What is the situation of anti-Semitism in Italy on the eve of the Remembrance Day?
Dear Friends,
I feel pained and confused by the recent far-fetched judgment condemning
Peppino Caldarola, who tried to defend the truth, and acquitting the author of a
cartoon depicting me with a monstrous appearance and a hooked nose, typical of
anti-Semitic iconography, combining the star of David and the fasces lictoriae
on my chest. I’m referring to Vauro’s cartoon on the front page of Manifesto
from March 13 2008, in the middle of the parliamentary electoral campaign. At
the time, Peppino Caldarola wrote an article criticizing this cartoon. He has
now been sentenced to pay 25000€ to Vauro for slander.
We’re talking
about a cartoon that has been published again and again by several anti-Semitic
and Holocaust denying websites over the years. Today, the they actually received
juridical authorization to show me as depicted by the cartoon, thus exposing me
to hatred and to extremely dangerous personal consequences.
Look at this link
and tell me that it is not an anti-Semitic cartoon: http://www.fiammanirenstein.com/articoli.asp?Categoria=6&Id=1927
At
that time I received solidarity and affection messages by so many personalities
and institutions, both national and international, including the Anti-Defamation
League.
This sentence has perilously advocated a double
standard: Vauro’s satirical cartoon is legitimate, while Caldarola’s satirical
comment to stigmatize it, is illegitimate.
All of this is extremely worrying,
as it comes during a period of many ceremonies against anti-Semitism aheadof the
International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
I suggest you read the article
below by Pierluigi Battista in Corriere della Sera on this outrageous
decision.
"Satire and hooked nose in 2012's Italy"
Corriere della Sera, January 23, 2012
by Pierluigi Battista
Some lessons on the situation in Italy in 2012, on the eve of the solemn
celebrations for the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
First lesson: on the eve of
the Remembrance Day celebrations, a judge has just condemned a journalist,
Peppino Caldarola, for having satirically criticised a satirical cartoon by
Vauro Senesi published on Il Manifesto. The cartoon caricatures an Italian
Jewish woman, Fiamma Nirenstein, with a hooked nose, according to an
anti-Semitic iconographic tradition that certainly Vauro does not ignore (we
must phrase it in this way, otherwise if we criticize Vauro too much, we’re
going to lose in court) and which dates back to the front pages of «Difesa della
Razza» and to the even older «The Protocols of the Elders of Zion».
Second lesson: you criticize a satirical cartoon in a satirical container
called Mambo, as in the case of Caldarola, but the judge tips over the plea of
not guilty submitted by the prosecutor and decides that the author of the non
politically correct satire shall immediately pay the politically correct one
(because attacking the Jews and Israel is considered politically correct in
principle).
Third lesson: in the few days before the solemn celebrations
of the Remembrance Day, if an Italian and Jewish citizen is depicted combining
the star of David and the fascie lictoriae, the aggrieved party - i.e. the
Italian and Jewish citizen represented in her Jewish character through the Star
of David - is forced to bear her humiliation in silence. Instead the offender
can cash in the sum of money to be paid by Caldarola – who tried to support the
offended Italian and Jewish citizen – on the basis of a decision made on behalf
of the Italian people (not Arian, Italian).
Fourth lesson: on the eve of
the solemn celebrations of the Remembrance Day, if your name Fiamma Nirenstein,
if you are an Italian and Jewish citizen and you even dare run in the election
campaign with Pdl Party, then you deserve a vilifying cartoon depicting you with
a hooked nose (satirical freedom) and no one can sympathize with you, even when
your name, as in this case, is simultaneously indicated as a target to be hit
and destroyed in an infinite number of openly anti-Semitic websites, thus
obliging you to always go around under police protection (like
Saviano).
Fifth lesson: on the eve of the solemn celebrations of the
Remembrance Day, you can completely ignore the difference between ‘Jewish” and
“Israeli”, you can depict a “Jewish and non "Israeli" person with the star of
David, thus remarking that the target of your cartoon is indeed “Jewish”, to be
vilified as “Jewish”, and instead of being considered an illiterate, you are
seen as a champion of freedom of expression.
A final lesson with a
(rhetorical) question: what is the situation of anti-Semitism in Italy on the
eve of the solemn celebrations of the Remembrance Day?