Page Text: Womyn of the Italian Resistance (Once a Partisan, Always a Partisan)
Italy Calling is a one-wom@n project that was conceived at the beginning of 2010.
I was born and grew up in Rome, the daughter of a Southerner and a Northerner. I’m neither then, nor am I a “proper” Roman (it takes 7 generations or so to make you so, they say). My DNA is an harmoniously chaotic mixture of every culture that lived on Italian lands: Celts, Greeks, Arabs, Etruscans, Romans…
With the Motherland, I’ve always had a fairly typical love/hate relationship. There was a time when the hate won, and that’s when I decided to leave. By leaving I took distance and realised I could see things differently. I learned to love again. I asked myself, How can I contribute to what’s going on in the Motherland, how can I keep close to my roots? And I decided to be a scribe. A witness.
During my 3rd year of college I had an inspiring, mesmerising, poetical Philosophy teacher (and a truly beautiful womyn). Once, she was talking about the Resistance (I can’t remember where she’d started from, it was always like that with her…). She mentioned this Partisan, someone who was in the Resistance and then became a writer (there are many, I can’t remember whom). This man was being interviewed about the legacy of the Resistance, someone was asking him “So, when you were a Partisan…”. He interrupted the person and said “No. Not “were”, but “are”. It’s not gone, it’s not in the past. Once a Partisan, always a Partisan”.
Partisan
Origins: Middle French partisan, from north Italian dialect partiźan, from part part, party, from Latin part-, pars part
Meaning: 1) A fervent, sometimes militant supporter or proponent of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea. 2) A member of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an enemy, especially within occupied territory; a guerrilla; in particular one operating in German-occupied France, Italy, and parts of eastern Europe in the Second World War.
“I am a partisan. Therefore I hate those who don’t take sides, I hate the indifferent” Antonio Gramsci
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