Saturday, November 10, 2007

Obit: Enzo Biagi, 87, Veteran Journalist,Prolific Author;'Great Voice of Freedom';Stirred Consciences

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Enzo Biagi, 87; Veteran Italian Journalist was a 'Great Voice of Freedom'

Enzo Biagi, 87, a veteran Italian newspaper and TV journalist and prolific author whose straightforward writing style stood out in a country where journalistic prose is often dense  and poetic, died Tuesday in Milan.

For years, Biagi -- with his white hair, thick-framed eyeglasses and calm voice -- was a dinner-hour staple on Italian TV, offering his commentary on the top stories of the day. With his death, "a great voice of freedom" vanishes, President Giorgio Napolitano said.

Born in Lizzano in Belvedere, an Apennine town near Bologna, Biagi started working as a reporter when he was 18 and covered the Allied forces' liberation of Italy several years later.

Later, in Milan, he directed a news weekly, Epoca, and began working in television.

Biagi alternated TV work with writing books -- several of them bestsellers -- and articles for newspapers including La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and La Stampa.

One of his most popular state TV programs ended in 2002 after heavy criticism from then-Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi accused Biagi and two other journalists critical of his conservative leadership of making "criminal use" of publicly funded television to push a left-leaning agenda.

 

CHOIR SINGS "BELLA CIAO" AT ENZO BIAGI FUNERAL

 

He Stirred Consciences" Pianaccios Farewell to Biagi

 

Choir sings Bella Ciao at funeral. Politicians and readers pay last respects to journalist.

 

PIANACCIO - True to himself to the last. If it wasnt such a well-worn theme, youd be tempted to say that Enzo Biagis funeral could have come straight out of one of his books. There was his friend the cardinal, kneeling like an altar boy before the country priest. There was a choir in climbing boots and check shirts singing Lord of the Peaks in church and then Bella Ciao outside, softly, almost in a whisper, on a lovely sunny day. The coffin was borne slowly down to the cemetery on the shoulders of men from Biagis village. It was lowered into the grave between two identical tombs whose occupants, for the record, are called Ido Franci and Paolo Chili. Their identities are unknown, except perhaps to Biagi and other locals.

 

Afterwards, there was a table laden with bread and salami for all, with the compliments of the family: "thank you so much for coming". Against the picture-postcard backdrop of the Apennines in autumn, one or two people repeated the words used in church by Fr Giovanni Nicolini: Biagi was someone we felt spoke for us all. He offered lessons of hope in the face of the worlds creeping sanctimony and authoritarianism. That is no small thing".

 

This may have been why you had to make an effort to get to his funeral. Biagis native Pianaccio is a tiny village. The main road stops and you have to leave your car five kilometres further down the hill. The first mourners arrived early in the morning. The municipality of Lizzano Belvedere had organised five shuttle buses that trundled up and down but many preferred to walk. No one protested. What prevailed was the pride of being there. The coffin arrived just before 11 am, with Biagis daughters Bice and Carla, his four grandchildren and other relatives, at the little church of San Giacomo e SantAnna, which is hardly more than a chapel. The family squeezed inside with the local priests Fr Racilio Elmi and Fr Giacomo Stagni, Biagis friend Fr Nicolini and his other friend Fr Mazzi with perhaps a hundred others.

 

Politicians in attendance included Romano Prodi, whom Fr Racilio distractedly called "leader of the Chamber of Deputies" when he thanked him for coming, as well as Veltroni, Sircana, Gentiloni and Cofferati. Milan city council sent a councillor with responsibility for sport, the only Centre-right politician present. All the other mourners were outside listening to the service coming over the PA system. Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, who was due to attend, was held up by traffic but "hes on his way", said Fr Nicolini, stepping in to deliver the sermon.

 

The cardinal arrived during the consecration. His kneeling figure before the humble parish priests, next to the coffin of his lifelong friend, is a scene that perhaps sums up Enzo Biagi better than any words. Cardinal Tonini did in the end say: "Thank you, the people of this small village, for giving Biagi what he gave to the world and to us all, helping us to keep our consciences clear and clean. That, with a crust of bread and affection, is the only thing that counts in life. Enzo understood this and put it into practice". There was no room or appetite, at least here, for the other issues of the moment. When Mr Prodi was asked by journalists to go back over the "Bulgarian edict" [a 2002 speech by Silvio Berlusconi that is alleged to have interrupted Biagis collaboration with RAI television - Trans.], he merely said that "he took it very badly, and Italians can tell the difference between acts of justice and injustice". Of course there was an edict ", snapped Bice.

 

But memory, at least today, retains other things, like the small coffin, borne shoulder-high for more than half a kilometre, bobbing like a boat on a sea of friendly faces, pausing briefly outside the house where Enzo Biagi was born 87 years ago, and where he returned every summer right to the end. It was the final act of a lovely funeral, if funerals can ever be lovely. Its sad that Biagi is no longer with us to describe it in one of his books.

 

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