Keep burping

“What has been the real reason for the show’s success? It is not so much the way it mocks the hypocrisies, the lies that are organised so grossly and blatantly (which is putting it mildly) by the constituted organs of the State and by the functionaries who serve them (judges, police chiefs, prefects, undersecretaries and ministers); it has been above all the way it deals with social democracy and its crocodile tears, the indignation which can be relieved by a little burp in the form of scandal; scandal as a liberating catharsis of the system. A burp which liberates itself precisely through the scandal that explodes, when it is discovered that massacres, giant frauds and murders are undertaken by the organs of power, but that at the same time, from within the powers that be, other organs, perhaps pushed by an enraged public opinion, denounce them and unmask them. The indignation of the good democratic citizen grows and threatens to suffocate him. But he has a sense of satisfaction when he sees, in the end, these same organs of this rotten and corrupt society, pointing the finger at this self-same society, at its own ‘unhealthy parts,’ and this gives him a sense of freedom throughout his whole being. With his spirit suitably decongested, he shouts: ‘Long live this bastard shit society, because at least it always wipes its bum with soft, perfumed paper, and when it burps it has the good manners to put its hand in front of its mouth.’”

The ‘show’ introduced in the first sentence here refers to Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist and this is Fo himself writing a postscript to the publication of the play in 1974.* Yes, maybe the play was set in Italy at a time when Europe still had dictatorships, chaotic politics and coups, but is his analysis any less relevant now? In our social democracies we still have agencies lying to the courts (e.g. MI5 re: one of its neo-Nazi sources), to courts being packed (e.g. the US Supreme Court) to an endless litany of anti-democratic behaviour in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere – is Fo out of date? Least of all with his analysis of how we’re collectively bought off with scandals, some of which do indeed compromise the State but never threaten it? Give ‘em a bit of theatre to maintain a pretence . . .

Accidental Death of an Anarchist by the way was written in response to the Italian state’s initial blaming of the left for a bombing in Milan which killed 16 people; it turned out later that state organs themselves, working with right wing people had carried out the attack. Well, around the same time we had our own killing fields in Northern Ireland and such co-operations worked well there too, didn’t they?

So, what’s improved over the last 50 years? We’ll know when they tell us.

In an interview on the Beeb this morning with former MP Kevan Jones, now Lord Beamish, chair of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee we learn that 75% of apprehended terrorist plots are Islamic in origin and 25% are far right. Not much space left there for left wing terrorism is there? – but you wouldn’t guess it if you followed, e.g. the antics of the Met police or indeed this government.

*Methuen, reprinted 2024 p.78