felt

with the same passion by those around me. Many of them were happy with a

few words, with their sphere of relations that gave them an illusion

against the alienating and devastated society. As a consequence, even if

ideas, attitudes and practises were still there, the projects and

initiatives that were carried out didn’t really try to subvert of daily

life.

I came back to my window and scouring the horizon, looking for a new

spur, a tiny signal to start again. But most of the time the colour I

saw in the street was that of the uniforms coming to exact the

retorsion.

Meantime I carried on with my small actions, trying to convince myself

that my sensitivity and hope weren’t clouded by the darkness of my town.

In fact, it was a demonstration of resistance, and the proof that things

can be done, even if many didn’t go any further than that. But in spite

of all the messages I spread in the wind, my own voice was the only

echo.

It was quite an absurd situation... I was looking for paths to share

with others, even if it implied adapting my tension and skills to those

of others. In the end there was no answer, only frustration, as I had

reduced my aspirations to a dimension that was not mine.

What was I turning into? Maybe a priest looking for good souls, or

rather a ghost or shadow that runs up against the wall with others not

wanting to come near it. And if I were really resentful I would say I

had turned into a plague victim who brought bad luck, as I was a sworn

enemy of order. After all, the forces of repression concentrate their

efforts on the few who don’t give up, given that they don’t have many

other objectives left. I made a decision. I wouldn’t accept the

inevitable fact that I was being spied upon, nor would I measure my

aspirations and actions according to what the imposed conditions

established. Control and coercion disturb our life enough, I found it

unacceptable to become my own controller.

So I decided not to let myself be tracked down any longer. I decided

that my time, space and experiences didn’t deserve to become fodder for

my enemy’s appetite. When I made this choice I knew it was an adventure

that would not necessarily be final, but which could put me in some new,

unique and immutable condition in which to nourish my desires and

activities. I rather found myself in a parallel dimension that allowed

me to look for the completeness and freedom of movement that I lacked:

other places, other instruments and other conditions to keep on

stressing the ideas that had marked my life for a long time.

Sometimes I come back to the window but I know that my view is going to

reach wider horizons than those that I saw in the beginning.

Experiences of banishment

I have had occasion to experience some kind of banishment for short

periods of time: life in hiding, prison, and expulsion. Even if they all

are conditions that are imposed by repression, each one is very

different from the other. I am going to talk about them, as they are

experiments in freedom.

However, I intend to expose the thoughts that these circumstances raised

in me rather than describe their practical aspects. I’m going to take

into consideration the ‘inner’ dimension involved, then I’ll try to draw

some general conclusions. This is the way I prefer. In fact, as concerns

the many events I experienced, I tend to remember the ideas and

emotional states that characterized them. I’m going to use narrative,

articulated discussion and short notes. I’m sometimes going to quote

other people’s words, but only because these words had a decisive

importance for me on these occasions. And only some distant echo in the

reader’s own experience will allow him to distinguish these notes from a

mere literary exercise. My most extreme experience doesn’t concern fear

or the privation of freedom. In one of his first world war poems, the

poet Ungaretti writes that one day he felt as though he was ‘docile as a

fibre in the universe’. The poet, however, uses this expression to say

that he thought he was part of the universe, whereas my experience was

shocking and bewildering. I remember Ungaretti’s words coming into my

mind as the most appropriate (when your heart throbs certain

correspondences of the mind push your ideas into a strange universe

called intuition). I proudly changed ‘docile’ into ‘fragile’ and tried

to convince myself that the latter was the word the poet actually wrote.

But I didn’t only feel as if I was ‘fragile’, I was also ‘docile’. Why?

