DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A PIECE OF NETWORKING-ART!:
If you are... ______________________________________________________________________________
«Each person, each association, each institution engaged in these days
of dramatic news in the struggle against pedophilia, should reflect
more often on what's happening and then, overcoming stupor and
concern, ask themselves how all this could have ever been possible
and how a public administration could have made it possible.
And wait for a reply from whom can and must give it.» ____________________________________________________________________________
Rome, 4 / 10 / 2000 What is happening in these hours in Rome is incredible. In two days, two squalid cases of censorship have fallen on the Roman Civic Network, hitting two groups, AvaNa Net and The Thing Roma, highly active in these years in the telematic, cultural and social fields. To determine the choice of the City of Rome to obscure the pages of these two groups, the anti-pedophilia hysteria fed by different organs of information and by a political class incapable of distinguishing pedophilia from a critical reflection on the same phenomenon, morbid images from common prints of the 1700s. Let's ricapitulate the facts. Following the umpteenth denunciation by Father Fortunato di Noto, the priest President of the "Rainbow Association" (a name used by gay associations as well!), whose mission is to hunt pedophiles and satanists on the Internet, the vicedirector general of the City of Rome, Mariella Gramaglia, decides to obscure on the 2 October, the pages of AvanaNet, an historical group of the Roman telematic scene. Various Italian national newspapers, such as Il Messaggero, Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, report, on 3 October, extracts from the site containing some messages on the presumed sexual pleasure that minors would feel in erotic rapport with adults. That's enough to provoke the denunciation of the courageous priest and the explosive declarations of Gramaglia, who after having suspended the site, threatens to denounce AvaNa "in civil and criminal courts to have offended her honor and that of the City of Rome". What the newspapers omit to say, or say in an incomplete way. is that the phrases in question come from a book - published in its entirety on the site - entitled Lasciate che i bimbi("Let the little children...") and signed with the pseudonym Luther Blissett. Re-inserting in the right context - that it is an enquiry into the phenomenon of pedophilia and the political instrumental use that is made of it - the phrases in question in fact lose any morbid profile.
The book (in Italian) is for sale in all bookstores and can be found online in no-copyright free version at the following URLs:
http://www.LutherBlisset.net/archive_it/227_it.html> It's also interesting why AvANa had decided to reproduce the book i its entirety on the space given to AvANa by the City. In 1998, Lucia Musti, Pubblic Prosecutor in the case against the satanist sect of "Children of Satan" - (the case resulted in the absolution of all charges) - decided to denounce some servers which were already hosting the text. In solidarity with the denounced providers AvANa publicly decided to give space on their site to the book. Strange that the charge contested by Musti against the author of the book, was the one of defamation via press and "abuse of critique" toward her operation in the proceeding against "Children of Satan". Strange that a Public Prosecutor, usually very attentive to questions related to pedophilia, didn't reveal any causes to proceed criminally against the authors. Without keeping in consideration all the context and all these precedents, the City of Rome attributed the responsibility for the contents of the book to AvaNa, throwing mud over a piece of history of social telematic in Italy with its declarations. But the story won't finish here... SECOND ACT: THE PRINTS OF THE 1700s ENTER THE SCENE The second act of this sad tale begins on 4 October when the group of The Thing Roma - one of seven nodes of the international network of The Thing dedicated to net art and net culture- realised that an HTML document on their site containing an interview by Ricardo Dominguez with Francesca da Rimini, alias doll yoko, (originally published on The Thing New York in 1997), had been removed. A letter of explanation from Mauro Biddau, member of the Vice Direction General of the City of Roma and webmaster of Rete Civica was received by The Thing on the same day. In this letter Biddau admitted to having removed two images from the HTML document (but in fact he had removed the entire document) because "they were not in line with the rules of agreement between the City of Rome and non-profit associations for the development of the Roman Civic Network". But in reality this accord limits associations to not using the net to transmit material which might be offensive to anyone. The incredible thing is that the images in question - that you can see together with the interview (in Italian) at http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko/censored/dollyoko.html (or a slightly different version in English at http://sysx.org/gashgirl/dolliv/doleview.htm) - have been used in Dollspace, a well known work of internet art, financed by the New Media Fund of the Australia Council, winner of two international prizes, exhibited in numerous festivals and its "perverted pages" acquired by the University of Westminster. Furthermore, the GIF animations in question had been created by an artist using a Dutch printing press in 1789 (what a subversive date!), that was one of the first illustrations of the political/literary works of the Marquis de Sade (another noted pervert, unfortunately his texts are now all legal and in circulation). Other images from this often reproduced series, also capable of provoking "scandal" and "offence", even if they were created 200 years ago, can be found at: http://www.opkamer.nl/amea/members/sade.htm
«Each person, each association, each institution [...], should reflect more often on what's happening and then, overcoming stupor and concern, ask themselves how all this could have ever been possible and how a public administration could have made it possible. And wait for a reply from whom can and must give it". We think that the time of waiting is over. And that it is necessary to take back the words. Using all the means at our disposal, including legal means, the right to our honour remains intact, our name unblemished, our ideas trampled by people who live in fear and use this fear only for political and electoral aims. It is necessary to arrive at a total campaign that rebuts the dangerous perception that is being created around those who simply intend to express their true thoughts, to make political or cultural action, or in the end, to breathe. Your help can be precious: Please send this message to the Vicedirection General of the City of Rome:
Mauro Biddau m.biddau@comune.roma.it Send them as an attachment images of the 1700s prints from this website: http://www.opkamer.nl/amea/members/sade.htm Or from the "dollspace" website: http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko/ Create your own form of protest and spread it. THIS IS A PIECE OF NETWORKING-ART! Subscribe to this appeal at: The Thing Roma thing_it@katamail.com Best wishes,
The Thing Roma ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Contacts:
The Thing Roma: thing_it@katamail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
"Let the little children..." is in fact a counter enquiry on pedophilia and satanism that in 1997 sought to make some clarity in the ubiquitous media hysteria and focused on the risk of a new level of limitations of civil liberties. In the text there isn't the slightest exaltation of any form of violence against minors or adults but, being a serious enquiry, the book contains many citations from clinical studies that take into considerations sexual experiences between minors and adults. In particular the citations quoted by Father Fortunato di Noto has been extracted from a book of psychology "Child and Sex", published by Little Brown and Company, publishing house that is part of the multinational group Time Warner.