As luck would have it two readings, seemingly distant from each other, you meet during these holidays. I refer The man in the Philippines , the intense narrative comics Giancarlo Berardi, masterfully designed by Ivo Milazzo , released in April 1980 for a series A man of adventure Sergio Bonelli Editore (then CEPIM editions) and the libretto against imperialism of the Italian edition of Mark Twain Mattioli 1885.
The American writer, considered one of the fathers of that country's fiction, is best known for his novels on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , quest'ulitmo, often erroneously considered as the first, a book for children. Instead, the criticism of American society and its racism is evident in the story: just think of his conclusion that Huck sees refuse inclusion in the "civilization" and prefer to escape to the West and still intact. The novel is in 1885 and only five years after the run-up to the West is considered officially closed dal'Ufficio Census, as the Pacific coast was reached by the invisible line of the border and all the territories had been colonized. The price was the genocide of the natives, but the "progress" could not be hampered by such trifles now opened a new season with the increased resource exploitation, with the creation of a metropolis with the arrival of new immigrants. The money and its ability to corrupt the minds are at the heart of another story I read recently that Twain: The man who bribed Hadleyburg in which a peaceful and honest citizens of the province politically correct American is attempted by a foreigner who does leverage the hidden desire of people to ruin the reputation of the city itself. 
Mark Twain is thus a witness to careful and critical of economic, social and political issues of his country, right up to the early twentieth century that saw the United States appear on the world stage as a great power. We are in the period in which major European states share out the influence on China (see the Boxer Rebellion drowned in blood) and the African territories still available (see Anglo-Boer War in South Africa and the domain of the Belgian Congo). Precisely these are the topics addressed by Twain in the book I just read: it is very aggressive and bitter seven texts, which target sarcasm with the false values \u200b\u200bof Western Christian civilization, not sparing the fierce criticism of Western policy imeprialista and, Specifically, the United States. From here comes the title of the book and also by the fact that Twain was part of ' American Anti-Imperialist League , or an organization founded in 1898 in Boston in the wake of the "little war" that had "liberated" Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii and Samoa from the English yoke bully. The members of the League were politicians, philosophers, writers, industrialists, artists, journalists will draw upon the principles of the Declaration of indipedente of 1776, according to which every man has a right to live free and pursue happiness. This, they argue, did not apply to populations of countries "liberated" by the United States, given that, once driven out the English rulers, the Americans had seized, more or less directly and with different shapes, control of those places, their populations and their resources. particularly bloody reaction was that the U.S. reserves the Filipinos revolted against sale for $ 20 million of their country made by Spain in favor of the Americans themselves. The war that ensued proved to be very violent lasted until 1913, causing nearly a million casualties among Filipinos and seeing use by U.S. troops of torture techniques like waterboarding and concentration camps. The first text presented in the book, The person who lives in darkness of February 1901, Twain throws hard, inter alia, against the hypocrisy of the politicians of his country, sottolinenado the atrocities committed in the name of civilization.
I think the words of American writer of the watercolors are the perfect accompaniment to the story told by Milazzo and Berardi, who sees the Stappleton old protagonist, a member of the Commission of Inquiry for war crimes, to go undercover in a field military in the middle of the jungle controlled by the rebels. There will touch the atrocities committed by soldiers and become a witness. Berardi's tale ends with a process on another massacre of war of a different era but ideally connected to the first: that the village of Mylai in Vietnam on 16 March 1968. In fact, every war crime is connected to everyone else that unites them all is that they are inherent to the war itself, whatever it is, and whatever the cause that has been unleashed.
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| Design by Ivo Milazzo: The gun does not spare civilians |
"... Of course, things have the air of being equivocal but they are not. Yes, there have been false, but have been told for a good cause. We have been unfair, but it was only because the real good could come out of apparent evil. Of course, we have crushed a deceived and people confident, we have thrown against the weak and defenseless who had confidence in us, we just wiped out a republic, intelligent and well organized;
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| Design by Ivo Milazzo: The rules of war |
we stabbed in the back ally and prso slapped a guest, we bought a Shadow from an enemy that had nothing to sell, we have robbed the land of freedom and a friend that he trusted us, and we have urged our boys clean and honest to pick up a rifle and do a job screditatao Bandt under a flag which bandits were accustomed to fear, and not to follow, we have defiled the honor of America and blackened her face before the world, but every single thing was for the common good.
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| Design by Ivo Milazzo: Mark Twain quotes Stappleton |
We know that. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in the Christian world is ninety percent of each body legislatvo the Christian world, including our Congress and our fifty state legislatures, not only are members of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust . Quest'accumulo that embraces the world of moral ammastrate, high principles, and justice, can not do a wrong act, an act of unfair, ungenerous act, an act dirty. He knows what it is. Do not hold: it's all right ... "
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| Design by Ivo Milazzo: waterboarding |
" .. As for the flag to the Philippine Province, it is quickly resolved. we adopt a special - our States do it: maybe just our flag, but with white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by skulls and crossbones ... "
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| Design by Ivo Milazzo: battle scenes in the jungle |
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| Design by Ivo Milazzo: trial for the massacre of the Vietnam Mylai |
La fine? Non direi...
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| Abu Ghraib, Iraq, 2003 |
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