Italia, Beppe Grillo, ( Dec. 28. 2013)

Dear Participants

I come from Norway.

It is a peaceful country. We kill each other little, with the exception of the atrocities carried out by one man in 2011, – he killed 77. Usually, we are at the very bottom among countries in international comparative studies on killing. But that is now, not before. And I fear: It will not last.

In Viking times we were great killers, both at home and abroad. But slowly, we lost the habit. After Viking times, we were forced to survive on our own resources, such as hunting, fishing and farming. A rough life, but with some good consequences. To survive, farmers in the valleys and fishers along the coast had to cooperate. Cooperation for survival demands trust between people. But cooperation also helps in creating trust. I help you and your family when your boat is wrecked in the winter-storm. And you help me, if I come in trouble. To be known as a trustworthy person in that type of society is essential. Trust is the only type of capital that really can be trusted.

There are also other reasons for trust up in the North. We are few people, spread out on so long stretch of land. Geography forces us to rely on neighbours, not on experts far away. And we were also far away from other emperors who might want to absorb us. And we were not a tempting target, no great green fields, most stones and mountains. Throughout four centuries, we were ruled from Denmark. But it was much water between Denmark and us - the Danish King and his men were comfortably far away. In 1814 we got our own constitution. Here – and in laws shortly thereafter – titles and privileges of nobility were abolished in the country. We became a bit more a society of equals. At least we made an attempt.

Slowly, we also became a country with a strong labour class. The labour unions were central in this. As an old dockworker once told me from his youth: “We had a little box at my place of work. Each Friday, that was salary day, we put some money in the box. It was to be used in case of sickness or other misery. But I tell you, Nils, you should be in really great misery before you took money out of that box. Your comrades might need it more than you.“

II.

An essential element in the establishment of trust is that the person to be trusted can be seen as a human being, one like myself. Trust is to a large extent built on ability to see the others, see that they are humans. May be different in appearance, but after all humans, with some similarity to ourselves. Mostly, we do not kill our brothers or sisters or others we see as humans. The command lays deep in our culture: Thou shalt not kill.

The importance of being able to see the other – as a full and trustworthy human being, was made clear to me through a study of killings that occurred in Norway during World War II. It was high up in the North of Norway. Hitler was in war with Russia. He sent several hundred Yugoslavian prisoners, mostly partisans, to Norway to build roads for this war, and to die up there. And they died, most of them. Norwegian guards took part in these atrocities. I talked with most of those guards that later were sentenced for killing and maltreatment of prisoners. And I talked with an equal amount of guards from the same camps not sentenced for having maltreated or killed prisoners.

The fundamental difference, and that has been one of my major interests for most of my life, was that the killers never come close to the Yugoslavians. Never so close that they saw them as human beings. Never so close that they saw that the partisans could have been they brothers or friends. The prisoners were at the edge of dying from hunger and mal-treatment. But for these guards they appeared as dirty, stinking, fighting each other for a piece of bread – they were wild animals from Balkan, just at the German commander of the camps told. No problem to kill them, more a sort of renovation.

But the non-killers in the camps saw more. They saw desperate human beings, starved, now close to death. To see the other is to be captured in the web of norms that makes us human. The non-killers among the Norwegian guards saw the Yugoslavian prisoners as fellow human being, and became unable to kill. To be able to see the other as a full human being is to me essential for understanding how we have been able to build, and preserve a welfare state.

Welfare states are dependent on trust. We could not have a welfare state if too many did not pay their taxes or thought that doctors or nurses would need extra money to treat you well.

And it is still with us, much of this trust. One of our major newspapers arranged an experiment two weeks ago. Intentionally, they spread twenty wallets around in Oslo and the surroundings. They spread them out, on pathways, in parks, or in front of tube stations, etc. It looked as if the wallets were lost. In all the “lost” wallets there were a visit-card with name, telephone and an easily accessible address to the supposed owner, and also 300 Kroner in cash, that is some 25 Euro. 15 of the 20 wallets were returned, two of them without money, one with a small amount missing, but the rest with nothing removed.

