The Sting of Conscience

Danilo Dolci is a Christian with deceptively simple ideas about living his faith. Last winter, noticing the bad condition of the roads near the town of Partinico and the great numbers of unemployed in the town itself Dolci decided to kill two bad birds with one stone. He gathered together some 200 of the unemployed fishermen and farmhands and went to work on the roads. They would work without pay, he said, in the hope that the government would later reward them. When cops objected to this unauthorized labor, Danilo Dolci refused to stop and was clapped into jail. Last week his trial was the biggest news story in Italy.

"Blood is frequently spilled in Italy in clashes between Communists and police," wrote Journalist Vittorio Gorresio of Turin's influential La Stampa. "Peasants occupy land; workers occupy factories. But nothing happens. No one is indicted. But against Dolci, who has never had recourse to violence, there has been an obstinate, merciless fury of authority."

No Bell. Last week, after almost two months in prison, Danilo Dolci was dragged, in chains, into the large hall of Palermo's Lo Steri to stand trial for his illicit road-repairing.

The courtroom was shabby and ill-equipped. There were no proper gowns available for the lawyers, and when the visiting judge went to reach for the bell to call for order, he found none. "In the north," he said, "lawyers have gowns, and judges have bells. Here we have poverty." Then he turned to the man who had tried to alleviate some of that poverty.

"I am no anarchist," Dolci testified. "I am a man who desires that all his fellow humans participate in a minimum of civilized life. When winter came 13 persons committed suicide out of despair. Another murdered his brother to eat his brother's store of food. Hunger-driven men became thieves ... If I am wrong, please correct me, but I believe that for men to stay un-working with folded arms for six months in the year is a crime against society and against its foundation unit, the family. The Italian constitution states that men have a duty and a right to work."

The judge interrupted: "When Police Chief Di Giorgi ordered you to suspend work on the road, why did you make no answer?" "If someone ordered me to kill you, Mr. President,'' Dolci replied softly, "I would not obey. To fill up the holes in a road in Partinico is a good, useful, almost indispensable act. That is why I didn't stop."

No Insult. A battery of Italy's leading intellectuals, among them Authors Carlo (Christ Stopped at Eboli) Levi, Alberto (The Woman of Rome) Moravia, Ignazio (Fontamara) Silone, declared openly for Dolci. "The world of culture is on Danilo's side," said Silone. But the world of authority was not: the public prosecutor demanded eight months' imprisonment for Danilo Dolci.

After five hours' deliberation, the court acquitted Dolci and his two dozen co-defendants of resisting and insulting the police, but sentenced them to 50 days' imprisonment (time they have already served) and a 20,000 lire ($32) fine for "having invaded ground that belonged to the government."

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