Authors: Nanni Balestrini
a relentless campaign to criminalize the whole movement was set in motion every morning I'd read the newspaper any newspaper and there was no difference from the lowest hack journalist to the most distinguished intellectual sociologist philosopher psychologist historian novelist and so on they all wrote that the movement was nothing but a convulsive disturbance by displaced adventurers fascists schizophrenics criminals who should be locked up as quickly as possible in order to save democracy and civil harmony we felt a sense of powerlessness in the face of that systematic and total falsification but we believed that all the same we had no other option but to accept the challenge in the arena of media information and so we decided to set up a movement radio station
we dealt with the financial problem the way we'd always done before all the comrades set about finding money as best they could without being too choosy about how they did it and in this way we started getting hold of the stuff to set it up Nocciola borrowed a van and with two other comrades he went round the local building sites and helped himself to fibreglass polystyrene sheeting and other useful material and then we also got hold of several hundred pieces of cardboard packaging for egg boxes and with all this stuff we started soundproofing a room in the centre and then we partitioned it with chipboard panelling and sheets of perspex the recording studio on one side production on the other
now we had to get hold of equipment the mixer the amplifier the recording console and the stereo decks but the biggest problem was finding room in the frequency jungle either buying our way in or forcing our way in because either people had a lot of money and could buy a powerful transmitter that drowned out the other stations or else you had to make room for yourself simply by elbowing in shutting up the other stations and we had no scruples about doing this because our argument was what the hell are these commercial radio stations putting out besides advertising they put out shit music shit quizzes shit news bulletins and anyway who do these stations belong to in any case they're enemy radio stations participants in the destruction of our communications being carried out by those in power
so we started making night-time visits to the aerials and the transmitters of the local commercial radio stations that bothered us and we sabotaged them we pulled down the little pylons supporting the aerials and if we could we took away the transmitters or any other apparatus that might be useful for our radio station it was easy to carry out these actions of expropriation and sabotage because in general these things are set up in more or less isolated spots the aerials were placed on small hills or the roofs of tall buildings even ten or fifteen of us would go along without taking any special precautions there were metal cases with the transmitters in them and we'd open the lock and the padlocks with an electric drill and if we couldn't manage that we'd pour one or two litres of petrol under the door and toss a match at it and so gradually we cleared a space for ourselves in the frequency jungle where only the strongest could survive
37
The sergeant turned up it was eleven o'clock at night he called me through the spy-hole speaking the way they usually do as if he had a picture postcard for me instead it was a telegram from the ministry with the order for my transfer to a special prison we were laughing in the cell a bit tipsy then everyone went silent special prison those words scared us there were still six hours to go before it was five o'clock the time I was to leave the time to get my rucksacks ready and to exchange presents to stay awake and talk up until the last minute the news gets round the cells yells from the spy-holes people yell their good wishes because they're putting me on the road at five and there's not even the chance to give me a final hug in the exercise yard
at five sharp the guards arrive to collect me they're in a hurry they're sleepy and edgy because it's their last detail before going off their shift I hug my cell-mates who help me to lift the packs onto my back well see you outside this is what people always say when they're separated even guys who've got three life sentences still to do say it a lot of comrades are awake and I do the rounds of the armoured doors to shake the hands stuck through the spy-holes we have our last conversations give our last bits of advice I collect messages and good wishes to be taken to the comrades I'll meet down there then the section gate closes behind me and I follow the guards through the silent corridors of the sleeping prison
in the registration office we go through the whole series of particulars to be passed on to my new destination this is the most critical moment for if they've got a beating to give you that's when they do it it's the time for settling scores if you had any set-tos with one of the guards they put the word around about who's being transferred there are guards who even if they're not on duty the morning of your transfer are capable of getting up at five o'clock just for the pleasure of giving you a beating if they've got any score to settle with you they wait for the transfer to give it to you particularly in cases when they're not up to giving it to you on the spot in the heat of the moment in the cells but I'm lucky because they make do with a few provocative shoves and threatening reminders of some things I've done
