Bleeding Edge

These days in Europe we find little to celebrate except the sad reality of rising fascism causing anguish, evil, and death.

Little has come to light from the attack of the Italian fascists against the boat carrying immigrants from Africa to Lampedusa — except the fact that more than 500 people and many children, drowned when the boat was strafed with explosive bullets, and sunk off the coast of the southernmost Italian island…

We’ve seen over the years the rise of the “blackshirts” and the “Italian stallions” as personified by the Cavalieri himself and his “Forza Italia” party in alliance with the “Liga Norte” extreme right wingnuts. We’ve seen them attacking people of colour, immigrants, and the lesser ones. We’ve seen them denying humanity to all the Roma-people, gupsies, refugees, and even women and homosexuals. And yet we kept quiet about it all, because we chose to focus on the theatrical pecadillios of the small minded petty dictator of the media and politics of modern Italy who went to bed with a child every night…

We forgot all about human rights — afraid of the economic downturn — and we saw them as luxuries. We forgot our own decency and humanity because it was convenient… We did this because our fear feeds on the dramas we create and this in turn makes for good TV. It was entertaining to watch the Rubygate and the Berlusconi saga that effectively removed our gaze from the critical issues of the day. We took the easy path and laughed at “Il Cavalieri” instead of focusing on the growing racism and nascent Neo-fascism that ravaged Italy unchecked.

The same story of treason against Democracy and Human Rights is repeated across Europe. From Wales and England to Norway and Germany and from Greece and Italy to Spain and Portugal. All of Europe is diseased with the miasma of fascism. Proof of this is the tragedy of Lampedusa and I hope this serves it’s purpose as a clarion call for the Defenders of our ancient Regime and of our ideals of Democracy and Human Rights. Let’s hope the Italian justice system will wake up and search to find and punish the evil killers. And let’s hope we will search and find the root of fascism inside our hearts and root out this evil, because it all starts within us every time we look at another human being as inferior…

In this ancient struggle between Good and Evil — Let us hope that the better Angels of our heart prevail so that we can change course…

Because what we’ve been doing standing silent in the face of Evil is what caused this.
And when we thought it was none of our business to object to the mistreatment of the others who had not got a National Identity card or a European Passport — we clearly failed ourselves and diminished our humanity. And we did this way too much. Over and over again…
And soon enough we got our just deserts.

Refugees fleeing their dismal prospects and looking for a better future are blown out of the water in the land that gave rise to the cosmopolitan Roman citizen, no matter where He hailed from. A country that gave us Marcus Aurelius – former slave – as an Emperor. A country that birthed Cicero and Cato and taught the world how to lead a lawful tolerant and democratic Republic…

Today we have low-lifes and thugs committing treason against these ideas of old and against the current laws of the country and against all the ideals of a United Europe steeped in the rule of humane law.

This is were we ended up after our inequality between North and South grew so much that the Southern European states feel disenfranchised and the wealth classification within them is also vastly unequal. Fear uncertainty and doubt cause people to do stupid things and believe the gospel of hate and inhumanity.

This is where our short sighted policies led us and now we’ve arrived at a point in history where armed thugs – mostly from the security forces and fascist blackshrts — shoot children for sport in the middle of the sea and kill upwards of FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE. Yes this is the current state of Italian Democracy. And even those are acts that represent the work of snakes masquerading as men — we caused that. Our passivity brought the rise of this. Our quest for drama and entertainment with easy solutions and simplistic ideology brought this about.

Now it’s time to wake up and face our fears head on. Face the enemy who is none other that the one looking at you from the mirror. Old school fascists — Monsters straight out of drenching nightmares. Monsters who were created in our midst just because of our fear and ignorance. This is what we need to see…

This is what we need to be fighting against today….

Same Monsters that attack the immigrants in Greece, Spain and France. Same kind of evil eggs that burn the houses of Turkish immigrants in Germany and kill children in Norway. Same kind of evil beings that hate others for the colour of their skin and for their lack of a strong passport…

This is what we are fighting against now.

Our own dismal self

Yours,
Pano

PS:
Pay attention this is a knife fight… no less.

Fascism is like cancer. We all have it and but we shouldn’t give it food & room to grow. Because it is up to us to stem the growth of the cancer of fascism in our selves and in our communities.

When we give succour and kindness to all strangers and exhibit proper humane behaviour towards others regardless of skin and passport colour — we do God’s work and thus clean away the disease. Because we know how to lick this creeping illness before it grows so much that it kills the host. And we also know that still all it takes to win — is to change yourself….

So start changing today.

Start by looking in the mirror with kindness and compassion.
My gospel is simple: Love thyself so you can Love others.

And,
That’s how you tame the monsters we create in our midst…