Editing Pier Paolo Pasolini (section)

== Political views ==
[[File:Gramsci Pasolini.jpg|thumb|250px|Pasolini visiting [[Antonio Gramsci]]'s tomb in Rome]]
{{Communism in Italy|expanded=People}}

=== Relationship with the Italian Communist Party ===
[[File:SanVitoT-piazzadelpopolo.jpg|thumb|250px|Piazza del Popolo in [[San Vito al Tagliamento]]]]
By October 1945, the political status of the [[Friuli]] region became a matter of contention between different political factions. On 30 October, Pasolini joined the pro-devolution association ''Patrie tal Friul'', founded in [[Udine]]. Pasolini wanted a Friuli based on its tradition, attached to the [[Catholic Church in Italy]], but intent on civic and [[social progress]], as opposed to those advocates of regional autonomy who wanted to preserve their privileges based on "immobilism".<ref name="Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, 111-112">Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, 111–112</ref> He also criticized the [[Italian Communist Party]] (PCI) for its opposition to [[devolution|regional devolution]] and preference instead for [[Unitary state|State centralisation]]. Pasolini founded the party Movimento Popolare Friulano, but resigned upon realizing that it was being covertly manipulated by Italy's ruling [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democratic Party]] to counter local [[Titoism|Titoists]], who were attempting to annex large swaths of the Friuli region to the [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]].<ref name="Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, 111-112"/>

On 26 January 1947, Pasolini wrote a declaration that was published on the front page of the newspaper ''[[Libertà (newspaper)|Libertà]]'': "In our opinion, we think that currently only Communism is able to provide a new culture." It generated controversy, partly due to the fact he was still not a member of the PCI. Pasolini planned to extend the work of the Academiuta to the literature of other [[Romance language]]s, and met [[exile]]d [[Catalan people|Catalan]] poet Carles Cardó. He took part in several demonstrations after joining the PCI. In May 1949, he attended the Peace Congress in Paris. Observing the struggles of workers and peasants, and watching the clashes of protesters with Italian police, he began to conceive his first novel. During this period, while holding a position as a teacher in a secondary school, he stood out in the local Italian Communist Party section as a skilful writer, while defying the official Party platform that [[Stalinism]] was [[anti-Christian]]. Along with the Party leadership, local Christian Democrats and Catholic clergy also took notice. In the summer of 1949, Pasolini was warned by a [[Roman Catholic priest]] to renounce [[Marxism-Leninism]] or lose his teaching position. Similarly, after some posters were put up in Udine, Giambattista Caron, a Christian Democrat deputy, warned Pasolini's cousin Nico Naldini that "[Pasolini] should abandon communist propaganda" to prevent "pernicious reactions".<ref name="Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, 148">Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, 148</ref>

=== Anti-fascism and 1968 protests ===
Pasolini generated heated public discussion with controversial analyses of public affairs. For instance, [[Autonomism|autonomist]] university students were carrying on a guerrilla-style uprising against the police in the streets of Rome during the [[Protests of 1968|disorders of 1968]]. For their supporters, the disorders were a civil fight of the proletariat against the system. Pasolini made comments that have been interpreted that he was with the police or that he was a man of order, and that he was an anti-anti-fascist.<ref name="Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini 2018">{{Cite web |date=2018-02-25 |title=Contro le strumentalizzazioni di Pasolini: il falso dell"anti-antifascismo", di Wu Ming 1 |url=http://www.centrostudipierpaolopasolinicasarsa.it/approfondimenti/contro-le-strumentalizzazioni-di-pasolini-il-falso-dellanti-antifascismo-di-wu-ming-1/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini Casarsa della Delizia |language=it-IT}}</ref> According to the Centro Studi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, the myth of an "anti-anti-fascist" Pasolini served to propose unlikely anti-globalist alliances by neo-fascists.<ref name="Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini 2018"/> ''Anti-antifascismo'' was never used by Pasolini and was only added in later years as the title of the ''Scritti corsari'' collection.<ref name="Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini 2018"/> Pasolini used the concept to attack various institutional subjects, such as [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy]], the Italian president [[Giuseppe Saragat]], [[RAI]], and the Health Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, which were all guilty of ignoring some requests from [[Marco Pannella]], who had been on [[hunger strike]] for over two months.<ref name="Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini 2018"/> He excluded the PCI from those parties of the constitutional arc that, as declared by Pasolini in June 1975, tried to "rebuild an anti-fascist virginity ... but, at the same time, maintaining the impunity of the fascist gangs that they, if they wanted, would liquidate in a day".<ref name="Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini 2018"/>

