Pietro Golia
In the voice of the brigand resonates the deep memory of peoples condemned to silence, and for this very reason, they are legendary. Certainly those ignorant rebels who in all ages have dared to mock the Jacobins, the progressive priests, the rich bourgeois, and the millionaires are like an intolerable challenge to the established order of censorship and lies. The masters of thought and the proprietary class of academic truths have already pronounced their final anathema; even if they try to mystify between ambiguity and minimalism while also salvaging the legend of banditry from a class struggle perspective; which was not only a revolt of the landless for an agrarian revolution but was a people's rebellion to restore the perennial values of tradition. Legitimist historiography itself fails to fully understand the phenomenon of brigandage. Be wary of the armed mobilization of the masses, of the constant claim that they make of their own autonomy, of the populism of Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo of Calabria; he is horrified by the tragic and sometimes mocking violence of these peasants in revolt. Hence the isolation of brigandage: the Jacobins are repugnant to the brigand, while the legitimists inspire distrust and fear. This is why Italy was able to sink the blade of special laws into the sand of class interests, of conservatism and class transformations, of the predatory culture of the overpowering invaders.
* Translated from I Guerriglieri Tradizione, di Pietro Golia. Original text can be found at Alta Terra di Lavoro
