Linda Bimbi a Faith in Human Rights

Chiara Bonifazi Linda Bimbi A Faith in Human Rights Introduction by Luciana Castellina Chiara Bonifazi Linda Bimbi A Faith in Human Rights Introduction by Luciana Castellina Afterword by Sergio Poeta Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso ISSOCO © 2016 Via Della Dogana Vecchia n. 5 - 00186 Roma tel. 06/6879953 - fax 06/68307516 www.fondazionebasso.it - [email protected] Front cover: 1966, pupils from the Colégio Helena Guerra in front of the school English translation by Ruth Taylor of the book by Chiara Bonifazi, Linda Bimbi. Una vita tante storie, Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Torino, 2015. Index 5 Introduction by Luciana Castellina 17 Foreword 23 I. The long journey towards rights 25 1. The background to the story 27 2. The true meaning of life 36 3. The tale of the communist nuns 51 4. The transition 61 5. Anonymity 69 6. Two opposite shores 84 7. The dawn of a new age 98 8. The thrill of the future 107 II. References 109 1. Community 114 2. Chronology 120 3. Historical background 133 4. Biographies. Linda’s encounters 157 5. Linda’s writings 159 Afterword, by Sergio Poeta 167 Bibliography 169 A story in images Introduction by Luciana Castellina When I first met LInda, I was totally unprepared. I mean that when I saw and heard her for the first time, I knew nothing about her, and we had never been introduced. And if I hadn’t happened to come across her again, and then got to know her properly, I wouldn’t even have remembered that fleeting encoun- ter years before. It was in 1974, during the Russell Tribunal II sessions on the dictatorship in Brazil, held in Rome in the lecture hall of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, in what is now known as Pi- azzale Aldo Moro, although I can’t remember what it was called at the time. All I know is that it couldn’t yet have been Aldo Moro, because Moro hadn’t been assassinated and so a whole series of things that happened in the meantime also hadn’t happened either. About the Tribunal itself, I knew little or nothing: or rather I knew about its immediate predecessor, which in reality was the same, although it was called Bertrand Russell Tribunal I and had been held to investigate American war crimes in Vietnam, in Hanoi itself. The incredible idea of establishing an international jury, authoritative but not official, relieved of any coercive meas- ures and the right to deliver officially applicable sentences, but nevertheless endowed with great moral stature, had been in the meantime taken up and pursued by Lelio Basso, who had been both Russell’s friend and invaluable collaborator. The truth is that I also knew very little about Lelio Basso: he was a socialist, I was a communist, so our paths rarely crossed, although Lelio was an atypical socialist (or perhaps it would be better to say a true socialist among many aliens who nevertheless defined themselves as such). So, if I barely knew Lelio Basso at that time, just imagine 8 Linda Bimbi. A Faith in Human Rights Linda Bimbi, who, moreover, had just returned to Italy after a long period in Brazil. I am telling all of this to explain immediately that I am not one of Linda’s official and authorised biographers. I arrived on the scene too late, at the beginning of Eighties in fact. In the meantime, it’s true, I had also become something of an anomaly in the communist movement, and this undoubtedly made meeting with other anomalies, namely socialist, easier. Which led me to the discovery of Lelio Basso, of his journal Problemi del socialismo, which brought to our attention an international left of which we had no knowledge, and then, when he died, of the Foundation that bore his name. In reality, it was Linda who looked for me. This was the era of the great peace movement, fighting against the installation of missiles in Europe, the period of a dramatic resurgence of the Cold War; I was the European co-ordinator of European Nuclear Disarmament (END), alongside Ken Coates, who was chairman of the Bertrand Russell Foundation. I suppose it must have been this connection that led Linda to seek me out. But also the fact that Linda felt herself part of that period of mobilisation against the threat of war that had once again resurfaced, with Reagan and Brezhnev at the helm of the two great nuclear powers. So much so that many years later, the Lelio Basso Foundation was to be directly involved in the fight against new conflicts, those in the Global South. In fact the International League for Human Rights was to conduct, with regard to the European peace movement, a persuasive campaign aimed at correcting the somewhat Euro- centric focus of its policy: in other words, seeking to persuade that the greatest