The main source regarding Pasolini's views of the student movement is his poem "Il PCI ai giovani" ('The PCI to Young People'), written after the [[Battle of Valle Giulia]]. Addressing the students, he tells them that, unlike the international news media which has been reporting on them, he will not flatter them. He points out that they are the children of the [[bourgeoisie]] (''Avete facce di figli di papà / Vi odio come odio i vostri papà'' – 'You have the faces of daddy's boys / I hate you like I hate your dads'), before stating ''Quando ieri a Valle Giulia avete fatto a botte coi poliziotti / io simpatizzavo coi poliziotti'' ('When you and the policemen were throwing punches yesterday at Valle Giulia / I was sympathising with the policemen'). He explained that this sympathy was because the policemen were ''figli di poveri'' ('children of the poor'). The poem highlights the aspect of generational struggle within the bourgeoisie represented by the student movement: ''Stampa e Corriere della Sera, News- week e Monde / vi leccano il culo. Siete i loro figli / la loro speranza, il loro futuro... Se mai / si tratta di una lotta intestina'' ('''[[La Stampa|Stampa]]'' and ''[[Corriere della Sera]]'', ''[[Newsweek]]'' and ''[[Le Monde]]'' / they kiss your arse. You are their children / their hope, their future... If anything / it's in-fighting').<ref name="pci" />

The 1968 revolt was seen by Pasolini as an internal, benign reform of the establishment in Italy, since the protesters were part of the petite bourgeoisie.<ref>Martelini, L. 2006, pp. 141–142</ref> The poem also implied a class hypocrisy on the part of the establishment towards the protesters, asking whether young workers would be treated similarly if they behaved in the same way: ''Occupate le università / ma dite che la stessa idea venga / a dei giovani operai / E allora: Corriere della Sera e Stampa, Newsweek e Monde / avranno tanta sollecitudine / nel cercar di comprendere i loro problemi? / La polizia si limiterà a prendere un po' di botte / dentro una fabbrica occupata? / Ma, soprattutto, come potrebbe concedersi / un giovane operaio di occupare una fabbrica / senza morire di fame dopo tre giorni?'' ('Occupy the universities / but say that the same idea comes / to young workers / So: ''Corriere della Sera'' and ''Stampa'', ''Newsweek'' and ''Le Monde'' / will have so much care / in trying to understand their problems? / Will the police just get a bit of a fight / inside an occupied factory? / But above all, how could / a young worker be allowed to occupy a factory / without dying of hunger after three days?'<ref name="pci">{{cite magazine |last=Pasolini |first=Pier Paolo |date=16 June 1968 |title=Il Pci ai giovani |trans-title=The PCI to Young People |url=http://temi.repubblica.it/espresso-il68/1968/06/16/il-pci-ai-giovani/?printpage=undefined |language=it |magazine=[[L'Espresso]]|access-date=8 June 2018 }}</ref>

Pasolini suggested that the police were the true proletariat, sent to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they could not understand, against pampered boys of their same age because they had not had the fortune of being able to study, referring to ''poliziotti figli di proletari meridionali picchiati da figli di papà in vena di bravate'' ('policemen, sons of proletarian southerners, beaten up by arrogant daddy's boys'). He found that the policemen were but the outer layer of the real power, e.g. the judiciary.<ref>Martelini, L. 2006, p. 141</ref> Pasolini was not alien to courts and trials. During all his life, Pasolini was frequently entangled in up to 33 lawsuits filed against him, variously charged with "public disgrace", "foul language", "obscenity", "[[pornography]]", "contempt of religion", and "contempt of the state", for which he was always eventually acquitted.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Pasolini e i processi |url=https://webtv.loescher.it/externalResources/downloadRes?resId=367205&itemId=366913 |access-date=25 September 2023 |website=Loescher Editore |language=it}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Damato |first=Cosimo Damiano |date=2022-05-22 |title=Pier Paolo Pasolini e il libro bianco delle persecuzioni |url=https://rewriters.it/pier-paolo-pasolini-e-il-libro-bianco-delle-persecuzioni/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=ReWriters |language=it-IT}}</ref>

