Caccia all’uomo nero Hunting the Bogeyman published by Pav Edizioni: the latest read for which I thank the author Sabino Napolitanoand Mari Manual.
Undoubtedly a striking title: ‘the bogeyman’ is a figure we often learn about from childhood.
The first meaning that the Treccani attributes to him is exactly: imaginary man, with a frightening appearance, who is used as a threat to keep children quiet.
Have you ever heard yourself say such a phrase?
As one grows up, one learns that in reality who we have to fear is not an imaginary figure, however dark and gloomy he may be.
What could be the personification of the bogeyman in your opinion?
Sabino tells us his own through a story that starts with a disappearance.
The investigation leads to a shortlist of hypothetical suspects who could be ‘the bogeyman’ in perhaps a more literal than figurative sense.
The writing gives the reader a glimpse of reality and describes the everyday life of Bari, which could however be the everyday life of the place where each of us lives.
I appreciated the realism through which the author tells the story, leading the reader to the way in which the Bogeyman Hunt ends.
I report the book among the winners of Giallo Festival for best supporting character.
Can you tell me which character is the protagonist of your fears?
I was born on the day of the Piazza Fontana massacre, and I defy even those who are not superstitious not to see ominous signs in it.
I was born at home, on the kitchen table, like a fresh loaf of bread in the early morning.
When my mother shaked my father telling “it’s time,” he just turned on the other side and went on sleeping.
How could I blame him? I was coming to dawn as importunate as an alarm clock.
I was born in Cilavegna and I am one of the last people to be able to say this: as of January 1970 it was no longer possible to use a midwife, and it became mandatory to give birth in a hospital. Since there were no hospitals in Cilavegna, from that date on, new babies saw the light elsewhere.
I was born in Lomellina, land of fog and mosquitoes, but my father is of Venetian descent and my great-grandmother on my mother’s side was German. I am basically a mixture.
I was born into a simple family, Ihad simple things and a happy childhood.
My maternal grandmother, who looked after me from the time my mother resumed her job as a clerk, had swollen knees from all her mondina days, and, unable to move nimbly, entertained me by telling stories.
The result was that, before I began to walk, I spoke perfectly without the classic infantile mispronunciations, and I knew nursery rhymes, prayers and numbers.
Words were my first games, my first friends, my first nourishment.
Nevertheless, the kindergarten debut was quite traumatic: my shyness was relentless.
I had not yet understood the pleasure of chatting and socializing, a concept I largely recovered after the middle ages of adolescence.
But let us proceed step by step: for the nuns who conducted the kindergarten, my interaction defect was not a noteworthy aspect, quite the contrary. Rather, the problem was created by my inability to fall asleep after lunch.
Standing still in my cot, I would silently weave the bangs of the rough plaid under which I was supposed to fall asleep instead.
I did not feel that I was creating a disturbance, but that was one of my first errors of judgment: I still have clear memories of the reprimand from Sister Antonia, who among the sisters was the better and quieter one.
Thereafter rather than the bangs I took to interweaving my attempts at intentionality with my grandfather’s big heart. He would work night shifts and in the morning, exhausted, instead of going to rest. he would accommodate my requests, effectively endorsing the intent to skip kindergarten.
A tumor took him away when I was only five years old leaving me a huge void and an unfulfilled desire in return.
He used to tell me “as soon as I retire I will teach you German.”
During the war he was used as an interpreter after a German officer, striking him, heard him reply in his own language.
I thought I would learn easily, that I would listen happily as with Grandma’s stories, but instead he could tell me no more.
When elementary school time came, there was no school on Thursdays, but by then I didn’t care much.
Some people still called us remiges: lined up in rows of two, hand in hand, with our overcoats over our black aprons from which sprouted the big blue bow knotted under the white collar.
It began on the first of October when the desks were still desks, and the folders contained a checkbook and a ruled notebook, small ones, with the blotting paper for the ink of fountain pens: witnesses to a writing that no longer exists.