I had got lost in a wood. While looking for a way out, I fell down a

cliff. Luckily my rucksack prevented me from breaking my back, but I was

in such pain that I remained motionless on the bed of a dry river for a

night and a day. I soon finished my food and water. I spent days trying

to climb and find a spot from where to orientate myself, and one night

in the rain. The fourth day passed and besides being hungry and very

tired I started to feel a strange interior dizziness. At a certain

point, the different aspects of my character started arguing with one

another as though they were different people. Their discourses were so

realistic that every time I woke up after falling asleep with my legs

wrapped around a trunk to avoid falling down, I couldn’t say if I had

really met someone or if I had just been dreaming. Two voices were the

most frequent: the pessimistic one and the optimistic one. The former

attacked the awkward ingenuity of the latter with arguments that I will

never forget. The quarrel was mainly about the relation between man and

nature. The optimistic one interpreted the shapes in the wood (branches

of trees, paths between the bushes, etc.) as signs of a way out and

cheered up. The pessimistic one sneered at this reassuring

anthropomorphism as he claimed that a wood didn’t give any signs, it

just was. But the optimistic one didn’t give up; on the contrary he

created deities for himself as companions of travel. It was when I slid

on a sloping rock dozens of metres up that I really felt as if I was a

‘docile fibre in the universe’. Out of the blue I realized that freedom

is often no more than a question of... balance. So many desires,

projects, and discussions on the power of the individual transforming

his life: a few centimetres further and everything was finished. I

regretted pathetically that I wouldn’t be able to write anything to the

world on whose fragile borders I was still advancing hesitantly. I

became strongly convinced that words are medicines (the Greeks intended

them as both medicine and poison) that keep us apart from the absolutely

other that Nature is. Wild nature is not as it is depicted in

primitivist-illustrated magazines; on the contrary it is a terrifying

place because it is ‘mute’—a place of total communion and at the same

time of absolute loneliness. Extreme solitude is a medicine too because

it is a relation in which others participate in the form of absence. As

I was lying on the rocks of that dry river, I found myself thinking of

what my comrades would have said about that circumstance, and I laughed

heartily. My comrades...

Words as medicine. I experienced my most intense relation with theory

the night that I had to light a fire using a book of Hegel. I can’t

describe my hesitation when I tore out the pages nor can I describe my

thoughts around the fire or the light that Hegel’s dialectics assumed in

the unusual way it was being used. I realized that, not by chance,

Heraclitus the obscure used to see in the flames of fire the sensitive

expression of things becoming reality.

Kafka says that logic cannot resist against those who want to stay

alive. I decided that each time I talked with certainty about the

struggle and radical projects I would always remember what I felt when I

was on that rock.

Life with its necessary illusions had always taken me away from

awareness of my ‘docility’ towards the world. In fact, I couldn’t have

done anything had such awareness been alive. What can we destroy and

what can we build if we don’t know whether we will be there a moment

later or not? While I was in prison or in confinement I promised myself

I would do many things once my imprisonment was over. Of course it was

not so. Life absorbs you and makes you forget the punches you take head

on. But I realize that the sense of vacuity I experienced in that wood

has penetrated me like a note that secretly accompanies any affirmation

I make. If I were to listen to that rocky demon more often, I would talk

much less.

Upon those bare rocks where eagles build their nest, I guessed how

strong the thought of committing suicide could be. The idea that you can

say goodbye to the world at any time makes life wonderful. ‘Go ahead,

dare further, no one can compel you to live!’: through the obstinate

voice of that demon we can face any enemy. In fact, all blackmail

collapses on the sharp point of this kind of awareness. On the edge of

an attractive cliff, in the absolute emptiness where fiction disappears

and only what counts really counts, I met unreserved love.

In other words, the optimist prevailed with reasons that reason doesn’t

know. When one night in the rain a kind of cosmic voice (my personal

Mephistopheles) proposed a pact to me, I felt an irrepressible euphoria:

‘If you renounce your ideas I will take you out of this wood’. I said

euphoria, which is what I felt when I refused the offer. Still

rhetorical even when he is delirious, some will say. After all, even our

hallucinations reveal who we are.

It might seem strange, but my experience as someone in clandestinity is

all there, in the experience I’ve just told you about. The rest is a

series of details. We only really remember what shocks us.

As I listened to my various selfs arguing in the wood, I understood the

meaning of Nietzsche’s affirmation that what we call ‘I’ is only an

illusion of grammar, our life being just a space which innumerable

entities in conflict pass through. After that, I have often found myself

thinking about the concept of identity.

What really frightens us is our lack of control over what surrounds us.

I am sure that the few days I spent in the woods affected me far more

than the months I spent in prison. Everything is, or seems to be, under

control in prison, at least it was like that under the conditions that I

experienced there. Of course your freedom is taken away and you hate

your jailers; but everything repeats itself in the same way, with you on

the one side and them on the other, and you can carry out your minimal

project. In other words, there is a code. There is a big difference

between the prisoner who absorbs this code until he becomes part of the

total institution and the one who cannot accept it. But even the most

determined rebel uses certain codes. On certain occasions, on the

contrary, all codes collapse because nothing, not even our lack of

freedom, is sure. I think that lack of all guarantees can lead to

insanity. In this sense, I perceived better what a radical critique of

psychiatry is.

