Roberto Saviano: “My life between adventure and failure”

Rome – “I would like not to see the path of life as a race, but if we have to see it as a prize achieved, I have lost. Was it worth risking so many years of one’s life? Was it worth finding oneself with so much trouble now in a moment like this?

Was it worth seeing yourself opposed in this way? Some would answer yes, Mauro Rostagno would probably answer yes, being an experimenter of social alternatives. I find myself saying that it was a bit like letting yourself be massacred, not understanding that you were alone in many cases, probably not understanding that exposing yourself so much meant becoming a target”.

He said so Roberto Saviano last night speaking on the programme “Che tempo che fa” hosted by Fabio Fazio on Nove. The writer spoke about his life, political clashes and what he believes is today the danger for the democracy of free countries and citizens.

“That perception that somehow I was added to the establishment, to the media, to the newspapers, I am added to these categories that have never protected me or never given me anything or relatively little. So at a certain point you find that your choices have consumed you, they have also ruined the lives of the people who were close to you.

So the answer is: if it's supposed to be a race, I've lost that race. If it's not a race and my life is an adventure, it's a great adventure."

“To silence me they act like bandits”

Then Saviano spoke about the chats that took place between exponents of Brothers of Italy told in his new book by Giacomo Salvini, journalist of Il Fatto Quotidiano, where he also talks about himself.

“These are chats in which there were dozens if not hundreds of people, it was a virtual agora. It is a bandit attitude that this government has always had. That it is a political practice, we know it well. The goal is as usual to isolate, to use your body, your choices as a warning. The issue is not the opinion, a continuous intimidation is built. The message is essentially 'if you criticize like he does, if you act like he does, you will suffer the same thing that he is suffering'.

The mechanism at this moment is really labile on freedom of expression; anyone can say what they want, obviously, as long as they are not listened to and do not exceed the threshold of attention, at which point you pay a consequence. If an artist knows, a journalist knows that by writing or taking a position, if they were to be listened to they pay the price, the project that is blocked, an unrealized possibility, an isolation, a delegitimization, an instant dossier on you…”.

And he claims that some newspapers "have been gangs against me for years; not newspapers, gangs", "and now, while they are listening to me, they will do what they always do, intimidate, threaten, extort fear. This government does this with anyone who opposes it, and they will do it more and more until the blood that these people are preparing arrives; they scare me, they behave like bandits.

Saying 'Saviano must be punished', in your opinion, what will it lead to? They are all afraid of losing their mortgage, of having private information leaked, of having massacres on social media... they are all afraid. Also because newspapers are no longer doing well economically, so since they are no longer selling, they depend on government money", "this attitude that is shown in chat, of targeting a person and massacring them, what has it led to?

That everyone is afraid to take a stand. In the past they said 'Take a stand to earn money, you are an intellectual who chooses a political party to have more light', today it is exactly the opposite. Those who take a stand have companies that do not invest in your YouTube channel, they start to run away from films, they are all terrified that by taking a stand you are unbalanced. This is how they have corrupted democracy, this is what has made their path an authoritarian path”.

“Here are the damages of capitalism in democracy”

“This is the great crisis of this moment; given that probably the dynamics of capitalism have only momentarily married with democracy, but the idea that capitalism could be a force within democracy, the liberal idea, capable of redistributing wealth, of keeping the relationship with social classes in balance, this was what animated liberal thought, the liberal vision, which has completely failed”.

Saviano explained further. And then he added: “The arrival of an authoritarian dimension is not so much seen from the fact that truth and lies are indistinguishable, but from the fact that it is irrelevant to grasp truth and lies. If right now I list to you that bills are increasing, that salaries are not increasing in any way, that mortgages are skyrocketing, that it is not true that they have tidied up the streets and that they have stopped the flow of migrants, will all this interest those who vote for this political party? I can bring any evidence, in reality it will always seem that I am biased, as if choosing a position means invalidating the data you are showing”.