'nuzzer meme

1. What time is it?
9:59 am in Rome

2. Name as it appears on birth certificate?
Fabio Paolo Barbieri

3. Nicknames?
Stick one on me and die. Only my enemies nickname me.

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The Indian Ocean disaster

One of the things I got for Christmas was a wonderful collection of Neapolitan songs by Roberto Murolo – an outstanding singer who had his career blasted by a paedophile scandal but who is now recognized as one of the finest interpreters in this great tradition. My favourite of them all is Simmo ‘e Napule, paisà, a wonderful, cheerful song that expresses a sheer joy in life, that life is always worth living, whether you are rich, whether you are poor:

Basta che c’è ‘sto sole,
Ca c’è rimasto ‘u mare,
‘na ninna a core a core, ‘na canzone pe’ ccanta’
Chi ha avuto ha avuto ha avuto,
Chi ha dato ha dato ha dato!
Scurdammoce ‘u passato;
Simmo ‘e Napule, paisà!

“Long as we’ve got the sun,
Long as we’ve got the sea,
Long as we’ve got a girl, long as we’ve got a song to sing,
If we win then we’ve won,
If we lose then we’ve lost!
Let’s all forget the past,
‘cause we’re all from Naples town!”

The most cheerful, unconquerably happy songs in the world come from the poor, from the excluded, from the wretched of the Earth. Think of the life the Russian peasants led, then think of the fighting happiness of their dances. And it is not in order to “escape” the reality of their poverty. Of course, there is that too, although it has a less mean and cowardly meaning than the formulation allows: when the poor come together, they come together to party, to enjoy each other’s company – in festivals, in marriages, in parties of every kind, to enjoy life for its and each other’s sake. So many of them are young, near enough the time of love or of having children and watching them grow, full of energy and joy and hope. But it is more: it is that nine days out of ten, the reality of the life of the poor is not in despair, but in struggle, hard work, achievement, success. It is university professors from Harvard or Tubingen who find life a weariness or suspect it may not be worth living; the real poor are too close to life to find it anything but worth having – after all, the next day might win me the girl of my dreams, bring my brother bring the job that allows us to pay the bill and buy that TV set, or let our father get the building sub-sub-subcontract that will finally give him the money to marry our sister as she ought. Life is a series of battles, each of which can carry its triumph or find its defeat explained in a sad, yet beautiful song. So the other man married your girl? There is a sad song about lost love to help you make sense of your horrible loss; and meanwhile there is always another day, another hope, another job to be done – and the big bright sun above us, and the sea before us.

This, I think, is the real horror of this catastrophe: that the neutral, indeed friendly, background to the lives of millions of the poor of Southern Asia suddenly fell upon them and devoured them. Like the poor of Naples, they lived stretched out along the sea, large, open and free, sharing, even among overcrowding and dirt, the blessing of the sun, the sea on which they ventured on egg-shell boats to win their day’s food, their battles and struggles and achievements and loves. Their lives seem desperate to us; they did not seem so to them. And who can see the terrible pictures of fathers stumbling through the raging waters with pathetic half-naked bundles in their arms, and in their faces an expression that no words can describe, without realizing that they loved their children – those swarming, dirty little figures which we of the rich world only see in documentaries about hunger telling us that they should be birth-controlled and aborted out of existence, because there are too many of them? Try saying that now. Try telling their parents. There aren’t too many; and now, after the ocean, there are very many too few. If the loss of one brings such indescribable grief, is there one of you Philistines who dares to say that their little lives had not lit up those of their familiars? Who dares to tell them that they should have had one less?

Tomorrow life begins again, however great the grief, however irreparable the loss. This is a time to help; and of course all the world is moving and sending money, food and cover, medicine and doctors to give it, machines to remove the dirt and skilled men and women to manage the rescue. But rescue is only good for those who are there to be rescued; and tens of thousands of our fellow human beings no longer are. We desperately, desperately want to help those who are beyond helping. It is more than a belief or a theory: it is a need of the depth of our soul, of what binds us to them as men to men, that calls, in a darkness where no other words mean anything, have mercy upon them; receive their souls. We will forget, or we will never learn; do not let them be forgotten, or have lived in vain. Have mercy upon them.