The conventional interpretation of Pasolini's position has been challenged.<ref name="Centro Studi Pier Paolo Pasolini 2018"/> In an article published in 2015, [[Wu Ming]] argued that Pasolini's statements need to be understood in the context of Pasolini's self-confessed hatred of the bourgeoisie which had persecuted him for so long, as "Il PCI ai giovani" states that "We (i.e. Pasolini and the students) are obviously in agreement against the police institution", and that the poem portrays policemen as dehumanised by their work. Although the battles between students and the police were fights between the rich and the poor, Pasolini concedes that the students were "on the side of reason" whilst the police were "in the wrong". Wu Ming suggested that Pasolini intended to express scepticism regarding the idea of students being a revolutionary force, contending that only the [[working class]] could make a revolution and that revolutionary students should join the PCI. Furthermore, he cites a column by Pasolini which was published in the magazine ''Tempo'' later that year, which described the student movement, along with the wartime resistance, as "the Italian people's only two democratic-revolutionary experiences". That year, he also wrote in support of the PCI's proposals for disarming the police, arguing that this would create a break in the psychology of policemen. He said: "It would lead to the sudden collapse of that 'false idea of himself' ascribed to him by Power, which has programmed him like a robot." Pasolini's polemics were aimed at goading protesters into re-thinking their revolt, and did not stop him from contributing to the autonomist ''[[Lotta Continua]]'' movement, who he described as "extremists, yes, maybe fanatic and insolently boorish from a cultural point of view, but they push their luck and that is precisely why I think they deserve to be supported. We must want too much to obtain a little."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.internazionale.it/reportage/2015/10/29/pasolini-polizia-anniversario-morte |title=La polizia contro Pasolini, Pasolini contro la polizia |author=Wu Ming 1 |author-link=Wu Ming|date=29 October 2015|website=Internazionale.it|language=it |trans-title=The Police vs. Pasolini, Pasolini vs. The Police|access-date=8 June 2018}}</ref><ref name="Wu Ming 2016">{{cite web |url=http://wumingfoundation.tumblr.com/post/136530231760/pasoliniagainstthecops |title=The Police vs. Pasolini, Pasolini vs. The Police|author=Wu Ming 1 |author-link=Wu Ming |last2=Meer |first2=Ayan |date=3 January 2016|website=[[Wu Ming Foundation]] |access-date=8 June 2018|via=Tumblr}}</ref>

=== Rising society of consumption ===
Pasolini was particularly concerned about the class of the [[subproletariat]], which he portrayed in ''[[Accattone]]'', and to which he felt both humanly and artistically drawn. He observed that the type of purity which he perceived in the pre-industrial popular culture was rapidly vanishing, a process that he named ''la scomparsa delle lucciole'' ('the disappearance of the fireflies'). The ''joie de vivre'' of boys was being rapidly replaced with more bourgeois ambitions such as a house and a family. He was critical of those leftists who held a "traditional and never admitted hatred against lumpenproletariats and poor populations". In 1958, he called on the PCI to become "'the party of the poor people': the party, we may say, of the lumpenproletarians".<ref name="jacobin">{{cite web |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/pier-paolo-pasolini-pci-communist-party |title=Remembering Pier Paolo Pasolini |last=Peretti |first=Luca |date=1 June 2018 |website=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]|access-date=7 June 2018}}</ref>

