The landing strip
(10:30)

Alessandro Bergonzoni's
passaparola

The first revolution is a revelation
Hello to all the friends of Beppe Grillo’s blog. I am pleased and honoured to be amongst you.
You may be an actor, an author or an artist, but when you have finished your shows, your books, your exhibitions and your performances, what’s next? We have to start in the schools, although it is already way too late to start in the schools, it’s too late to start in the secondary schools and it’s far too late to start in the universities. We have to go to the primary schools, but it is already too late to start in the primary schools so we must start in the crèches, although even in the crèches it is already too late, so we have to start at conception, saying: listen, in order to be able to tell a “tale”, a story rather than a dogma because no dogma is preferable. At this historical or anti-historical moment, as the case may be, it is no longer possible to be happy merely doing one’s job and we now have to start doing other people’s jobs. We have to go to places where we are not wanted and not expected although I haven’t invented anything and there are others here who did it all before me and did it far better than me. We have to start going into the prisons and the hospitals, not only into the streets, and I must add that this is what interests me more than anything else. Since it’s not sufficient to do one’s own job, we have to start taking to the inner streets. I know that perhaps this audience at least partly agrees with what I’m saying, but the first revolution is indeed a revelation, namely to see how much I’m changing and then I take to the streets and start a revolution. However, first you have to figure out how responsible you are for an inner change, which I will call the gross internal change or gross internal product. We have very short landing strips and concepts such as economics, death, life, illness and racism are jumbo-concepts since Jumbos are extremely large aircraft that contain large numbers of passengers-ideas. In order to land, these concepts require huge landing strips. In order to land, a Jumbo needs numerous kilometres, but we have short landing strips, indeed extremely short landing strips for vertical landings only. We have to begin with an expansion that will then enable us to go out and revolutionise, and this devolution has already begun. You know more about this than I do since you are here listening and watching this blog. The artists narrate, they don’t compel nor educate, even though the idea of being able to tell a story in the background should be even stronger and more energetic. I would very much like to see the beginnings of a change, that every day and every minute of every day we start saying ….. because we are in fact voting every second and every minute of every day, when we look at a handicapped person, when we use water, when we waste stuff, when we curse something or someone, when we say “Poor bugger” to someone who has a tumour, we are voting, we are in the polling booth, so it is a continuous referendum all day long. I believe that inside ourselves, whether it be artistically, anthropologically or philosophically, we should not be afraid of these words.

Living deceased personalities
Inside of me I have my own internal Parliament, an internal government that has to create a culture every day and not leave this entirely to those who represent me, in other words some or other politician. Politics come later and it is very important indeed. Society also comes later, as does community spirit, and absurdly even ethics come later. First comes an internal revolution, a major change. Inside of you you have to have a mass of organs that vote, that choose an executive, the ones that then lead to growth, a kind of expansion, and that is what growth is all about, namely, no longer accepting being small, being short or being limited, no longer being happy with merely imitating, or parodying. I’m even telling the artist: "You must start changing your codes, changing your terminology and your rules, but internally. You have to start writing differently, you have to start looking elsewhere without forgetting "… This does not mean fleeing, not by any means, indeed it is like exploring a cave because it comes from within. The mafia problem is indeed a political problem, by all means, but as I have said before and now repeat without presumption, the mafia problem is also a problem of soul. When I talk of soul, I don’t mean religion, I mean an internal condition that, unless it changes, you cannot expect anything. So, go to the crèches and tell them how we can have a new kind of politician 30 years from now, a new kind of magistrate 30 years from now, a new kind of patient 30 years from now, a new kind of doctor 30 years from now or a new kind of teacher 30 years from now, that’s where you have to start working right now!
It is a form of mental prevention, a concept of hard work and great investment. The future generations get very little so that’s where you have to get to work to instil a different outlook. We’re lacking poets. Let me make a rhetorical statement. What I’m talking about is something poetic. In addition to a sense of justice and honesty, a managing director must also have a sense of poetry. If you are a well-rounded man, you will know instinctively what is right, what is wrong and what is illegal, and this knowledge comes from an internal mechanism that is not only the result of culture and anthropology, but also of additional growth. It is no longer possible to go on certain programmes and talk about ethics. We have realised this since they began stealing our savings, since they began robbing us and stealing our neurons. Intelligence and conscience is something else that has been stolen. This is another partly internal concept and it is from here that everything begins. Then, when we have changed, then we can take to the streets. I think it was Gandhi, whom I would like to greet right now because I believe he too is listening to us now, who said that there are live people who are already dead and dead people who are still alive.
It was important to mention these things in the wrong places, but what are these wrong places? All of them, after all, where can you do so? Where can you do so within the family? Where can you do so within the schools? In the hospitals. You shouldn’t only talk about illness when it affects you, you shouldn’t only talk about the abuse of women if you yourself are a woman or if you have a daughter and you shouldn’t only talk about road safety or Saturday night vehicle accident deaths if you have young children, although you must in any event. I’m tired of people only talking about cases of medical malpractice because they have experienced it first-hand. I should personally be doing something to address the problem. That’s what internalisation is all about. I should be identifying with the problem, participating and getting into it. These are not just words because words that are not backed by actions are merely like the points o fan iceberg so there must be revelation and then revolution, not acceptance!

Act internally
We want to forget the slogans. Young people need to dream more. Young people don’t dream, they merely desire things, want things, it foolish ambition. What I’m talking about are needs and necessities laced with some lack of reality. It may seem to be a lack of reality but in fact it is not, it is merely a case of knowing and expecting more of reality. I can no longer appear on a programme with the same old routines and use the same old words, the same old ways of interpreting things and thus addressing the issues satirically or parodistically, I simply have to change. We have to recreate re-creation, we have to create, invent something new and that’s what I expert of a student or a child in the crèche who starts examining a body, perhaps even a body without arms, who starts looking at the skin, the colours, the habits and the person’s way of being, starting with a judgement of that individual, and who begins to realise that there is not only one type of religion, one type of medicine, one type of body, one type of woman, but that he/she needs to expand their view. These are huge landing strips and huge concepts and that’s why I say that, given the prison scandals and the healthcare scandals, I cannot continue to think only about what is happening to me and when it is happening. I have already been affected by each and every one of the healthcare scandals and each and every one of the prison scandals even though I may not have personally borne the brunt of those scandals. By now we have realised that if a tree falls in the Amazon, we will soon feel the effects here. Metaphorically speaking, someone might say “But are there really trees that are that tall?" That has nothing to do with it. It’s a concept that states that energy is transferred and even though you may be sitting far away, you are nevertheless very close to whatever is going on so you mustn’t only talk about the news because the germ of Kronac is the real killer, so let me say it again and again, ad nauseum, to the point that I’m sick of saying it. The fact is that we constantly talk about communication, but the real issue is knowledge, not the manner in which we communicate. I don’t care how we speak in public or whether we use more or fewer conjunctives, what I want to see is some sort of meaning in what is being said, some sort of idea, some sort of depth, some meat on the bone, a kind of anti-vegetarian thought process!
At this point this is not a hope because I have no hope whatsoever. They say that hope is the last to die, but I couldn’t be bothered about who or what is the last to die. What I want to know is who will be the first to be re-born. Every day I see the last one to die. The television set must remain off. You can watch it but don’t ever turn it on! I’ve said it millions of times. At this point we have to follow a different path. The problem lies in the small things, the things that seem innocuous and simple, but the little things are not innocuous, they are very serious indeed, and also criminal, so one must first act internally. This is not a waste of time. Reveal, tell and talk about it and thanks for your landing strip, which from here looks plenty long enough anyway!