Treccani tells us that Coltan is a term which, by contraction, identifies columbo-tantalite, a black metallic mineral composed of columbite and tantalite. It is one of the combinations in which it is possible to trace tantalum, the metal with which small but very efficient capacitors are made (therefore essential in portable devices such as mobile phones and computers, as well as in automotive electronics), which is why coltan has become a highly sought-after material.
In Congo, and in particular in the border area with Rwanda and Uganda, there are the Luwow mines notorious for the exploitation of workers and the horrendous scourge of child labor.
Amnesty International reports a UNICEF estimate of 2014 but we can assume that the number is underestimated, given the continuous exponential increase of electronic devices in circulation.
We all still have the name of the Belgian Congo imprinted in our minds, which brings us directly back to the control of the territories which has ceased in recent times, as this video from the Istituto Luce dated 1960 also testifies:
A memory that for me is placed on the desks of elementary schools is: Zaire, the new name since 1971. The decision is made by Mobutu who, in a sort of political whirlwind between the alternations of Republics and de facto dictatorship, remained an ambiguous figure until 1997 in contrast between: the role of father of the homeland he intended to cover, and an authoritarian and corrupt profile.
The newly formed Democratic Republic of Congo, however, does not see peace looming, and the rush to grab coltan aggravates both the already severe internal conflict on ethnic grounds, as well as that with neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
By the statement of its President of 2 June 2000, the Security Council requested the Secretary-General to establish an expert panel on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for a period of six months, with the following mandate:
To follow up on reports and collect information on all activities of illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including in violation of the sovereignty of that country;
To research and analyse the links between the exploitation of the natural resources and other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the continuation of the conflict;
To revert to the Council with recommendations.
With this letterdated April 2001 Kofi Annan presents his Report of the Expert Group on Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A 2003 UN Security Council report denounces that the proceeds from the exploitation of coltan by the opposing states have served to finance their armies against the Congo itself. In addition to the fact that the search for and extraction of coltan by rebel forces has caused serious environmental damage in Congo within reserves and national parks.
The main multinationals basically declare that they are not connected to exploitation, but basically it would be enough to go up the stream from company to company to get to the source.
Afrewatch mentions a cause: Last December, a US lawyer filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 13 Congolese families in a Washington court. In particular, he criticizes Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla for using cobalt despite knowing that it was forcibly mined by children. This lawsuit could push commodity miners and tech companies in need of cobalt to forgo sourcing it from artisanal miners. Glencore, which dominates the market, is following this strategy to no longer be associated with child labor.
Glencore website in fact, speaks only of Australia or Canada presenting in the home sustainability, international day of women and girls, international day of education and human rights. The same goes for Trasfigura that comes with a responsible program and supply chain.
But then, where does Congolese coltan end up, which is estimated to represent the largest percentage of total production?
Similarly, Reuters details the profiles of some Chinese companies: China Molybdenum Luoyang Co Ltd and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co Ltd and also in this case the wording appears at the bottom “China’s Huayou Cobalt will not buy artisanal cobalt from two mines in Democratic Republic of Congo until it is sure the material they produce is free of human rights abuses according to standards to be decided by the industry.”
Who knows if we can hope that theory will follow practice.
I have already mentioned organizations, associations, safety councils, companies and so on, yet in the Luwow mines people, and even children, continue to be exploited beyond all limits, for all to see. Or maybe I should say under everyone’s screens, including mine, from which I’m writing to you.
On the cobalt DRC case International rights Advocates writes: on behalf of the child miners, the lawsuit demands that the companies pay reparations and fund rehabilitation and education programs for the families of child miners killed or maimed by the horrific conditions in the cobalt mines. Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla are among the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world.
These companies purport to be green and futuristic, but their products are Powered by Blood Cobalt. Consumers buying these products should demand that the companies fix their supply chain rather than spend years fighting in court to avoid responsibility for the Blood Cobalt their products currently use to operate.
We are the consumers.
