COMPASSION

While George W. Bush was Governor of Texas, from 1995 to 2000, his execution chamber was by far the most active in the nation, killing 152 people – more than one prisoner every two weeks.

COMPASSION: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Universal Declaration of Human Rights • Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

VICEROY

"A British-educated neurosurgeon who spent 30 years in exile in Britain, and who has close links with both the CIA and MI6, was named as Iraq's new interim prime minister last night."

The Guardian
May 29, 2004

VICEROY: the governor of a country or province who rules as the representative of a king or sovereign.

HYPOCRISY

HYPOCRISY: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion. One of the major distinctive points behind Colonialism, Slavery, Racism, Fascism, Nazism, Holocaust, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Genocide. In other words, the "Western Civilization" in its glorious and most important achievements.

RESISTANCE & WAR CRIME

RESISTANCE: an underground organization of a conquered or nearly conquered country engaging in sabotage and secret operations against occupation forces and collaborators. For example, Italian and French Resistance against the NAZI occupation of those countries.

WAR CRIME: a crime (as genocide or maltreatment of prisoners) committed during or in connection with war.

AUDIENCE AWARD FOR THE BEST TV SERIES

XXI CENTURY WON THE AUDIENCE AWARD FOR THE BEST TV SERIES AT DOCUMENTA MADRID, THE INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL ORGANIZED BY THE CITY OF MADRID, MORAL CAPITAL OF EUROPE

From the speech Gabriele Zamparini gave in Madrid for the Award Ceremony:

“We are RESPONSIBLE for what our governments do with our tax money in our name. This is valid also when what our governments do with our tax money and in our name is TERRORISM.

Occupation forces have no rights. Occupation forces have only obligations.

The first thing we should do is forcing our governments to WITHDRAWING from Iraq, as You Spain did, teaching the world a wonderful lesson. Thank You, Spain.

The second thing is providing NOT AID but REPARATION for what our governments have done to this country and its people.

Finally, we should bring those responsible for political decisions to JUSTICE, applying to ourselves the same moral and legal standards we always demand from others.

It’s up to us. If we want to be honest and serious about all this madness.”

SHAME

While in Iraq the occupation forces are carrying out NAZI policies, in the so called civilized world we are once again PASSIVE VIEWERS. The opinion makers are already trying to understand and justify. The corporate media, responsible as the Bush Administration and the Blair government for the horrors made possible by our tax money, are telling us “This could harm us!”, “It’s bad for us”, “It may harm the Western Civilization.”

While AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL and the RED CROSS are producing documents proving the systematic policy adopted by the occupation forces, we, the people of the rich countries are once again forced to be passive, indifferent and silent.

We forgot OUR recent past. We forgot Hannah Arendt’s “The banality of evil”, we forgot Primo Levi’s “Se questo è un uomo”.

Today, May 10, 2004, we read these words on the New York Times: "You are a strong secretary of defense and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude," President Bush told Donald H. Rumsfeld today at the Pentagon.

Mr Tony Blair didn’t know, OBVIOUSLY. It doesn’t matter that Amnesty International has been saying about the torture in Iraq by months and months. He didn’t know it.

We, the people of our “Free World” are watching all this, between a cup of coffee and a glass of wine. “God bless America and its allies!”

Finally a “personal” note:

A couple of days ago we put a couple of ads on Google for our documentary “XXI CENTURY”. The ads were immediately deleted by Google, because “Unacceptable”. In the ad one could read “American Voices Against Bush”. This was considered “UNACCEPTABLE”. Also, keywords such as “Peace”, “No War”, “Activism”, “Torture” were considered “UNACCEPTABLE” by Google.

We are in a free country, after all…