Between the 19th and the 21st of April an initiative on Danilo Dolci took place at Liceo Scientifico B. Croce in Palermo in the central building, in the building in via Imera, and in the school annex of the prison “Ucciardone”.
Danilo Dolci (Sesana 1924-Trappeto 1997), the Italian Gandhi, was a sociologist, a poet, a teacher, and a non-violent activist. Native of the Trieste area, from 1952 he set up in Trappeto, impressed by the social decay of that area. Here he began an untiring work of social animation and political struggle applying the instruments of non-violence with a lot of courage and coherence (hunger strikes, demonstrations, pacific marches).
Amongst the more meaningful activities that he promoted, there is the “upside-down strike” that brought a group of unemployed farm workers to occupy an abandoned road near Partinico in order to activate it once again. This initiative, narrated and documented in the book “Trial to the Article 4”, costed him a trial for the unauthorized occupation of the public property and the detention in its own jail Ucciardone.
The maieutic method, that comes from Socrates’s philosophy, is an important characteristic of Danilo Dolci’s social and educative work: instead of dispensing prepackaged truths, he thinks that no true change can prescind from the involvement and the direct participation of the people concerned. His idea of progress emphasizes the local culture and competences, the contribution of each collectivity and each person.
“Creative and strict at the same time, Danilo Dolci’s path was able to combine project and utopia. His life and his work showed us the possibility of a hard but concrete way, for a future that differs from standardization, from breaking-up and from violence” (Giuseppe Barone).
Programme
Thursday, 19th of April
9.00 a.m, auditorium of the central building of Benedetto Croce school, via Benfratelli
Conference with Pasquale Beneduce, Alberto Castiglione, Giuseppe Barone, and Amico Dolci, for the students of “B. Croce” school.
- Presentation of the documentary by A. Castiglione “Danilo Dolci between memory and utopia”
- Presentation of the book “Trial to the article 4” with the afterword by Pasquale Beneduce.
3.00 p.m., location in via Imera
Maieutic workshops coordinated by Giuseppe Barone with some students of the classes 5N and 5R of “B. Croce” school.
Friday 20th of April
9.00 a.m, located in a class of the Liceo Scientifico at the Ucciardone
Maieutic workshops coordinated by Giuseppe Barone with the students of the prison and some students of the classes 5n and 5R.
Friday 20th of April
8.00 a.m., at the central building of “Benedetto Croce” school, via Benfratelli
Maieutic workshops coordinated by Amico Dolci with the students of the classes 5N and 5R.
Meeting – debate with the students of the classes 3H and 4H.
Saturday 21st of April
9.00 a.m., class-theatre of the Ucciardone
Conference with Pasquale Beneduce, Alberto Castiglione and Amico Dolci for the Liceo Scientifico and the middle school students of the prison and some students of the classes 5N and 5R.
- Presentation of the documentary by A. Castiglione “Danilo Dolci between memory and utopia”
- Presentation of the book “Trial to the article 4” with the afterword by Pasquale Beneduce.
NOTES
The maieutic workshops coordinated by Giuseppe Barone (collaborator and biographer of D. Dolci) and Amico Dolci, saw the participants contribute to a rich and articulated debate about the proposed themes, sharing their intuitions, knowledge and thoughts.
The film “Danilo Dolci amongst memory and utopia” of the director Alberto Castiglione, retraces, through interviews and video contributions, the experience of the first twenty years of Danilo Dolci in Sicily, from 1952 to 1972.
The book “Trial to article 4” by D. Dolci, re-edited by Sellerio in 2011, contains the afterword by Pasquale Beneduce, teacher of History of law at the University of Cassino. The work narrates and documents the experience of Danilo Dolci’s arrest and his trial that followed the initiative of upside-down strike promoted by him in 1956.