I conclude with the quote that Massimo sent me The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don’t mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don’t sing all the time
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn’t half bad if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don’t much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen
and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool flesh is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling flowers and goosing statues and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally ‘living it up’ Yes but then right in the middle of it comes the smiling mortician.
To intertwine two different strands: Monica’s books and ideas for gifts, I propose The Children’s Train that I received as a gift from Monica last Christmas, because this book took my heart, giving me a thousand food for thought.
Viola Ardone opens a door on the Neapolitan homes, but once you cross the threshold you are inside the world of a child, who absorbs, who learns, who knows people and things within the limits he can reach, and who at the same goes further, bringing the reader with him.
The flow of thoughts that are unleashed is inexhaustible. Childhood is a topic that is particularly dear to me for many reasons, not least the fact that children teach us, but too often we forget it.
The dilemma is inexorable. Personally I was not aware of the existence of these trains, or rather of these transfers in the specific narrated context, even if the children of Chernobyl who after the disaster were hosted by many families even in my country of origin immediately came to mind.
Inevitable the wave of cascading considerations, from the general sphere to the depth of the personal level, on the subject of incommunicability and barriers.
The admiration for strength is essential. Intrinsic, light yet disruptive.
The ensuing analysis and the face to face with the reactions and personal emotions about death are relentless.
I cried.
I was also catapulted on that train but not only that, in short, I don’t know if it’s clear: I liked this book and I recommend it.
1947: a meaningful year for me, my mother’s birth year. She, who was used to buy 10 lire of old newspapers just to have something to read. She, who made me grow up in a house with a large library full of books of all kinds.
She, who simply loved to read.
Never any imposition, never any particular advice. It was all natural, I still remember the titles that struck me most as a child, then I still could not know the story, yet they were already in my mind, ready to be rediscovered at the right time.
And one day, just like her, I simply started reading too.
1947 is also the year of the first literary prize Strega which took its name from the liqueur produced in the Guido Alberti family company who was a patron of it and who subsequently, after his marriage to the astrologer Lucia Alberti, began his acting career and was directed by directors such as Federico Fellini Francesco Rosi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Eduardo De Filippo and Roman Polanski. A biography that in itself would seem like a novel.
In the long list of winners of the editions that have followed each other from year to year, respectable names appear and a few days ago I read a statistic published by Gabriella which showed an overwhelming male majority .
I sincerely have to recover several things from the past, but Monica opened a window on the present, also giving me a key to the book that won the 2020 edition: The hummingbird by Sandro veronesi published by La nave di Teseo.
I gladly approached it, without knowing the author, without knowing the previous success Chaos Calmo and without knowing the various dynamics that led to this second victory.
“You are a hummingbird because like the hummingbird you put all your energy into staying still.”
The quote on the back cover immediately offers the first food for thought: suddenly static is considered as an effort, and not as the absence of movement.
The movement of the book is constituted by the temporal jumps with which the author leads the narration according to a very symbolic thread, alternating exchanges of letters and digressions with stories of daily life poised between the apparent normality and a crescendo of paradoxical situations.
I found particularly curious how the rather unlikely events of the main character made me think of Forrest Gump, a sort of coincidence, since I had just written a post about it.
But following the idea of the hummingbird, and trying to fly backwards to review everything from a different perspective, I developed the idea of metaphors to reconfirm the only true certainty we have: life has surprises in store and often revolutionizes plans and certainties.
But for the truth we are not still, we resist, something very different.
I think I’m not the only one to have found a sort of cross with painful personal experiences, of course then everyone continues on their tracks, but the scars remain in common.
This book also gave me a reference to childhood in reading the descriptions of summer places: Toscana’s sea near Bolgheri, Marina di Bibbona, Punta Ala, having also spent my holidays exactly on that same coast, and I found myself facing the thought of how we used to take things for granted until this particular summer, and how we never thought they could vanish.
So “bewitched”? Strega means witch
No, but happy as every time a reading inspires reflections.
Hi I'm Claudia and this is KCDC.
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