I have often woken up suddenly with the fear of not having water (and in

such cases it has always been a great pleasure to find a bottle close to

my bed); on the contrary, I have hardly ever dreamt about prison.

As for the concept of identity, the condition of being in clandestinity

is a remarkable experiment on the subject and can be far more useful

than a lot of philosophy books. Coeurderoy said that we should be able

to change our name every day. That is also what I said to the cops when

they questioned me, and I added that the concept of identity is

authoritarian. The not so relaxed reaction of the cops showed me clearly

how categories of identity are dominion’s pivotal point.

What is identity?

A certain image built up with a number of elements comes into play in

our daily relations. Our past and what others know about us become quite

habitual aspects, and we don’t usually give them much thought. When we

become intimate with someone, we open up to him or her what is most

precious to us, affections and ideas that in themselves have a story. A

clandestine person, on the contrary, continuously has to create his or

her identity, which has to be coherent in order not to be suspicious. To

get used to a name that isn’t yours is a very particular experience,

which might be impossible for someone (maybe because it is very similar

to ‘I is another’ by a clandestine of poetry called Rimbaud). An

interesting and useful aspect of this condition is that it helps you to

develop a basic skill, i.e. it teaches you to talk about yourself with

extreme sincerity without mentioning any details about your life. It is

not so much a capacity for abstraction but rather the ability to

transform your experiences into a distillation of thoughts and emotions.

A different concept of identity is maybe what is left over from this

process of distillation. In the course of this interior alchemy you must

throw away something important, which can be painful. For example, owing

to my ‘character’, it was hard for me to renounce to the public aspect

of my subversive activity. (I use the inverted comma because I can’t

forget a sentence of Valery’s notebooks in which he said that what we

call character is something temporary). Surely, a comrade on the run is

always thinking of his identity at risk and how to get involved in other

comrades’ projects (do they remember me?). In this case coherence, which

in social relations is a guarantee of the ‘regularity’ that shelters us

from fear and chaos, and which is often far less obvious than it might

seem, assumes a very particular dimension, where the tension between

theory and practise is at a more interior level. This coherence can

sometimes be reached by paying a high price in the sphere of affections.

I chose not to be too rigorous when I had to go clandestine (as proved

by the visit police paid me a few months later...). But I can guess how

one can open or close oneself by paying constant attention. I understand

the comrade who says he knew authentic freedom only as a clandestine,

when he traveled incognito through countries and people. I had a little

taste of this one night on a hill, as I looked at the lights of the

towns from the distance of the fugitive. Those who are banned can

overturn their condition and become bandits.

One’s attention (as regards the territory where one moves, one’s looks

and behaviour, and unwanted contact with comrades) cannot be improvised

because it requires the necessary time and energy. But other comrades

with more experience than me can explain this much better.

Living in hiding and being held in prison are very different conditions

also as regards the perception of one’s identity. I remember having felt

a deep and almost euphoric joy when from my cell I started writing to my

comrades whom I hadn’t been in touch with for a long time. I was writing

with ‘my’ name, I was receiving letters and talking about past

experiences and future projects: all this filled my heart and days with

joy. Comrades talk about prisoners, organise solidarity initiatives and

make public their ideas. Those who live in hiding are even more

isolated. Their coherence is proud and difficult as they cannot have an

external insight. May the wanderers be remembered.

Living in hiding is an experience of strong relations and complicities,

but also of great solitude. The demon of nostalgia often visits you, and

brings you memories that you considered buried: a far off childhood

friend, the smell of the shop where you used to go as a child, a girl

you loved when you were teenager or maybe the beautiful woman who passed

in front of you the day before; and then words, places, songs,

everything seems to conspire to make you feel nostalgic. Nostalgia is a

strange world as it can make even a stupid Sanremo song sound sweet to

an anarchist...

Everybody knows the difference between nostalgia and sadness. The former

is a black-coloured sensation, but it’s a black that gives you

something. Have you ever noticed that gloomy people have a distracted

and scrupulous kindness of their own? As they are caught by nostalgia

for their past, they develop a particular sensibility for unknown

people, as if they wanted to fill the emptiness with a promise of

happiness. Living in hiding is more or less like that.

