It is with deep sorrow and sadness that we announce that on Wednesday, May 14, at the age of 72, our comrade LUIGI PROIETTI of the Empoli and Valdelsa Anarchist Federation passed away. He suffered a sudden heart attack, following multiple health problems and unbearable breathing difficulties that had persisted for years. ---- This was the tearful speech Paolo Becherini gave as he bid farewell at the secular farewell ceremony, which took place Saturday morning in the funeral room of the Empoli hospital, attended by numerous people.
First of all, I want to thank all of you here, and all those who have shown us their affection and support in this tragic and painful moment; we are deeply moved by this.
We have received so many messages that it would be impossible to list them all. I will quote one, which says: "In my life, I have never known such a good man as Luigi." And it's true.
It's difficult to fully express the emotion, the profound pain caused by the loss of our brother, friend, and comrade who lived and fought alongside us for more than half a century.
In the harsh struggles of the 1970s until today, as in the best years when we were young, when our commitment was all-consuming and we went to bed hoping to wake up in a new society.
How difficult it is to fully describe his profound personality, his humanity, his qualities, leaving aside the few flaws, the weaknesses that each of us has!
Thinking of his people, I had to dig deep into past and present memories to find at least one.
All I could think about was his stubbornness, his tenacity in defending his theses, his thinking that sometimes led us into long discussions, and none of this was a flaw at all, because he always listened and respected the differences of others.
But lately, due to his precarious health, these prolonged discussions weren't doing him any good. We both understood this, he and his comrades, so suddenly the conversation would stop, and everything would end before we parted with a loving embrace, as if to say, "I love you."
I knew Luigi when he was little more than a boy, and with him his relatives, the harmony, the love, the unity of his family, made up of numerous relatives, brothers, and sisters, marked by past sacrifices, those who worked the land, or those forced to emigrate.
Luigi left the Federation of Young Communists because he was resistant to the authoritarian policies of the party committees, to compromises, to their hypocrisy, to government intrigues, to the arrogance of all power. He, who loved free thought, his own dignity, direct participation, self-management, personal and collective freedom, and real struggles against all imposition, abuse, and exploitation.
That's why he joined us, the FAI, the Empoli and Valdelsa Anarchist Federation, and from that moment on, we've always stood by each other despite the vicissitudes, the harassment, the obstacles, the repression from institutions and the state, which has been unleashed against us. United in political and private life, in the many cultural, social, union, antimilitarist, and anti-fascist initiatives, to lay the foundations for a new libertarian society.
This reminds me of a saying: there are people who fight for a whole day and that's good, others for a few months and that's better, then there are those who fight a lifetime and that's best of all, and Luigi was one of them.
Thank you, Luigi, you were an example to all of us. A good man, a sincere, trustworthy, thoughtful friend with whom we could seek advice and share our most intimate thoughts.
Thank you for your profound humanity and empathy, for your sensitivity, wisdom, and maturity, your composure and politeness. You loved the land and, like the Native Americans, respected it, caring for it, admiring those centuries-old trees you so loved. A loving guardian of your organic garden, you knew many natural remedies that you promptly recommended to us.
Thank you for your rare gift, that of sincere hospitality, for your simple, thrifty, and humble way of life. For the good food you cooked and cheerfully offered us, for the traditional peasant cuisine and the wild herbs you picked, which recalled ancient moments and flavors.
A man whose handshake and raised fist were enough.
Luigi and I cried together, but also joked and smiled, we got up to all sorts of mischief, but always with love and respect.
I thought, despite our advanced age, I would grow old alongside him, us saying goodbye, "ciao ragazzi."
Instead, he left us prematurely. Sometimes we joked about death to exorcise it, but we weren't afraid of it; rather, we worried about the suffering caused by disease, which is already enough of a burden on humanity. Instead, we must also endure all the suffering caused by governments with their wars, their genocides, their deportations, their exploitation, their fascism, their arrogance and insensitivity.
Luigi said: "I'm sorry to leave, leaving this criminal society to the young, to my family, to all of you, and to no longer be able to fight it."
Given his age, we had calmed down a bit, but were always ready to organize future initiatives.
When a comrade, a loved one, leaves us, we say that they die, that a part of us has gone, and that's true, but not entirely, because they will always remain with us, in our memories, in our hearts, as long as we act and live, in our struggles.
The people who leave us are on our minds, we often think about them and dream about them, just like Luigi.
The other night I had a dream: I was in the old FAI headquarters in Piazza Stazione during a meeting and Luigi was with us. I said to him, "Luigi, you're dead, you know?" "No!" He replied, "I'm here with you, you see, I'm here with you."
Luigi still wanted to live and fight. So in Empoli or wherever we fight, on the picket lines, in the factories or on construction sites, in the squares, we will be able to see Luigi beside us.
We, anarchists, are not afraid of death, we take it as something natural, we are made of dust and we will return to dust, we do not demonize it or exalt it, nor do we believe in the false illusions of other afterlives, we are against all religious superstitions, nonsense, and false expectations, we respect personal spirituality, but never the church made of ingots and golden bricks that interferes and imposes.
If we want to talk about immortality or any otherworldly hope, we believe it can only be realized if we are that seed that, planted in a previously paved path with others, can blossom and flourish into a new humanity.
This is how we will live forever, in the seed of our commitment, in what we have left behind, and in those who will draw from it and carry forward our common thought, our common cause. This is the only immortality we believe in, because ideas of rebellion will never die.
But if we want to examine the religious scriptures that teach that voluntary slavery and endurance are the conditions for receiving immortality, we say it is a deception to better exploit us.
Furthermore, they say that only the peaceful, or those who have been persecuted for the sake of justice-and Luigi is one of these-or who have loved their neighbor as themselves and who have done to others as they would have wanted done to them-then who better than Luigi can inherit this immortality?
He was not only for peace, but above all an anti-militarist, supporting all deserters from every war, from every nation, against all armies, and who felt personally the suffering and injustices that men endure in every part of the world. He loved his family intensely, adoring his little niece, innocent and suffering humanity, he who always sided with the least, the disadvantaged, the oppressed, fighting for justice, for a society without servants or masters. He promoted solidarity, universal brotherhood, to tear down all walls, bars, borders, because we are all brothers and our homeland is the entire world.
Who better than him?
I want to think of him, even now, somewhere, I don't know where, discussing justice, freedom, communism, and anarchy with Bakunin, Pietro Gori, Malatesta, and Dara, serene, liberated from his suffering.
Saying goodbye with these words:
"Give flowers to the fallen rebels, with your gaze turned to the dawn, to the brave man who fights and works, to the visionary poet who dies."
Soon, Luigi, we will meet again on the barricades, with our flags flying, wherever an exploited person rebels, in every moment of freedom. We will continue for you too, always on the wrong side, because all the others were busy, stubbornly and contrary, remembering you as you were.
You were important to all of us, but only now do we fully understand the space you leave. We will try to stay united and all contribute together to filling all the value we have lost in every aspect.
Goodbye Luigi, or rather, Goodbye Gigi, as his friends called him, or Luigino with a mother's affection.
Goodbye Luigi, a caress, a hug with all our love. Goodbye! We miss you. I miss you so much already, because you are the best friend I have ever had. All the best. Long live the anarchy you lived and fought for.
Paolo
https://umanitanova.org/in-ricordo-di-luigi-proietti/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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