To me, it is essential for modern societies to preserve and further develop trust to fellow citizens. Instead of fingers on the triggers, we need a population with fingers ready for shake hands.

III.

But now our mutual trust inside my country is threatened, – threatened by oil and affluence.

Money tends to increase inequality. The rich ones disappear in their affluence. Ordinary people loose their ability to see them high up there, and the rich ones loose their ability to see ordinary people far down the ladder. They might appear as monsters to each other. The ground is prepared for social conflicts and violence.

And money makes us free! Good – and bad! If I am rich, I can lead a life independent of those I once stood close to. And I can live where I want, I can pay me into a neighbourhood of my liking, – I can go to Spain or Italy each year and escape the dark winters at home. Monetary capital kills important forms of mutual dependence, and trouble follows. Particularly, it opens for a belief that I do not need other people.

In many industrialized societies it is as we live and act according to a prescription on how to reduce trust and how to dissolve communities Neighbours become increasingly unimportant. We don’t see them, we don’t know them, and we think we don’t need them.

I want us to go the other way. Confronted with all the dissolving forces of modernity, it is essential to preserve local communities with an understanding among the inhabitants both of common interest, and roughly; who they are those that live there. When local knowledge and affinities goes out of a society, police comes in. That is inevitable.

And neighbours are of course better police than the police themselves. Some neighbours are around at most times. As stated on a postcard we once came across in Germany. The picture was of two ladies, at the front doors of their houses, talking to each other. And the text was this:

“God sees all, but the neighbours see even more”

In Norway, it is with some effort possible to find out what citizens pay in taxes. Where I grew up, we had an elegant neighbour, elegant in manners and cloths and cars. But he managed to pay nothing in tax. My father never talked to him.

To others, life in neighbourhoods with a great amount of relations between the inhabitants is the prototype of the good life. You know who you can trust.

The most respected prime minister we have had in Norway during my lifetime never left his neighbourhood, – he and his family continued their life in an old block of apartments in an old part of Oslo.

I will never forget a lady I met on a steep hillside outside of Caracas in Venezuela. So steep and barren that no ordinary people would or could live there. It was in a favela, or barrio, – one of these seemingly miserable places where poor people grabbed land and raised some improvised protection against rain and sun. It was a place with a terrible reputation of crime and dangers. There were several kids around, and also some grown ups, I think they were relatives. Deep down below us we could see the lights from Caracas, and she explained: I could move down there, rent an ordinary place to live. But I don’t know anybody there. It is here I have my life. It is up here I am safe.

Some steps to protect local neighbourhoods might be to split up the large towns in several smaller parts, – convert them to villages inside the city, with a maximum of autonomy. By decreasing the size of units, we increase the size and importance of those living or working there, for good and bad.

Also police stations ought to be localized. As a reaction to slow police action on the terror two years back in Norway, there are concrete plans to increase the centralization of the police. For certain functions this might be fine, maybe. But basically, also police ought to be a part of local neighbourhoods. In former days, our “lensmenn”, the local sheriffs, were obliged to live in their districts. The same goal ought to be raised for police in their local neighbourhoods of today. As recently formulated by a parliamentarian from one of our valleys: “The best sheriffs are those that report no crime”. They know their communities and those living there, and control through knowledge.

So also for social work. The trend is to centralize social workers in large offices for large districts, this is supposed to be so good for the public as well as for the professional development of the social workers. I want their offices split up, made the social workers lonely, forced to socialize with those they are there to help.

IV.

With a big relief many – particularly those with much to hide – escape such local neighbourhoods and go to a situation where nobody knows anybody and where the police is left alone in control of life and death and deviance. In this situation, some will see prisons as the major alternative to curb deviance.

And obviously, prisons are also necessary, sometimes. Neighbours or social workers could not handle the man behind the atrocities in Norway in 2011. So also with some other offenders.

But there are several major problems with prisons. Punishment is intended delivery of pain. Those receiving it are to suffer, and that suffering is intentionally created. For a welfare state, it is a schizophrenic situation; Welfare to the people, but then delivery of pain through prisons to some of the most vulnerable. In discussions on punishment back in Norway, I sometimes ask opponents: “But do you really want to increase the pain-level in Norway?

