Keep it alive, tell it in the right way. Resistance, not only memory, but what it is pulsating. In this sense, the “resistant material” project must be read, a disc and a concert documented in a film. A project that in 1995 approached without rhetoric, through music, on April 25 to young people. So much so that the anpi statute changed. The National Association of Italian Partisans, after that event, opened in fact to all the doors of the membership until then reserved for partisans alone.

The context

April 25, 1945 is the day when the National Liberation Committee proclaimed the general insurrection in all the territories still occupied by the Nazi -fascists. The following year, that day he became a national party. The Festa della Liberazione, unique, among the festivals of the Civil Calendar of the Republic which has never undergone changes in its nature as a national party, represents a central node of Italian civil memory. From the 1980s onwards, the ritual of the festival became more tired and institutionalized, while the anti -fascist paradigm entered into crisis, overwhelmed by historical revisionism and the changed political framework. Revisionism intensified in the 90s, with the entry into the political scene of Berlusconi and the post-fascists of Gianfranco Fini, culminating with the proposal (later withdrawn) to replace April 25 with April 18, 1948-date of the Christian Democratic victory in the elections.

The disc

In this political scenario it was born “Resistant material 1945–1995.“, Far from rhetoric and nostalgia operations. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation, 18 Italian musicians and indie rock groups of the time, gathered by the CSI of Lindo Ferretti, take old partisan songs, reinterpret them and a record comes out. The Project, conceived by the Municipality of Correggio together with the Independent Manufacturers Consortium, is a partisan scream engraved on magnetic ribbon. The list of artists is long: CSI, üstmamò, Yo Yo Mundi, Marlene Kuntz, Modena City Ramblers, Mau Mau, Apa, Gang, Officine Schwartz, Umberto Palazzo, Out, Corman & Tuscadu sector, Disciplinary, Lou Dalfin, Skiantos, Africa Unite, Rosso Maltese.

The songs

The disc opens with the üstmamò who reread We are the rebels of the mountain in the Dream-pop version, por the officine Schwartz with the field with Hi beautifulindustrial choirs in a busy factory.

Following the Modena City Ramblers who with Hello beautiful they transform the partisan hymn into a ballad from Combat Folk; the Marlene Kuntz with They crucified Giovannia post-punk song that mixes poetry and distortions; The skiantos who reinterpret Whistle the wind with their desecrating irony; the Africa united that with The partisan Johnbring the reggae to the resistance.

And then the CSI, with Look at them in the eyes, A martial mantra, a punch in the teeth with rhetoric. The quieter and fiercest song on the disc combines fragments of partisan songs to make a roundup of the tragic pages of the Nazi -fascist abomination and reflect on the present. Closes the disc The song of the deporteesa funeral song, an intense and touching liturgy.

The concert

Then there was the concert: rain, mud, hot beer and real tears. It was April 25, 1995, but it seemed ’77 to Lemizzone, a hamlet of Correggio, at a rural building that during the resistance had been a “hiding home” in which anti -fascists and partisans found shelter and hospitality. Six thousand people, mainly young people, from many parts of Italy. Red flags, old partisans with orthopedic shoes in the sun, boys in amphibians who shouted “beautiful hello” as if it were punk. And in the middle, Davide Ferrario who resumed everything, to make it a documentary that should be shown today in schools. It was simply called Resistant materialthe film. Without numbers, without dates. Because the resistance, the real one, has no expiration. Next, he also left Resistant materialsthe photographic book. The faces, the hugs, the hands raised. The eyes of those who know.

And today?

Today power tends to abandon the reference to anti -fascism, preferring a rhetoric of the “reconciliation” which often equates to an equation between partisans and republicans and the resistance is passed like a post, a bad cheerful hashtag that takes out on April 25. For this, today, listen Resistant material, it does not mean taking in hand A museum relic but a toolbox for the future. There is everything inside: anger, poetry, memory, music. Not to remember, but to continue resisting.

Author: Various authors
Title: Resistant material
Type: Alternative rock, folk
Year: 1995 (the mule records)
Editorial mark: 8/10