Ferré’s lyrics, which I quoted at the beginning, have just come back

into my mind. Curiously enough, I found them written on a wall with a

felt-tip pen. It is singular that anarchists are depicted as nostalgic

people, isn’t it? ‘They have black flags of hope/and melancholy as their

dancing partner’... Well, I think that living in hiding has turned me

into this: my irreducible optimism has become more melancholic, as

though it were accompanied by a gypsy tune.

The homologation of activities and gestures is making all critique more

and more inoffensive. We often have the impression that speaking is

pointless. Living in hiding and being held in prison were all very

different experiences for me from this point of view. In prison I

experienced the power of words. To speak to the guards, director and

staff in a certain way, or to speak to other prisoners during the

‘sociality’ time has practical effects. Rebel words are likely to bring

about action; therefore they are feared.

If you are clandestine, the power of words is sometimes limited, and

this is not only for security reasons. It can happen that you think

twice before speaking because what you say risks looking as if you are

giving a lesson, because it can’t be put into practice (especially where

others would be exposing themselves publicly whereas you can’t). So you

prefer to keep quiet, unless you find a new form of complicity in a

common project. After all, you are even freer to act because you have an

advantage over the enemy: the latter doesn’t know where you are...

A form of punishment is adopted in some still existent primitive

communities, which they consider the hardest. It is not physical

torture, nor imprisonment or ostracism. When someone commits

particularly serious and blameworthy acts, the community react by

treating him as if he didn’t exist. As they don’t look at him, speak to

him or about him, the members of the community make him invisible for a

length of time. They say it is an unbearable punishment. Our

individuality is built up and completed by a continuous game of

communication and reciprocal recognition. We are invisible to one

another when we each feel guilty by our very presence, rendered awkward

and anonymous by the homologation that prevents us from establishing our

unions and talking sincerely without mediation.

This is very similar to the condition experienced by millions of

clandestine people in the world, mainly the economic refugees of the

capitalist massacre. They are invisible and compelled to run like

shadows along the walls of metropoli to expiate the guilt of being poor

and foreign. Clandestine people frighten us because, through them, we

perceive our condition as precarious, uprooted people, submitted to a

gigantic productive and technological apparatus beyond our control, and

shunted from one material need to another the meaning of which quite

escapes us.

I’m glad that this booklet also exposes the experience of someone living

in hiding for reasons other than those of many comrades. This doesn’t

mean that we have to eliminate differences, but that we have to

formulate a radical critique of borders and identity papers from a

social point of view. Unfortunately, the idea of subverting the

categories of dominion (worker / unemployed, citizen / foreigner, legal

/ illegal, innocent / guilty) was our idea in the first place, and not a

real trend. Categories must be destroyed in the struggle; it’s not

enough to simply claim that they don’t exist. The condition of millions

of legally inexistent men and women, as a well-known servile Italian

political scientist called them, could be a painful yet formidable

occasion to destroy all collective and authoritarian identities. Those

who are invisible because they have been deprived of words and

relationships often look for some collective identity as a form of

defence. This is why fundamentalism exists, a speculative product of

capital’s negation of differences. A discussion on its social causes is

urgent, as it is certainly not with intellectual argumentations on the

inexistence of god that it is possible to formulate a practical critique

of religion. The need for communities in a world where the only

community is that of consumer goods, is getting stronger and stronger

and is easily manipulated by nationalistic and fundamentalist scourges.

The invisible people who are surrounded by hatred and indifference,

women and men who are faced with an ultimatum are more and more

numerous: they are either subjected and forced to integrate or deported.

Common grounds for rebellion, created from immediate needs in order to

go forward, are far more than solidarity. Our very freedom is at stake

because the possibility of social war is very likely to be transformed

into the certainty of ‘racial’ war. It is in the overwhelming chaos of

languages and cultures that new desertions and unions need to be

experienced...

How is it possible to be invisible to power and its guardians—in other

words, how it is possible to defy identification—and at the same time be

socially visible? I think this is the main problem that regards all

clandestine comrades. I also think that we can begin to talk about our

wanderer comrades starting from the condition of wandering on a large

scale, so that our comrades are less distant.