Believing Is Not Knowing

The only real and honest knowledge is that which comes through personal experience. Although it is important and fundamental to read books, on any subject, we must remember that every book is the child of experience, and far more of the opinion of whoever wrote it. In particular, when it comes to history, it is worth bearing in mind that history is written by the “victors”, that is, it is a product of the dominant ideology, which legitimises itself by re-writing history.

I, like most of you, have not lived through fascism or communism, only through various mutations of the democratic system. Through my personal research, in the writings of both followers and detractors, I know the basic values of these ideologies and of others, just as it is clear to me that only an ignorant person can believe there is just one fascism or one communism, just as there is not just one version of the democratic system.

I am aware that every historical period, and every choice made by the various historical figures, was the child of a moment I do not know because I did not live it, and of which I can have only a faded reflection. For this last reason I do not judge historical figures; I am fascinated by the lives of some of them, keeping a proper distance from judgement. Above all, I do not fret about being for or against, but try to understand, and I find myself embracing some values that resonate with me and rejecting others.

All this is to say that anti-fascists, like anti-communists, are those who devote their lives to being against something they do not know. The worst of all are those who are convinced they know something and take as “true” the dominant narrative, or that of the circle they happen to belong to.

Even the defenders of democracy are people who defend one system against other systems that they do not really know.

The only way to truly understand something is to free oneself from prejudice, to approach history with different eyes, to contemplate rather than think, to feel what resonates from what is distant, and then not to be afraid, if need be, of finding oneself on the "wrong" side and saying and thinking "heretical" things in relation to the ideology of the moment, which, regardless, does not seem to me to produce such an outwardly fantastic world.

m.m.