threat no longer lay along the border between East and West, but North and South, a powerful argument that reached the Foundation through the particular sensitivity it had always demonstrated towards the problems of the Third World. Similar, in fact, to some of our other shared “companions along the way”: Father Balducci, Father Turoldo, the secular Catholics of the left, who Linda had met shortly after returning from Brazil, and before becoming involved full time with the Foundation. So it must have been on account of all these concurrences that Linda phoned me, this must have been in 1984, and asked if Introduction 9 we could meet: she wanted to invite me, on behalf of the Inter- national Foundation, a branch subsequently established by Lelio Basso, to go to Brazil for four days, for an initiative by “Madre Terra” promoted by the local “Justitia et Pax”, also a sort of tribunal that denounced the harsh exploitation to which the country’s labourers were subjected. Since then, we have been inseparable: thanks to that trip, through Linda I also discovered Brazil, still dear to my heart, as are Linda’s Brazilian friends, starting with Lula, trade unionist and then leader of the Workers’ Party, the PT. whose congresses I almost always attended from then onwards, until he became President. For years, the future leader of Brazil and I met in Via della Dogana Vecchia, because whenever Lula came to Europe, he never failed to pass through Rome to see Linda Bimbi. Not only out of affection, but also to navigate his way through the muddle of our Left, because it was Linda’s judgement he trusted. Indeed, Linda was considered de facto Lula’s spokesperson in Italy, a sort of shadow ambassador of a progressive Brazil. To such a degree that when the PT was elected to power, marking an historical turning point for the country, Massimo D’Alema, then Foreign Minister, held a solemn ceremony at Villa Madama, during which Linda Bimbi was honoured for the contribution she had made to a democratic Brazil. In our highly politicised world, Linda immediately seemed unusual to me. Because she was politicised, but in a way com- pletely different to one with which we were familiar. Of course, we shared the same passion and commitment (considerable at the time), but there was also a distinctive curiosity, as though she needed to learn in a hurry a lot of things she had not been able to experience as we had during her many years as a nun in Brazil. Perhaps for this very reason, she has always maintained a combination of ingenuousness – often, even amazement at the things she discovered – and also a wisdom that never ceases to surprise me. And my curiosity was immediately aroused by two people who in some way, while being two very different individu- als, were (or rather are, because they continue to be so) entirely at one with Linda: Ruth and Monica. They are never away from her side, whether at work or in the privacy of their home. I was 10 Linda Bimbi. A Faith in Human Rights only vaguely aware that they had been nuns and that they were Brazilian. I realised that they provided the key to a better under- standing of Linda, but it took time for me to get to know them properly. Similarly, a close acquaintance with Linda, detailed in- formation about her life, meeting her friends and companions in the Community, all came much later on. In the beginning, there was no time: after the trip to Brazil and my account of what I had seen and heard, I immediately threw myself into the work of the Foundation. Immediately after Linda, the other people I first met in Via della Dogana Vecchia were Piero Basso and Gianni Tognoni. Pie- ro because of his involvement with the League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples; Gianni, then as now, for his with the Per- manent Peoples’ Tribunal, the other two sections which, together with the Scientific Committee of the International Foundation, we jokingly referred to as the “Holy Trinity”. This came about because Linda chose to assign me to the League, the more strictly politico-militant section, grasping immediately that this was the role to which I was most suited; likewise with the Tribunal which had a more direct involvement with it, the Council instead being restricted to the intellectuals. She allowed me to move quickly up the ranks. It was thanks to Linda’s undisputed authority that in a very short time, and barely known to the founding members of the Foundation, I became vice-president of the League, while the president was an exceptional figure: Adolfo Perez de Esquivel, with whom, despite the fact that he lived in Argentina, I enjoyed an excellent part- nership, and a wonderful friendship even now.

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