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Corruption in Italy: Church, politics and universities (2)Domenico Pacitti talks to Indro Montanelli PART 2 Pacitti: Earlier we mentioned Bertrand Russell, the great British philosopher and human rights activist. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his thought and opinions. Montanelli: Yes, of course. Pacitti: Well I must say that every time I hear you speak you always remind me of him. Do you yourself see this similarity? Montanelli: Yes, I understand what you mean. There are undoubtedly some similarities even though I never agreed with Russell’s philo-Soviet line of thought insofar as I could follow it. Pacitti: I was thinking more in terms of spirit. The spirit is similar. Montanelli: Indeed, the spirit is similar. He too was a provoker. Pacitti: But he didn’t just do it to provoke. Montanelli: Nor do I. He did it out of his absolute independence, out of his spirit of contradiction. He certainly had that quality and I have it too. And there was also his brilliance – I hope there is also some of this. Pacitti: Indeed there is. Much has been written about you in Italy, but I don’t ever recall this obvious similarity ever having been pointed out before. Montanelli: No, not to my knowledge. Pacitti: And yet it’s a glaring resemblance. Montanelli: No, it’s never been pointed out. He was certainly a person with whom I would have felt very much in harmony. Though I must say that the Englishman I’d most like to be compared with is Strachey. Pacitti:
Lytton Strachey. Montanelli: An extremely refined writer and a most elegant historian. Pacitti: Do you feel you were in some way influenced by him? Montanelli: I cannot honestly say I was influenced by him. I never met him. So I can’t say I was influenced by him. But I like his way of recounting history. His biographies are superb. He was a great master of history and he said something very precious: “The first requisite of a historian is ignorance.” An eminent Victorian. Pacitti: The Bloomsbury group, Eliot, the great sinologist Arthur Waley… Montanelli: Yes, that was a great moment for England, a very great moment. Pacitti: Are you aware of anyone having particularly influenced your thought? Montanelli: Not really. I have always turned my back on Italian culture. From the very first moment I became a university student I had an overwhelming feeling of rejection for Italian culture and also for the language in which it was written. I found that it was a mission that had betrayed its duties, and the duty of a culture is a missionary duty of mixing with people and propagating culture. If it does not do this, then what does it do? That’s when I realised that it was a mafia. And it was a mafia which confronted me with the choice: Either I enter the mafia, in which case I can aspire to a university chair, etc. If I don’t enter the mafia, then these people will crush me. They didn’t get the chance to crush me because I escaped by choosing the path of journalism. Pacitti: Is this still a valid path for people like yourself who wish to escape the university mafia? Montanelli: No. Not now. Not any more. If I had to begin my trade again I don’t think I would choose journalism despite the passion I have for this trade. Pacitti: And what would you choose? Montanelli: I’m not sure. I really don’t know. Pacitti: Can you trace you independence of thought back to anything or anyone in particular. Did it spring from any particular experiences? Montanelli: No. But I did have some teachers in Italy that I chose myself. For example, for me Prezzolini was more than a teacher. He was a fair bit older than me but of the same stock. We resembled each other in almost everything, even physically. Another teacher was Ridolfi. I had an excellent relationship with him. But they too were escapees. Prezzolini went off to teach in America. He certainly wasn’t going to stay here. He was absolutely detested by the official Italian culture, literally detested. He was too free. And Ridolfi was never admitted into Italian culture, never admitted. Pacitti: When we speak about those professors who are part of the Italian system, it sometimes isn’t clear to me to what extent they realise what they really are and to what extent they convince themselves that they got there on merit. Montanelli: They convince themselves. They convince themselves, but above all their real effort is the effort to get into the cosca clan. Once they get into the cosca clan they protect each other, which is the true mafia spirit. Pacitti: And what about the rebel? Montanelli: The rebel, for goodness sake. The rebel is the great enemy. He must be isolated. He must be isolated and condemned – I don’t say burnt at the stake since they don’t have any bundles of sticks, but that’s the idea. You see, mine is above all a case of character. I do not like Italian culture because it is academic. And academic culture really irritates me. I could accept British academic culture though. A lecture by the historian E.H. Carr – that’s just fine. He is a master. And naturally Russell too. That’s because they had nothing academic about them. But Italy – that’s another matter. Pacitti: It’s true that there is this sharp difference between British and Italian academic culture. It’s also unfortunately true that on a generous estimate about 90% of what British academics have been publishing lately could safely be committed to the flames without any great loss to posterity. Going back to Italian universities, can you say something about how academic careers get off the ground? Montanelli: Italian academia is a fortalice which you enter as some baron’s servant. You can then enter the circle, be invested with authority and choose your ideology. Until recently it was that of the political left. And woe to whoever moved out of this rut. And bear in mind that