Editing Pier Paolo Pasolini (section)

=== 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>