internationales literaturfestival berlin 2009, day 7
Fighting the Mafia – Raffaele Cantone
Robert Littell on Stalin
Other highlights
Fighting the Mafia – Raffaele Cantone
Good and brave – a man of character. Between 1992 and 2007 Raffaele Cantone worked as a state attorney for the Italian justice system waging war against the mafia. He was not the only one, he claims – a proof that democracies work. Despite Berlusconi (and the rest of the Italian political system) the Italian justice system exists more than by name. Not surprisingly, it is under ruthless attack. But not all is lost. On the contrary: some things have even improved thanks to European cooperation and as a result of the relentless work of the many anonymous members of civil society. The ever-hopeful attitude of the naive? No, it is rather the passion and confidence that drives those for whom citizenship is more than philosophy.
Cantone is no longer directly working for the anti-mafia unit. His life is in danger and his family is at risk, which is what he mostly regrets. He has bodyguards and the police are never far away – also at the ilb. Four member of the German police force are hanging around at the foyer; and there are a couple of guys and girls in civil clothes who are conspicuously out of place. In any case, this was the only event where I constantly had the feeling I should keep a watchful eye; probably my imagination, but you never know. Living constantly under observation is a heavy price to pay for civil courage, whereby for Cantone the worse was probably to have to leave the state attorney’s office. Writing a book is a way of continuing the fight at another level.
Cantone does not mention Berlusconi even once. He talks about the Italian political system in general and underlines that its corruption is diffused and not concentrated. This is a situation very similar to that under fascism. Cantone’s second message is that the mafia has expanded across Europe: many of the mafia bosses (and helpers) wanted in Italy have gone underground in other European countries where they are active in money launder and smuggling. The current financial crisis supports their machinations and keeps them protected. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the survival of the mafia in Italy would not have been possible without the nepotism that pervades the Italian society in conjunction with the pre-modern forms of loyalty that characterize traditional Mediterranean societies more generally. Changes are necessary at all levels if the Mafia is to be brought to justice and an end put to its systems of reproduction.
This event comprised a reading from Robert Littell’s new novel The Stalin Epigram (from the original and German translation) and a discussion with the author. The novel is based on the real story of Ossip Mandelstam who suffered imprisonment and then death under the Stalin regime for his free thoughts and poems (and especially for his satirical poem entitled ‘The Stalin Epigram’). The book is in equal measure about Stalin, who is thought (by the author) a ‘fascinating and complex character’. Robert Littell’s style and approach are not as dramatic as those of this son, Jonathan Littell, in The Kindly Ones – a novel about the Nazi time from the perspective of an SS officer drenched in all types of perversions and the egocentric megalomania that only the domination of another human being (or human beings) can inspire. But it is similar.
Are Stalin (Hitler and his SS officers) not only evil (whether in a banal or sophisticated way) but also ‘fascinating and complex’ characters? Normatively (and instinctively) this is difficult to accept: if Stalin (and Hitler) are complex and fascinating characters, what does that mean about their crimes? That they too are complex and fascinating? That there is some form of aesthetics perhaps in organized state and mass murder?
On the other hand: literature and also sociology and political theory are not (solely) about normative values; they are also about understanding (the famous Verstehen and Aufklären). So, if we are to sociologically accept the hypothesis that Stalin (and Hitler) are complex and fascinating, does that bring us any further to understand what happened during those fateful periods of human history?
I don’t think so. A thriller (which is what Littell senior writes) needs a good villain and an interesting ‘good guy’, whereby the key is the villain and not the good guy. For a villain to be good, he must be fascinating and complex; someone we secretly admire, even if we would rather be the good guys. Now, there is nothing wrong with using this formula to write good thrillers – even though, in the end, the best thrillers and suspense or spy novels are those that break the rules. But there is a problem with applying this formula to real historical situations (the problem more generally with so-called historical fiction) because it implies that one is treating historical multifarious events as issues that carry on primarily at the individual level. This complicates the process of abstraction which, following Kant, is necessary for morality. Hitler (and Stalin) might have been sexual perverts (and many other pervert things) but their crimes were more than individual aberrations.
Needless to say literature like speech and the expression of opinion are all free. Therefore it is possible to write (and like) history as a thriller. But for my taste, there are some (few) limits to eclecticism and this is one of them.
Other highlights of this 7th day of the ilb included the presentation of four debut authors from Hungary and Germany; and the staging of contemporary German poetry. Late at night, at the Collegium Hungaricum, a memorial was held for Sargon Boulos the Iraqi exile poet who died in Berlin in 2007.