Prisoners often look miserable. And they are miserable, also by other reasons than the punishment itself. Prisons are mostly places for poor people, losers in society. No money, no housing, no functioning family, no education. And then sentenced to even more suffering.

There are great differences between countries in the use of imprisonment. Italy is relatively modest in the number of prisoners. Here there are 107 prisoners pr. 100 000 inhabitants. But your prisons are strongly overpopulated. Officially, you have room for 47 700 prisoners, but there are by now close to 65 000 prisoners in your prisons. And a great number of them are serving exceptionally long sentences. If I have understood reports from Italy correctly, 1500 are on life sentences, and among them it seems to be 1000 in a situation where they never will be let out of prison. They are without hope. They will die there. This situation seems to be a result of the war against the Mafia. But wars are dangerous. They might damage what a state fight to preserve

Another peculiarity: Italy was in the forefront in closing down its mental hospitals. The mad – insane – should be integrated in ordinary life.The man behind the reform was Franco Basaglia. I met him, and admired him highly. But also Italy changed. Families shrinked, and gave less space for the old, the sick, the mad. In such a situation, it is inevitable that an over-quota of mad end up in some sorts of prison.

But other countries in Europe have more prisoners than you. England and Wales and also Spain are close to 150 pr. 100 000 prisoners, against your 107. Scandinavian countries are at the bottom, they have 70-80 pr. 100 000. The giant in imprisonment is the US, with 716 prisoners pr. 100 000, that is close to seven times the Italian figure. The US has more than 2.2 million prisoners these days, – most of them poor and miserable. A majority of these prisoners are black or Hispanic. Everywhere on this Globe, it is the same; the prisons are mostly for the poor. This makes it, to me, imperative to keep the prison population low. We should not, intentionally, hit people already kicked down.

And of course, a stay in prison is not a good help for an honest life after release. Fellow prisoners are efficient teachers. Friendships are established, fellow prisoners become sources of pride and honour.

All this makes it essential to find alternatives to prisons, or at least ways to reduce the destructive effects of imprisonment. The most promising alternative, in addition to creating condition of welfare and living neighbourhoods, seems to be what often is called “restorative justice” or in my preferred terminology “boards for conflict handling”.

It is a very simple system. Someone might have stolen my bike. The police found both my bike and the offender. I met him. It was in our boards for handling of conflicts. He told his story, and I expressed my anger. We agreed that he should repair the bike. So he did. We met over a cup of coffee afterwards. Sometimes reconciliation follows in such a process.

Or, let us think he had robbed a bank. As the cashier told: He threatened to kill me. I could not sleep; memories of his cool eyes behind the mask tortured me day and night. He was sentenced to several years of imprisonment. But I could still not sleep, said the cashier, and asked to meet him in the board for handling of conflicts. The meeting had to take place inside the prison where he served his sentence. And as she ended her story: Here, in prison, he had no mask. He became a human being. I expressed the dreadful effects on me. I think he understood a bit more. And I got peace throughout my nights.

Similar meetings have also been arranged between killers and persons close to the killed ones. This is not an alternative to imprisonment, but an alternative to inhumanity.

For the victims, a basic experience in much of this is the importance of and the relief in getting to know: What happened? What happened to my husband, or to my child? Or, as in Argentine; what happened to my grandchild, stolen after the Junta-officers had killed the mother and father of the child? Sometimes, to get to know what happened seems to be overwhelmingly more important than to punish the offenders.

I sometimes think of the possibilities of using "Truth and Reconciliation Commissions" when I read and reflect on corruption and crime problems in this country. But more than anything, I think on what you actually already have accomplished through the work initiate d by Beppe Grillo and now carried on in The Five Star Movement: You have in a way re-created visibility! You make it possible to see how far the politicians have gone away from those that elected them. You re-create the village structures, and create a shameful situation for those who have deserted the basic values of the land.

I wish you good luck for your important work for Italy.