Pasolini's stance finds its roots in the belief that a [[Copernican federalism|Copernican]] change was taking place in Italian society and the world. Linked to that very idea, he was also an ardent critic of ''consumismo'', i.e. [[consumerism]], which he felt had rapidly destroyed Italian society from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. He described the [[coprophagia]] scenes in ''Salò'' as a comment on the [[Food processing|processed food]] industry. As he saw it, the society of consumerism ("neocapitalism") and the "new fascism" had thus expanded an alienation / homogenization and centralization that the former clerical fascism had not managed to achieve, so bringing about an anthropological change.<ref>Martelini, L. 2006, pp. 184–185</ref> That change is related to the loss of [[humanism]] and the expansion of productivity as central to the human condition, which he despised. He found that 'new culture' was degrading and vulgar.<ref>Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, p. 389</ref> In one interview, he said: "I hate with particular vehemency the current power, the power of 1975, which is a power that manipulates bodies in a horrible way; a manipulation that has nothing to envy to that performed by [[Himmler]] or [[Hitler]]." According to Pasolini scholar Simona Bondavalli, Pasolini's definition of neo-capitalism as a "new fascism" enforced uniform conformity without resorting to coercive means. As Pasolini put it, "No Fascist centralism succeeded in doing what the centralism of consumer culture did."<ref>{{cite book |last=Bondavalli |first=Simona |title=Fictions of Youth: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Adolescence, Fascisms |date=2015 |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |isbn=9781442627079 |location=Toronto, ON}}</ref> Philosopher [[Davide Tarizzo]] summarized Pasolini's position:
{{cquote|"In his view, both old and new fascisms undermine the fundamentals of modern democracy. Yet new fascism does not do this by absolutizing popular sovereignty at the expense of individual rights. New fascism celebrates our freedoms and absolutizes human rights to the detriment of our sense of belonging to a social-political community. Therefore, old and new fascisms strive to accomplish democracy—which is the restless ambition of fascism—via opposite routes. In the former case, the result is the birth of political subjects such as the master race, supported by revelatory political grammar. In the latter case, the result is the birth of an altogether different subject, which is no longer a political actor, properly speaking, but a passive, anonymous entity: the human population."<ref>{{cite book |last=Tarizzo |first=Davide |title=Political grammars: the unconscious foundations of modern democracy |date=2021 |publisher=Stanford University Press |page=163 |isbn=9781503615328 |location=Stanford, CA |series=Square One: First Order Questions in the Humanities}}</ref>}}

=== Strong criticism of Christian Democracy ===
[[File:Pier Paolo Pasolini 1975.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Pasolini in 1975]]
Pasolini saw some continuity between the Fascist era and the post-war political system which was led by the Christian Democrats, describing the latter as "clerico-fascism" due to its use of the state as a repressive instrument and its manipulation of power: he saw the conditions among the Roman subproletariat in the ''borgate'' as an example of this, being marginalised and segregated socially and geographically as they were under Fascism, and in conflict with a criminal police force.<ref name="Wu Ming 2016" /> He also blamed the Christian Democrats for assimilating the values of consumer capitalism, contributing to what he saw as the erosion of human values.<ref name="od">{{cite web |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/pasolini_2982jsp/ |title=The life and death of Pier Paolo Pasolini |last=Andrews |first=Geoff |date=1 November 2005 |website=[[OpenDemocracy]] |access-date=7 November 2022}}</ref>

The [[1975 Italian regional elections]] saw the rise of the leftist parties, and dwelling on his blunt, ever more political approach and prophetic style during this period, he declared in ''Corriere della Sera'' that the time had come to put the most prominent Christian Democrat figures on trial, where they would need to be shown walking in handcuffs and led by the [[Carabinieri]]; he felt that this was the only way they could be removed from power.<ref name="od" /><ref name="Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, pp. 388-389">Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, pp. 388–389</ref> Pasolini charged the Christian Democratic leadership with being "riddled with Mafia influence", covering up a number of [[Years of Lead (Italy)|bombings by neo-fascists]], [[Operation Gladio#Italy|collaborating with the CIA]], and working with the CIA and the [[Italian Armed Forces]] to prevent the rise of the left.<ref name="guardian"/><ref name="od" />

=== Television linked to cultural alienation ===
Pasolini was angered by [[economic globalization]] and cultural domination of the [[Northern Italy|north of Italy]] (around [[Milan]]) over other regions, especially the [[Southern Italy|south]].{{citation needed|reason=<!--These lines are a complete distortion of Pasolini's thoughts against the capitalist-consumerist dominion and not against the cultural hegemony of a part of Italy over the rest of it-->|date=July 2011}} He felt this was accomplished through the power of television. A debate TV programme recorded in 1971, where he denounced censorship, was not actually aired until the day following his murder in November 1975. In a PCI reform plan that he drew up in September and October 1975, among the desirable measures to be implemented, he cited the abolition of television.<ref name="Siciliano, Enzo. 2014, pp. 388-389"/>