all of this was carried out not for the sake of culture but for the sake of career. That’s how careers in Italy got under way. First you were a minor vassal, then a major vassal, then vice-baron and finally baron and so on. Pacitti: When someone does an open public competition for a tenured post, one usually knows in advance who exactly has been earmarked to win and that this has been decided by recommendation on the basis of criteria other than merit. How do you explain the vile and ruthless manner in which these people chop down candidates, who may be brilliant and talented, and destroy the hopes of families that have made enormous sacrifices for their children’s education? Don’t they have any conscience at all? Don’t they understand the wrong they are doing? Montanelli: No. There is no conscience in Italy. Conscience is a lady that is extraneous to our conceptions. The best way to get on is to marry a baron’s daughter and enter the clan directly. Pacitti: I’m sure all of this will sound strange to those of our readers, especially in Britain, who see Italians as sensitive, romantic people. Montanelli: They are the ones who are romantic. The British are impenitent romantics who are ashamed of being so. I have never met such romantic romantics as the British. But you can’t tell them this or they get offended. They don’t like to think of themselves as romantic but they are, much more than us. Italians romantic? Are we joking? Pacitti: So it’s the British who do all the romanticising? Montanelli: Yes they are the ones who do all the romanticising. Now I don’t know if they still do it. This I don’t know. But I can tell you that the British are those who have understood Italy best. They have mixed sentiments towards Italians – something between an act of sympathy and one of disdain. That is more or less the situation. Pacitti: I believe you were a good friend of the late Lord Acton who settled in Tuscany. Montanelli: Yes, he was a dear friend and I was very sorry to lose him when he passed away a few years ago. Acton had been very much corrupted by Italy and by Italians because he was very British in this. He was very British because understanding Italians means a certain amount of participation. He was a truly great, refined Englishman, a man of culture who had accepted Italy and who recounted it. His books on the Bourbons and the Medici are superb. But he was never taken into consideration by Italian historians. Never. Pacitti: Why? Montanelli: Because Acton was read and the Italian historian’s pledge is not to be read. What I mean is that they should be read only by their colleagues who award them a university post, but culture should not go any further than that. They aren’t in any case able to do so because they don’t have the language. Our books are illegible. Our history books are illegible save very few. Pacitti: Don’t you think that form in Italy is a double-edged blade? On the one hand, the importance of form has produced an artistic heritage that is unique in the world. On the other hand, the prevalence of form over content in writing means that content tends to be rather mediocre. Montanelli: All of this Italian formalism is aimed at respecting these hierarchies – “Your most excellent lordship” and that sort of thing in letters. Certainly it’s no longer exactly like that now, but the spirit is still the same. And that brings us back to how I came to have my feeling of rejection. I simply don’t like culture. I don’t get along with it. Pacitti: To what extent do you feel alone or isolated in this? Are there many others in Italy like yourself? Montanelli: There are certainly others. To tell the truth, Italy is a country of exceptions in the sense that what I have been saying is the rule, but there are also the heroes who fight against this and who become outcasts. They become outcasts and are destined to solitude. But they also win the hearts of their readers, of the public at large, and this is a great strength. Pacitti: Do you have anyone particularly in mind here? Montanelli: One was certainly Prezzolini, as I said before. Another, who was always disputing with Prezzolini, was Sarzoni. They had opposing ideas which were animated by a similar spirit. There are quite a number of others, but they must all resign themselves to being outcasts. They are not part of the cultural jet set. Pacitti: I see you recently received an important recognition for your work – the Spanish Principe de Asturias prize. Montanelli: Yes, that was for my work as a historian, for the capacity to communicate and for independence. Yes, it was a fine prize, also because it was an exception. It was the first time a foreigner had ever won this recognition. Pacitti: Have you thought of writing your autobiography? Montanelli: No. Everyone has been telling me I should, but I no longer have either the strength or the desire. Pacitti: In a certain sense you have already written it. Montanelli: Yes, exactly. Anyone who wishes can easily find it. It can be extracted from my writings. I feel that to start writing my autobiography would be rather immodest of me. I had thought of writing a book as a sort of witness of my times. I have had a century of experiences, so I had thought of writing a book entitled “Almost a Century”. Pacitti: Maybe we should wait for the end of the century first. Montanelli: I don’t know if the end of the century will wait for me. END OF PART 2
Note: Part 2 of this interview, originally in Italian, was first published by JUST Response on 22 July 2003. A few quotations from this interview that were slightly adapted with Indro Montanelli's consent appeared in the following articles by Domenico Pacitti: Clan mentality rules in Italian universities (The Times Higher: 9 Jan 1998) and Renaissance man steps in (The Guardian: 3 Feb 1998).
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