Brigate Rosse
Aldo Moro

A man. In his eyes, there's something you can't see but perhaps can feel, only because it’s stronger than any noise. Behind his head, there's something you can't hear, but you can see clearly. A red banner with a writing that recalls one of the most ferocious criminal alliances of the years of lead. In this case, in good faith, calling them artists is like running a hand over a sharp grater. Calling it art has the same effect as a nail scratching the surface of a chalkboard. Within this shot, fed to the people by "La Repubblica," there’s a man, and in his eyes, you can read his obituary.

This man asked his captors for a Bible and masses recorded on audiocassettes. He’s the same man who tried to cooperate by answering absurd questions. And he’s the same one who hoped for the descent of a miracle. Someone who used to read the fresh news in the car while going to work. Without knowing how, he was involved in a wartime action. That back seat of that white Alfetta transformed in seconds into an atrocious trench. He saw the bodies of his shadows jolt too many times. Red sparks colored the fragments of shattered glass while wild roars pulled him into the enemy trench. Then a trunk or a jute sack and a three-square-meter hideout.

But go fuck yourselves, hypocrites!

He’s the same person whom his "friends," especially in whispers, called uncomfortable, dangerous, even crazy, and lobotomized in case of "Plan Victor." What could be inside the eyes of a man abandoned by the line of steadfastness? Even the beloved Enrico was wrong. Gradoli, Duchessa, Montalcini, Caetani. Rivers of ink, dossiers, memos, meetings, and invectives. And again, Gradoli, Duchessa, Montalcini, Caetani. Giorgio said that "martyrs don’t change God's judgment" and that "to any politician just because a brigatista shot at him, he becomes the only statesman." In his glacial cynicism, perhaps he was right or at least had more courage than any other hypocrite.

Looking at that gaze, people horrified by such cruelty exclaimed, "Oh, poor thing!", "Poor President!", "Who knows what those bastards are doing to him!", "Poor wife! And the children!". Maybe someone cried. But behind that gaze, there was much more. With that exhausted expression that seems to say, "You've succeeded in taking me out! And in the most spectacular way possible!"

At the time, I was only a few months old, and I came to know him only through kilometers of books, articles, and opinions that consistently repeat every Year of Our Lord. And every year, there's a novelty that emerges, irreparably late. I don’t consider myself fit to comment on his political ideas, for the time, right or wrong as they were. Nor his choices or maneuvers. Not even based on what I've read, seen, or heard. I can’t endorse nor blame. At most, outline my own opinion, which I prefer to keep inside. To me, he just seems a good man with those eyes that speak. They reflect on the verdict of a capital sentence, without the possibility of defending himself, and without any hand deciding to save him from the gallows. Those who lived in those years might clarify. But those who can speak consistently remain silent.

And that's why "my blood will fall upon you." It was not a threat but a prophecy.