Blue-eyed Yousef and a poem by Pasolini, free from cynicism

De André sang of the politicians’ loathsome cynicism, saying that ‘we’ve all seen their backsides’. Perhaps it is worth broadening our perspective to include a certain way of running newspapers and their social media clones (or are they perhaps sources of inspiration?). We have all seen the close-up of Yousef’s blue eyes (they decided to call him that, to protect a fig leaf of his minority status and privacy), as well as the images of him leaving the shop with designer belts around his neck, before the many who had not done so (well done, Rai) on TikTok, Instagram and on private and public accounts finally decided to pixelate those eyes of a minor: “In recent days, videos showing him, dressed in dark clothes and wearing a balaclava, during the incidents in Milan have gone viral,” reads the Corriere’s well-written summary: “In reality, he is an 11-year-old boy who lives in the densely populated Barona neighbourhood. The Carabinieri identified him at school, where he is in the second year of middle school.” Forget about pixelation; forget about failure to respect the Treviso Charter. “Alì dagli Occhi Azzurri / uno dei tanti figli di figli” emerges like a prophecy or a punishment from the first line of a poem written sixty years ago by Pasolini, who was by no means a cynic. 

It is dedicated in the epigraph ‘to Jean-Paul Sarte, who told me the story of Ali with the blue eyes’. After all, a Frenchman in the throes of decolonisation knew more about Alis than a Friulian poet still grappling with Gennariello. The poem is called "Profezia", and for good reason; and since it is truly prophetic, it was already speaking out against the evils of fast fashion: ‘Millions, clad in Asian rags / and American shirts’. That ancient vision is by no means reassuring. But PPP would never have shifted all the blame – and the fears – onto a convenient blue-eyed scapegoat. As, on the other hand, many commentators and newspapers have been doing for days. Pixels are a fiction; we’ve been told which neighbourhood blue-eyed Yousef comes from, which school he attends and which class he’s in. Who his parents are. Better than a police mugshot. They’ve gone to describe his world, getting his classmates to say that ‘he’s famous now’. ‘A wild lad’, ‘a bully’. ‘He even ran over an old lady a while back’. Even the newsagent: ‘He’s a troublemaker. He looks at you with that defiant stare’. They even went to the comprehensive school with 1,400 pupils. They gave the full names of the headteacher and the deputy headteacher (‘both deeply shaken’). “They’ve realised their own failure. ‘He’s a boy with significant vulnerabilities’.” We’ve learnt that he has “a bespoke, tailor-made programme”, because “Yousef can’t stay in class, given his temperament”. In short, an extreme case. The headteacher told Il Corriere: “The videos started circulating as early as Sunday. His eyes – so beautiful – are unmistakable… Some of our teachers were in tears.” In short, a monster who ruins the rest of our work; they’ve had his classmates say he’s damaging the whole group. A bad apple, this extremely vulnerable lad with a defiant air about him.

For three days now, people have been talking about him, and it is a way of discussing him without addressing the broader context. About the others. To absolve the school or social services that do not know how to deal with him. But if you stigmatise and isolate the bad apple, then you can gloss over the rest. And return to blaming society. Pasolini was neither so hypocritical nor so superficial when, bathed in Mediterranean light, he pondered his Alì. He would never have made him a bad apple. Nor, however, would he ever have taken him lightly, unlike the politicians who now claim that simply putting a sign on the town hall saying ‘no one is a stranger here’ is enough to achieve integration. Pasolini knew (and had proof of it too) that ‘by betraying the innocence of the barbarian peoples’, the blue-eyed Yousefs ‘will emerge from beneath the earth to kill – / will emerge from the depths of the sea to attack – will descend / from the heights of the sky to rob – and before reaching Paris / to teach the joy of living, / before reaching London to teach how to be free, / before reaching New York / to teach how to be brothers – / they will destroy Rome’. Perhaps not; PPP was often a false prophet. But he would never have used the blue-eyed Yousef to lull the rest into complacency.