Discovering the "other" America: The Latin American Encounters of Italian Peace Movements, 1955-1980

Why Latin America? Why this «distant» part of the world, separated by an ocean and with different experiences of civilization, policy and culture, has played an original role in the evolution of Italian pacifism? The way that we’ll try to follow will bring us along two different levels, that sometimes inevitably will cross together: first of all the construction of symbols, that gradually (the old heritage of the «discovery») or suddenly (Cuba with the revolution, Chile after the Pinochet golpe, El Salvador of Romero) entered directly in the national conscience. Secondly, the civil mobilization for human rights, linked with the concrete action of singles, groups and associations, actively involved with the world of organized pacifism. From this double level arose an interesting osmotic process, that helped to develop a debate around the link between «social justice» and «peace». This particular process not only introduced «external» issues in the national debate, but also offered new fields of comparisons, helping to cross the border between catholic and left-oriented pacifisms, creating new utopias and focusing the public attention on the «peaceful side» of thirdworldist campaigns: from the season of passions of the ’60s and’70s to the «age of silence» emerged after the 1992 celebrations and protests for the 500th year of the «discovery» . Behind the gradual flourish of movements there were not only elements of novelty linked with the transformations of the global «cold war», but also a mix of ancient sedimentations. Emblematic of this approach could be considered a book, La disputa del nuovo mondo, written in 1955 by the philosopher Antonello Gerbi . In these pages the author, sensible to the history of human ideas, tried to cover the genesis of the «American myth» (talking about Colombo, Las Casas, the Jesuit missions, the natives cultures…) to compare it with the emerging «sons». Look for this symbolic return of Latin America in Italy during the second half of the 20th century could also help us to start some reflections about the nature of Italian pacifism itself. In this process we will find the firm recall of some Italian Catholics to the «religious and cultural unity» of the two hemispheres (that tends to exclude from its trajectory North America, protestant e capitalist) and the political spirit of some socialists and «pure» pacifist, inspired by «global humanism». Finally we can find also the «living presence» of the Italian migration experience that invested South America at the end of the 19th century . Now, in some way, it was coming back to interrogate the Western world about its destiny and its contradictions.