through europe

I started out with nothin
and I still got most of it left

Seasick Steve

In the spring of 1836, just one year before his death, the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi wrote what is considered his poetic testament, La Ginestra o il Fiore del Deserto (The Broom or the Flower of the Desert). Starting off with the description of a flower of a broom plant growing on the arid slopes of the volcano Vesuvius, Leopardi progressed into a fiery attack against both the delusions of his century – which still believed in a ‘magnificent progressive fate’ – and those who failed to recognize the malignity of Nature towards us humans.
Nature in particular is targeted by Leopardi as the true enemy of humanity.

He has a noble nature
who dares to raise his voice
against our common fate,
and with an honest tongue,
not compromising truth,
admits the evil fate allotted us,
our low and feeble state:
a nature that shows itself
strong and great in suffering,
that does not add to its miseries with fraternal
hatred and anger, things worse
than other evils, blaming mankind
for its sorrows, but places blame
on Her who is truly guilty, who is the mother
of men in bearing them, their stepmother in malice.
They call her enemy:
and consider
the human race
to be united, and ranked against her”1
 

On 24th December 2010, in the Romanian parliament, a bleeding man was shouting “Freedom!” while being carried outside by the paramedics. He had just tried to kill himself, jumped from the journalists’ balcony, little before the prime minister began his speech.
This surreal image is the pitiless representation of  Romanian society: an autistic political class and an aphasic public opinion.

Il 24 dicembre 2010, nel Parlamento rumeno, un uomo in fin di vita urla "Libertà!" a squarcia gola, mentre, insanguinato, viene portato via dai soccorsi. Si era appena gettato nel vuoto, dal balcone dei giornalisti, poco prima che il premier iniziasse il suo discorso.
Quest’immagine surreale contiene in sé la rappresentazione impietosa della società rumena. Una classe politica autistica e un’opinione pubblica afasica.