Force and corruption in politics

Title

Creator

Dolci, Danilo

Language

English

Year

1968

Subject

Crime.

Political corruption.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Extracts from Saturday Review, July 6, 1968.

This is an exposure of the crimes, corrupt practices, and violent methods now used in practically all the countries of the world and a general suggestion for a cure. The author is a distinguished Italian leader and writer.

Fulltext

■ This is an exposure of the crimes, corrupt prac tices, and violent methods now used in practically all the countries of the world and a general sug gestion for a cure. The author is a distinguished Italian leader and writer. FORCE AND CORRUPTION IN POLITICS In a world which for the most part is weary of mur ders, betrayals, and useless death, a more direct rela tionship can be established between the human con science and the movement for change, provided that this movement is as forceful as it is nonviolent. Moreover non violent action is also revolu tionary in that, with its pro found appeal to the human conscience, it sets in motion other fordes which use other revolutionary methods. Everyone who aspires to the new makes a revolution in his own way. One gets more inspiration for struggling for a new world from the writ ings of true revolutionaries than from those of the true quietists. In contrast, those who think that war is the highest form of struggle, the way of evening out inequalities, still have a very limited vision of man and of humanity. Any one with genuine revolu tionary experience knows — and must admit — that in order to change a situation one must appeal, whether explicitly or tacitly, to moral rather than material consi derations, for they take pre cedence; that a call for more clearly defined principles and a higher morality has a powerful force; and that revolutionary action is, there fore, also that which helps to evolve a new sensitivity, a new capacity, a new cul ture, new instincts — human nature remade. To succeed in building a world of peace we must have the boldness to embrace the new, however incovenient or dangerous it may be or seem to be, to immerse ourselves in undertakings bigger than we are. The powerful, the Panorama exploiters, the real outlaws can hardly maintain them selves in their positions un less they are supported and defended by those who have sold out to them. But there is as yet no sufficiently clear and widespread undertanding (and this is one of the best indications of the ambi valence and inadequacy of the traditional religious) of the need not to collaborate with and to boycott insane initiatives. How are we to explain, for example, that even per sons of undoubted ability and professional rectitude will consistently work for newspapers which, behind their facades, are readily seen to be mean, false, even murderous? The process of self-justification is often ex tremely primitive: the yalue of the work performed is judged by the price paid for it, and the' recipient’s moral opinion of himself is based on what his stock is quoted at. Another easy alibi is to say that one will burrow from within, be a Trojan horse. Very often, this am bivalent attitude is support ed by the excuse of technical specialization or the myth of pure science. This is who it was possible to build and operate Buchenwald, Aus chwitz, and Mauthausen. Is there also at the bottom of all this a certain costly moral naivete? By accepting money and power where these are most easily to be had, people may think they are doing right by coming to grips with their own pro blems first. Thus in various parts of the world first-class minds are being wantonly misused to produce and cle verly advertise mediocre or useless or harmful products; immigrate to countries which scientists by the thousand can offer them better re search. In many areas, mem bers of parliaments will change parties four or five times, sometimes ending up on the opposite side, merely in order to remain afloat; while leaders who have reached high office through popular support will sell themselves to the highest bidder, with an effect on the confidence of the voters that can be easily imagined. It is because of this widespread readiness to sell or barter oneself that the client system August 1968 can rise to the national and international levels. To choose according to need and to one’s conscience, to reject any occupation or opportunity that will involve one in exploitation and as sassination, or merely doing something one does not be lieve in, is a basic prerequi site for smashing the client system, from the level of the street to that of international affairs. To exert leverage you must have a solid point of support. This elementary principle of all strategy makes it neces sary for the nonviolent revo lutionary to be especially careful in his choice of ful crums. . His disklike and hatred of his personal ene mies will exert no leverage, buti his just indignation at intolerable methods and si tuations will. He will exert no leverage if his support is rotted through, but he will if he relies on the solidarity of those who are most concern ed and best informed; he will exert no leverage by resort ing to savage cunning or lies to destroy the adversary, but he will if he is the best spokesman of the common interest and if he supplies unimpeachable evidence to show that the masses are being oppressed and strang led by inhuman minorities. Exerting leverage by using as support the highest laws of morality and the best laws on the statutes, or, for that matter, even minimally de mocratic laws, has this ad vantage: since they are laws, even though they may not in general represent the highest points of culture and mo rality, anyone who is shown to be