once the registration business is over with they start the search the guards pull the stuff out of the rucksacks and they inspect it much more carefully than usual then I meekly put everything back in its place but then the
carabinieri
who're to be my escort arrive and everything starts from scratch another search they do two of them when you're leaving the guards do one and the
carabinieri
who're to escort you do the other because neither lot trusts the other then they take me to the van the armoured van is parked outside ten yards away from the registry gate in the centre of the prison but all the same the
carabinieri
handcuff me with a long chain they put me in chains for the ten yards I have to go from the gate to the armoured vehicle
outside it's still dark it's cold and the fog is so thick the headlights of the armoured vehicle turn it yellow without managing to cut through it the leader of the escort walks in front of me holding up the chain with my handcuffs linked to it the others walk behind me we advance like this in procession towards the van that's waiting shrouded in the yellow fog with the engine running and the doors open it's the first time I've seen inside an armoured van it's divided into three compartments in front the driving cabin in the middle the cell with two iron benches facing one another along the sides at the back seating for the escorts six men altogether they put me in the cell removing my chain but leaving on the handcuffs tight around my wrists then they close the grating with a padlock
on the first stretch as far as the entrance to the motorway they're extra careful up to there I'm also escorted by two flying-squad cars one in front and one behind with which they're also in radio contact Hare calling Kangaroo and that sort of thing the
carabinieri
are tense they turn out the inside light and peer intently through the port-holes to me all this deployment of forces seems absurd not to say ridiculous just for me but it's the rules they take the rules seriously and this morning I became a special case I mean as far as the rules are concerned I'm an extremely dangerous individual I try peering at the road through the port-holes but I can only see the ends of buildings the windows and cornices of buildings I stand up between the two benches but I can't manage to keep my balance because of the handcuffs maybe on the motorway where there are no bends I'll be able to look at the road ahead through the glass behind the driving cabin
on the motorway the
carabinieri
relax they take off their hats loosen their ties unbutton their jackets make themselves comfortable three of them get down to playing cards they play
sette e mezzo
and they play for money ten lire a card putting the coins inside their upturned hats laughing and losing their tempers the escort leader stays aloof he just keeps an eye on his boys' game they're different from the guards they do a different kind of job and this also changes the kind of contact they have with you they're merely transporting dangerous packages they do thousands of kilometres up and down the length of Italy continuously transporting prisoners up and down in their armoured vans for transfers from one prison to the other the goat path as we're accustomed to call these transfer routes
from time to time out of his bag the kind of bag tram conductors have one of them will take a sandwich made in the barracks or made by his wife the night before great big sandwiches stuffed with mortadella with salami or cheese he eats it slowly with the paper it was wrapped up in over his knees so as to avoid messing up his trousers and then he sweeps up the crumbs with a shovel and a little brush that are part and parcel of the armoured vehicle's equipment they seem more like commuters than warriors I sleep a little the handcuffs are hurting me and I'm hungry perhaps if I ask to have them taken off they'll take them off but I don't feel like asking them any favours as far as they're concerned I don't exist I'm only an object a package to be transported they take no notice of me but from time to time they take a quick look at me to check I'm jolted about up and down and from side to side I ache in every bone of my body
shortly after my arrival there at the special my father was taken into hospital and they took me on the same journey in the armoured van in the opposite direction to go and visit my father for the last time for he was dying of cancer I did the trip in a ten-hour stretch all over again and when we arrived my hands were quite numb because of the tight handcuffs around my wrists we arrived in the morning and after a short stop in the
carabinieri'
s barracks they took me to the hospital they took me out of the van in the hospital courtyard and around me I saw a long line of
carabinieri
and a long line of police all carrying sub-machine guns and pistols there were the dogs there were the squad cars with the doors open and the blue lights on the roofs in one of them was Donnola giving orders through a walkie-talkie
they put a chain on my handcuffs and they dragged me towards the big glass door of the hospital entrance hall full of people in pyjamas people in white shirts with white overalls white shoes who stopped to watch in amazement and surprise to the right and the left the lines of
carabinieri
