I want to tell a story.
Many years ago, in an unspecified region of northern Russia, a guard in a prison of detainees ordered to chop wood, because one-tenth of its production must go to state police, as had been established. The stacks accumulated in the prison yard was huge. To prisoners and the guards it was a superhuman work. One of the detainees had the courage to ask: "And if I refuse to do it?". The answer came quickly: for he loomed yet another night of fasting.
then they began to chop wood, already weak and undernourished, and the sun had not yet arrived at midday and were already exhausted. They asked for a break el'ebbero. All stopped, drank water, broke the limbs contracted and tense. All except one who had asked that question. He continued undaunted to chop wood. The others looked at him, mocking. Then resumed, despite the effort, and he also continued, and with a fury greater than all the others put together. The guards dismounted because they had finished their work, the prisoners continued for a while 'and then stopped. But the guy was still in demand, as in the throes of a fit of madness. It was four, then five. And what was up and down. The others began to look at it, if before mocking, now with an expression of surprise, sometimes in terror. They came almost eight and that finally put down the ax, and went to sleep under the gaze of all in disbelief. Including myself. No more competition was opened after that event in that prison.
The incident so disturbing is taken from my notes - before any imperfections - on the readings of Brodsky. The poet tells us this episode to mention those famous passages in completing the Sermon on the Mount.
If someone strikes you on the right cheek,
you bestow on him also the left
Brodsky tells us that most likely the young prisoner, unlike Gandhi or Tolstoy, who turned that into a kind of manifesto of passive resistance, had in mind the fact that after that verse Christ is not silent. But he kept saying
and if one wants to call you in court and take your tunic,
you cedilla also your cloak
And if one forces you to go one mile,
you va'con him two miles
suggesting that, contrary to what many thought, the first priests, Christ calls us to win only morally, but it is a victory of existence that he seeks. There is no liability that transpires from these verses, no. Indeed. E 'implicit in the poem, the poet says, well, the idea that evil can be rendered absurd excess. In this sense, the victim becomes the aggressor. And 'the effect that makes us man. Splitting all that wood, the man suggests the senselessness of the whole scene. It urges us not to turn the other cheek, so to handle the guilt, because we could end up battered. Who can always attack far tacere in lui tutti i sensi di colpa del mondo. E darcele di santa ragione. Dobbiamo mostrargli l’assurdità della sua richiesta faticando il doppio, il triplo.
Potremmo ridimensionare su una scala di più piccola entità questa storia della vittima e il carnefice. E scorgendo i diari di Kafka, scopriamo come il suo desiderio fu quello di non essere sicuramente la vittima. Parlare di Kafka come il carnefice pare blasfemo, eppure c’è in lui qualcosa che cerca di emergere, che cerca di comandare. Tuttavia se Kafka nasce come un uomo che cerca di avere delle pretese sulla sua vita, lui è sicuramente il massimo sconfitto della nostra epoca. Perché la punizione di Cristo, la sua condanna, il make it with all the evidence of the absurdity of evil, suffers not only once but many times.
Christ is the true perpetrator of Kafka.
When we roam and wander amid the desolate ruins of his work, everywhere we see people who walk for miles and miles, naked women who have also sold their clothes, chopping wood prisoners who relentlessly. The persuasive power of Christ, the existential victory, hit a weak like Kafka, of which Christ does not take into account in the parable, undoing all his effort, however minimal, to impose itself and create a life.
to Kafka's life is not life, but is a being without form, which has similarities to Odradek, that star-shaped coil, which can stand on two feet and that is "the sorrow of a father figure, because conscious of his uselessness as well as the its existence. Odradek live in dark corners, hallways, attics. It does not have a room like everybody else. When he laughs, his laughter is not normal, but it sounds like "the roar of fallen leaves."
Give Peace a Chance 