=== Others ===
[[File:Walter Veltroni 01.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Pasolini between [[Ferdinando Adornato]] and [[Walter Veltroni]] during an [[Francisco Franco|anti-francoist]] demonstration in Rome in September 1975]]
Pasolini opposed the gradual disappearance of [[Languages of Italy|Italy's minority languages]] by writing some of his poetry in [[Friulan]], the regional language of his childhood. His opposition to the liberalization of [[Abortion in Italy|abortion law]] made him unpopular on the left.<ref>{{cite web |last=Liukkonen |first=Petri |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pasolini.htm |title=Pier Paolo Pasolini |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060307182247/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pasolini.htm |archive-date=7 March 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

After 1968, Pasolini engaged with the [[left-libertarian]], [[anti-clerical]], and liberal [[Radical Party (Italy)|Radical Party]] (''Partito Radicale''). He involved himself in [[polemics]] with party leader [[Marco Pannella]],<ref name="od" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.radioradicale.it/exagora/conversation-with-pier-paolo-pasolini |title=Conversation with Pier Paolo Pasolini |author=<!--Not stated--> |website=[[Radio Radicale]] |access-date=7 June 2018}}</ref> supported the Party's initiative calling for eight [[referendum]]s on various liberalising reforms,<ref name="rr">{{cite news |last=Pasolini |first=Pier Paolo |date=1 January 1975 |title=L'aborto il coito |trans-title=Abortion, Copulation |url=http://www.radioradicale.it/exagora/abortion-copulation |work=[[Corriere della Sera]] |access-date=8 June 2018 |archive-date=12 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612142021/http://www.radioradicale.it/exagora/abortion-copulation |url-status=dead}}</ref> and had accepted an invitation to speak at the Party's congress before he was killed.<ref name="jacobin" /> Despite supporting the holding of a [[referendum]] on the decriminalisation of abortion, he was opposed to actually decriminalising it,<ref name="rr" /> and he also criticised the Party's understanding of democratic activism as being a matter of equalising access to capitalist markets for the working class and other [[Subaltern (postcolonialism)|subaltern]] groups.<ref>{{cite book |last=Rumble |first=Patrick |year=1996 |title=Allegories of Contamination: Pier Paolo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8YyhCgAAQBAJ&q=%22pier+paolo+pasolini%22+and+%22radical+party%22&pg=PA136 |series=Toronto Italian Studies |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |page=136 |isbn=9780802072191 |access-date=8 June 2018}}</ref> In an interview he gave shortly before his death, Pasolini stated he frequently disagreed with the Party.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Colombo |first1=Furio |last2=Battista |first2=Anna |date=8 November 1975 |title=Siamo tutti in pericolo |trans-title=We are all in danger |url=http://irenebrination.typepad.com/files/pierpaolopasolini_furiocolombointerview_1975_byabattista.pdf|work=[[La Stampa]] |access-date=8 June 2018}}</ref> He continued to give qualified support to the PCI.<ref name="od" /> in June 1975, he said that he would still vote for the PCI because he felt it was "an island where critical consciousness is always desperately defended: and where human behaviour has been still able to preserve the old dignity", and in his final months he became close to the Rome section of the [[Italian Communist Youth Federation]]. A Federation activist, Vincenzo Cerami, delivered the speech he was due to give at the Radical Party congress: in it, Pasolini confirmed his Marxism and his support for the PCI.<ref name="jacobin" />

Outside of Italy, Pasolini took a particular interest in the [[developing world]], seeing parallels between life among the Italian underclass and in the third world, going so far as to declare that [[Bandung Conference|Bandung]] was the capital of three-quarters of the world and half of Italy. He was also positive about the [[New Left]] in the United States, predicting that it would "lead to an original form of non-Marxist Socialism" and writing that the movement reminded him of the [[Italian resistance movement|Italian Resistance]]. Pasolini saw these two areas of struggle as inter-linked: after visiting [[Harlem]] he stated that "the core of the struggle for the Third World revolution is really America".<ref name="jacobin" />