cleared the way pushing puzzled onlookers back against the walls I could feel the chain pulling on my wrists I couldn't see where we were going then I stumbled the chain kept me from falling it was the first step on the stairs the procession started going up funnelling closer together I couldn't see the steps in front of me I lifted my feet but I kept on stumbling on the edges of the steps I was being crushed by people around me the chain was pulling me at last we reached the landing
suddenly all round the landing behind the
carabinieri
who hemmed me in I saw faces lots of faces all the faces of my comrades staring at me all the faces had the same expression eyes staring they said nothing no sign of greeting no gesture they all stared straight at me expressionless then a wrench on my wrist and they pulled me up another flight of stairs I slipped forward I was falling the
carabiniere
beside me caught my elbow but the sub-machine gun slung over his shoulder slipped down his arm and ended up between my legs without looking the one in front gave another tug at the chain and I lurched forward and the
carabiniere
holding on to me fell on top of me and so did all of those coming behind us in a heap on the stairs with the chain twisted round our arms and legs
finally we got to the top we came out into a big ward with patients in beds in a row along the white walls the resounding tread of the
carabinieri
the rattling of the chain the curt orders of the escort leader the protests of the doctors and the patients' relatives through that muddle I saw my mother and my brother coming towards me in tears my father was already dead when later they took me back in the armoured van the escort leader heaved a sigh of relief as he banged shut the door of the van and while we were waiting for the engine to heat up I saw him through the grating taking a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide out of his bag he poured a few drops on a wad of cotton wool and started rubbing it hard on his fingers and his hands he rubbed them for a long time and then we set off again for the special
Part Four
38
After the revolt in the special after they'd put us in those empty cells on the ground floor of the wrecked prison there was no more mass brutality and in every dormitory cell the debates began about what had happened of course the positions people took differed a lot but the fiercest debates developed as time passed because at first everyone was taken up with licking their wounds because the ill-effects of the beatings were starting to hit people and the atmosphere was more like a field hospital than anything else by now they'd started letting us have newspapers and what you read in the newspapers was absurd really absurd not a word of it was true it was as if nothing had happened all the news was distorted and it was utter lies to boot
as far as the press was concerned the special services operation had gone without a hitch with no bloodshed whatsoever the impression was that they'd boxed a few ears and everything had been resolved as peacefully as anything we started to demand visits from our relatives which was the only way of breaking this press blackout on what had really happened in the end they let us have a few token visits lasting no more than minutes with the glass screen in the middle what this achieved was that we managed to show ourselves to our relatives for a few minutes behind the screens so that our relatives could see the state we were in there wasn't even any need to speak to convey how things were how things had gone
since the only things that we had were the clothes that were on our backs when the special services burst in our relatives saw us in these blood-covered clothes with our plaster-casts our wounds our cuts our injuries and so on and this was enough in other words with these visits we were able to make a crack in the blackout wall that was meant to blank out the whole business especially since we'd naturally made sure of visits for those comrades who were most mangled up in the worst physical condition which meant the people who'd been brutalized most then the relatives in their turn made a real effort trying to pass on this news to the press
the very first days were extremely hard just at the level of basic survival in these bare cells but gradually we got ourselves together to cope with living even in those conditions and we even launched another protest with the aim of getting out of those bestial conditions in which we were reduced to living ten to a cell and instead of being nipped in the bud as it could easily have been in those conditions this protest succeeded in so far as after the very first days during which even exercise time had been abolished the administration had to allow us exercise time separating us into groups and letting us have one hour of exercise
the revolt was a blaze that had burned up all the strength that we'd accumulated it had been consumed by the revolt so now what we had to do was recover step by step to regain everything we'd lost and naturally the first steps were those that would secure us greater control over our lives inside the prison control over our lives means a lot of things it means for instance demanding to have visits again because visits are our links with the outside world it means demanding to have exercise time again because apart from it being physically necessary to go out into the fresh air at least an hour or two every day exercise time also means renewing internal communication between comrades
