Italian philosophy professor Davide Tutino on hunger strike — why?
Davide Tutino, the philosophy professor on hunger strike: “We are 40 thousand condemned to hunger” — January 3, 2022
Interview with Professor Tutino, by Linda Maggiore, translation from Italian by Lena Bloch, original Italian here.
Q: Professor, why this hunger strike?
A: It is the State that condemns us to hunger, we are 40 thousand, currently deprived of our entire salary, and in a few days perhaps even worse. Whoever commits serious crimes, harming others, is suspended with half salary and keeps the family allowance for alimony. Instead, they take everything away from us, we don’t even get child support or alimony. They want to starve us. The hunger strike is this, to show that the state is starving us. It’s a nonviolent response to the drift towards an increasingly totalitarian state, which is taking over the physical bodies of its citizens.
Q: Before you were suspended, you were covid-testing every other day, yet you are accused of being a threat to public health. What would you reply?
A: That there is precisely no health logic in this measure. It is clear that this is a punitive measure designed for political dissidents. We must finally understand that what most endangers the health of all of us is the destruction of the rule of law. History tells us how totalitarianism is born: during emergencies, especially if they last long, people are deprived of their fundamental freedoms, humiliated, blackmailed, their dignity annihilated. History tells us that the virus of hatred is the greatest danger to the psychophysical well-being of any community.
Q: How did you explain to the students that they will be suspended?
A: I have never considered myself a teacher but an older student who continues to guide younger students, I don’t teach but learn along with the students, who are my fellow travelers. As we have learned history and philosophy together over the years, so I discussed this choice of mine with them. I explained that I needed to disobey an unjust order so that I could continue to be free to think, free to doubt, free to pursue my scientific research. The boys responded to me with great understanding. But the truest and deepest response will be seen over the years. Everyone sows something in the soul of others. I wonder instead what crops will be born from those who saw hatred.
Q: Why this collapse of the left, obsessed with the myth of “security” and “obedience”, myth that has always been the obsession of the right-wing?
A: Before being “of the left” or “the right” one must be “human”. To feel humanity, compassion, understanding. To put the dignity of man and woman at the center, before any ideology. Without this understanding, collapse is inevitable. Ideas are the tool, but the goal is the human being. Unfortunately, often in history to follow the ideology, we have lost the sight of the human being. So it happened this time too, and so we fell in a war against a minority of helpless citizens.
Q: Have you received messages of solidarity? Will others join your strike?
A: I am receiving many messages of support from all over Italy and also from outside Italy, many people want to join the strike. But we must not concentrate in only one way of struggle, I hope more and more peaceful disobedience. It is the only way to resist power without triggering a disproportionate violent reaction. Let us always remember that the state has weapons and power, we only have our bodies.
Q: The rules are contradictory, the change of rules every two weeks create a sense of uncertainty and ongoing manipulation.
A: I think it’s a deliberate choice. It is a kind of psychological torture towards all citizens, even those who obey. No one, not even those who obey, knows anymore how long their freedom and rights will last. For this reason there must be no divisions or hatred or contempt between vaccinated and unvaccinated, we must all fight to restore the rule of law.
Update
Immediately after having given us the interview, the day January 3, 2022 Prof. Tutino showed up at 13:50 at the vaccination center of Grottaferrata.
At that location, in fact, he had been forced by law to book his compulsory health treatment and he went to the appointment accompanied by one of the lawyers of the association Umanità e Ragione, the lawyer Ida Nazzaro.
Once noted the state of physical deterioration of the professor, the doctor vaccinator, knowing that there is no study that proves the harmlessness of this injection into someone on hunger strike, has considered, adhering to science and his conscience, to exempt Tutino from treatment.
“This measure opens a small but serious crack in the norm on the obligation, but above all it opens the way to a nonviolent mass struggle” declares Tutino.
Tutino nevertheless continues his fast to demand two things:
That the government stop the starvation sentence of tens of thousands of citizens, deprived of work and bread for political reasons, not health reasons;
that all the safety devices imposed by the government, including testing, be free for workers, in compliance with current legislation, Legislative Decree 81/08.