a violator of the social contract is by the same token shown to be a true outlaw. To know exactly what action they ought to take, the peo ple must know beyond any doubt, without any precon ceived notions or supersti tions, who the real outlaws are. Why is it that tortures, poisonings, abuses, electoral hanky-panky, and large-scale waste are generally kept secret or are at least camou flaged, even when those who practice them^4U£~sotidIy~in power? Because those who practice them fear the force, the weight, of the condemna tion of others. Public opinion, especially if duly aroused, can make the 10 Panorama distinction between the fa ther whose children are hun gry and who picks a basket ful of tomatoes in a field that does not belong to him, or the Negro driven by hu miliation into getting drunk or throwing a Molotov cock tail, and those who bear primary responsibility for in tolerable situations. The public has sufficient intuition to realize that some court sentences are a mockery of justice and to guess by whom and how those sentences were purchased, but it has difficulty in fitting isolated facts togther until they form a picture. Does a police force resort to torture? No morality to day can sanction torture. The practice must be docu mented, denounced case by casej on an ever increasing scale; in this way, despite the obvious difficulties, the police and their conduct will be identified as being out side the law. Is there wide spread exploitation, insecurity of employment on such a scale that the unreflecting masses accept these things as being almost natural? A wealth of precise documenta tion must be published and charges leveled systematical ly, until their weight becomes crushing. (Some of the poor est countries are given to grandiloquence; but is there not a law on the books, vague and general as it may be, which guarantees em ployment and which can be used for leverage?) Are there shady political deals which prevent the ex pression of the people’s true needs? They must be docu mented case by case, coun try by country, region by re gion, systematically and on an increasing scale, without taking it for granted that these things are already known, until the people’s eyes have been opened to them (photographs can be useful here). Is there waste of every imaginable kind? We must learn to use for leverage the economy-orient ed mentality of our times, Jrom the local level to the general level of interest, do cumenting the stupidity of wasting enormous energy and enormous wealth and of fail ing to develop existing re sources. There are veritable mon sters in our midst. They are no mere dragons 50 feet in Aucust 1968 11 length, spitting fire at thirty paces out of two maws, burn ing down a house or two, and terrorizing the crowd in the village square. These veri table monsters of ours, re plete with the flesh and blood of their victims, have electronic nerves and sinews of steel; their poisonous breath blots out the sky; their excrements pollute ri vers, lakes, and seas. They can spread terror thousands of miles away; they can spit fire over an area of hundreds of square miles and burn to ashes in an instant millions of human beings and cities it has taken millions of men thousands of years to build. And one maw of the monsters can threaten the other; its claws can meet in combat. The most horrendous fanta sies of the past, from the vi sions of the Apocalypse to the many monsters imagined by artists or dreamed up by the commercial horror-mon gers to distract a well-fed public from its boredom, are so naive in comparison as to make us smile. It is not enough to know, not enough to document, not enough to denounce. We must not only deflate these monsters by not feeding them and n ot allowing them to feed on us. We must clearly realize, we must know in every fiber of our being, that we have;built these monsters and that we can destroy them. Who are the more nume rous, the people in whose in terest it is to bring about major changes in order to arrive at a world fit for all, or the people who think that it is in their interest to main tain the status quo? If we succeed in interpreting and expressing the deepest needs of thousands, millions, and billions of human beings and help them to gain precise knowledge of themselves and their problems, to start con structive action of every kind, from the lowest to the high est level, and to make their weight count, we shall have succeeded in setting in mo tion a practical revolutionary 12 Panorama force. New people, new groups who reject second hand thinking and second hand living and who are committed to making a bet ter world, already exist. We must lose no time in recog nizing them, meeting them, comparing experience with them, and forming new or ganic fronts together. — Da nilo Dolci, Extracts from Saturday Review, July 6, 1968. THE DISSENTING ACADEMY For most Americans, a declining measure of intellectual independence in the universities is prob ably of no more concern than the discontinuance of a favored line of groceries at the supermarket, and probably for the same reason. Higher education offers commodities to the customer who rarely re gards academics as individuals whose services should include social and humanistic criticism. As John Kenneth Galbraith has suggested, the university is growing great as a servant — not as a critic — of the industrial society. . . . The engagement of aca demic intellectuals in government policymaking and as consultants to industry, the growth of the gov ernment research contract, the very success of higher education can be as dangerous to independence as overt political pressure. — Peter Schrag in Saturday Review February 17, 1968. August 1968 13

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