since we'd all been put on the ground floor some communication was possible for even if the armoured doors were locked the spy-holes were open so by shouting into the corridors through the spy-holes people exchanged information the administration had expressly abolished the working prisoners' role to stop us from circulating information and discussion about what to do now there were only the guards about in the corridors but with shouting and with the notes that people managed to pass from cell to cell collective discussion was possible then once exercise time was restored everything became much easier
some time later they allowed us to shave we could do it with a plastic razor they gave us each time and that we had to hand back immediately afterwards we could only use ordinary soap and we had no hand mirrors and so we shaved one another in turn and in my cell at that time there was a comrade who had both his hands in plaster and who could do nothing at all and at night before going to bed we had to take off his shoes his trousers his sweater and dress him again in the morning we had to put his food in his mouth when he ate we had to wash him clean him and wipe his bum when he had a shit we had to do everything for him and all the time he'd be saying thank you comrade thank you comrades
relationships with the guards have changed for in the rare moments when they could get away from under the noses of the NCOs the sergeants and the warrant-officers who were always in the corridor at least one of them whenever there was no NCO about for a minute the guards would talk to us saying over and over again that they hadn't been the ones who'd done the beatings that they hadn't been there that they'd had no part in that blood-bath and that in fact they totally disagreed with what had happened and they even said all the guards who'd taken part in that bloodbath had all been transferred
but of course this wasn't true at all and there were a number of occasions when comrades thought they could identify some of the guards who were in the corridor on duty and they were sure that they'd been among the guards who'd beaten us up and there were also some tense moments every so often a row would break out when somebody thought he could identify one of the guys who'd beaten us up because then the ones who'd had the worst of it got really mad and then there'd be serious threats made and that kind of thing it's inevitable one day a comrade who was certain he'd identified one of the guy's who'd beaten him up told him just wait one day I'm coming to get you even if you hide under the ground and I'll cut your head off
the sergeant who turned up in the corridor just then reacted by transferring the guard who'd been threatened somewhere else right away so as to make things simmer down afterwards however they remembered this business of the threats because later when all these comrades who'd threatened the guards during that time when all these comrades came to be transferred to another prison weeks and months later then they were badly beaten up all over again because that's how things always work in prison retaliation isn't always immediate things vary from moment to moment according to who's got the upper hand it can maybe happen that they'll make you pay for things even many months later
the guards reckon that sometimes there's no need to settle scores by beating somebody up right away in the heat of the moment because there'd be an immediate response in solidarity from all the other prisoners and then there'd be havoc it's much more convenient for them to mark the name in the black book and later on when it's time for a transfer and a guy's taken out of his cell because he's setting out for a different destination and he won't go back to that prison for at least a good while then they beat him up that's it things like this also happened during that period but the general mood was very good the morale of all the comrades was very high and that was a proof of the great solidarity that existed between all the comrades over and above the different political positions
39
At any rate during the first days we spent in these bare cells after the revolt all crammed together in those conditions the very first things to be done were to see to the treatment of our injuries to look after the comrades who were in a bad way and most of all we were still very afraid of another show of brutality from the guards because we'd started to fight back again and so the comrades put their minds to finding at least some minimum of weapons for self-defence which amounted to getting hold of some blunt instruments at least which wasn't very easy because they'd left nothing in the cells they'd left nothing at all not even stools or tables nothing
and so the first things to be seized on were the windows which were literally dismantled under the guards' very eyes and the iron bars were pulled out of these windows and in those first days even though they saw all this not only did the guards not interfere when they saw what was being done but they no longer dared even to come into the cells in other words the head count the entry of a group of guards into the cells to count the prisoners was suspended for the count the guards made do with opening the armoured door and doing the count through the barred gate but they were perfectly aware that the weaponry was there in the cells because they saw that the windows had been dismantled
