My Italian colonial past

One has to sit at the bottom of oneself, look at oneself and let oneself be looked at, recognise and be recognised. Acceptance does not mean surrending, and certainly not surrending to the centre. Acceptance is a necessary step to deconstruct the centre, to separate from it and regain the edge of the margins as a symbol and practice of a possible individual and especially collective transformation.

part one of many
cuore con le ali - heart with wings
cuore con le ali – heart with wings

I was born in 1967. The formative years of compulsory schooling, primary and secondary, through to high school were 1977-1985. Thirteen years! critical for the creation of the model citizen: patriotic, proud and, of course, obedient.

Anna Banti freed me from the patriotism inculcated, year after year, with the repetition of a Roman legacy and a revolutionary and republican Italy with “Noi credavamo” which, together with the lucidity of how a nation is built, opened the doors to a yet standing anti-militarism and the awareness that loving places and people does not require soaking in the patriotic paternalistic and patriarchal broth of a system that demands obedience and makes the feminine superfluous and episodic. A heroine here and there, always Anita Garibaldi, never Leda Rafanelli.

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