Another good reason to come to Udine? Well, there`s the yearly “Premio Tiziano Terzani”, otherwise known also as “Vicino/Lontano”, a literary encounter now in its 5th year (two years ago one of the illustrious guests was the former president of Iran, the Ayatollah Khatami).
This year`s honoured guest was a real treat for me: Bill Emmott, the former editor of my “Bible”, The Economist (I`ve been subscribing to it for almost 20 years now). Emmott comes right after my other “God”, MIT`s Noam Chomsky (the so-called “greatest living intellectual”).
The great thing about Emmott`s presentation (he`s the man with glasses and a goatee beard) is that I got to ask him the very first question: I wanted to know, seeing that when he was editor of The Economist he had blasted our “Great Leader” (Silvio Berlusconi) with the now-famous picture and title, “Why this man is unfit to govern Italy”. His response? “Yes, I still think that he is unfit to govern Italy”! At which point some of us in the audience let out a wild cheer (me being THE loudest!) and clapped rather loudly at his response (again, I clapped THE loudest!).
The other guests were Sergio Canciani, RAI`s foreign correspondent from Moscow for more than 10 years now. He was in the company of Russian lawyer Lidija Yusupova. The two were discussing the memory of Russia`s assassinated female journalist, Anna Politkovskaja. Canciani and Yusupova also discussed the current political situation in the former Soviet Union. All-in-all, the four-day event (the prize this year went to Pakistan`s journalist, Ahmed Rashid, the man with the glasses and beard) is very pleasant because UNLIKE Italian political tv talk shows (which have 4-5 people ALL talking and yelling at once), this event takes place in an old church and only ONE person at a time speaks (and calmly too!). All pics by M.Rimati.
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