but then when they allowed us to have our exercise time again naturally people thought that this was a move to get the cells emptied and that during the exercise period the guards would go inside and clear the cells of all those bars and so we were left with the dilemma whether to go to exercise and leave the cells unattended allowing the guards to go in and disarm us or whether we should choose to forego exercise which most of all meant giving up our means of communication inside the prison but there was no doubt that what mattered most was communication and just as we'd anticipated no sooner had they given it back to us than the guards took advantage of the exercise period to dash into the cells and carry out a general search confiscating all our weaponry the bars and everything else
from that moment there was pressure from the comrades pressure to get out of those conditions though in those conditions there weren't many things to be done the least constructive course given the conditions was to take more guards hostage seeing the way things had turned out earlier for if these guys had come in even when we had nineteen guards hostage it meant they were willing to fight it out on that ground on the assumption even that some people would die our conditions now were very harsh and we absolutely had to get out of them and the only way to get out of them was to fight but it had to be a fight that got somewhere and the conditions we were in meant we had to invent an altogether novel way of fighting
we had to find a way of fighting with the only weapons we had available and in the first place we had to invent potential weapons since we had nothing naturally the shopping orders had been done away with every means of buying food had been done away with the food they gave out was the prison food a reddish liquid mess that was handed out at mid-day and in the evening with plastic containers and plastic spoons and then pressure was started with the demand to be allowed to buy at least some items of food stuff you could eat without cooking food like milk biscuits fruit and that kind of stuff because there was still no way these guys would let us have our primus stoves and saucepans and so on
we succeeded in gaining the right to buy these things and the chance to buy food to order gave us our foothold for this protest because now we had the option of not eating the prison food and so the prison food became our weapon in this struggle because every day litres and litres of this red coloured mess were piling up in the cells and then suddenly at a prearranged time all of us together poured the entire mess into the corridor a real river of sickening red-coloured liquid mess that was poured back out of all the cells into the corridor and this became what was known as bacteriological warfare
the guards who were in the corridor had been virtually doubled because they had to be able to maintain their surveillance of us every single minute of the day so there were always a lot of guards in the corridor they were always huddled together in big groups we were on the ground floor which wasn't even well ventilated and so all that sickening mess poured into the corridor naturally produced a certain unpleasantness for the guards and being in the corridor had become virtually unbearable so the guards came up with the obvious solution which was to bring in the working prisoners from the special to clean out the corridor but the working prisoners refused of course out of solidarity with our struggle saying we're not going to clean up this is a protest we're no scabs and we're not going to go against a protest by other prisoners
the working prisoners refused to clean all this mess out of the corridor it stayed there and every day there was more and more of it and we started flinging out not just the mess of broth but all kinds of rubbish as well that accumulated there and people also started shitting in plastic bags and paper bags or in newspapers and flinging them out into the corridor through the spy-holes the war we were waging was bacteriological warfare in earnest because with this mountain of dirt and rubbish and excrement that was building up out in the corridor from day to day there was now a real risk of disease and epidemic there was the risk of viral hepatitis and that sort of thing we were running the risk but so were they
then the guards turned to the working prisoners in the judicial prison instead of those in the special clearly they went and picked out the worst elements from among the working prisoners in the judicial they went and picked out the worst elements and all the informers the spies in the service of the prison administration and they brought them into our corridor to clean it out then no sooner had they arrived than all the comrades shouted insults from inside the cells from behind the spy-holes we shouted threats saying if you're here cleaning this block the day they move us out of these conditions you'll pay for it and you'll pay dearly this threat was enough for the lot of them took to their heels at once and then the guards found themselves back where they started
by now the situation had become pretty rough it had become intolerable because the guards couldn't lower themselves to the same level as the people who clean the corridors with their own hands because it wasn't their duty it wasn't their job and for them to start cleaning meant giving in while on the other hand the fact was that too much shit was building up in the corridor and they were really in danger of catching some infection or other like hepatitis there was the real danger of an outbreak an epidemic by now they were having to go round with handkerchiefs over their faces in the corridor they had handkerchiefs over their faces they came and opened your cell with handkerchiefs over their faces