The death of Moro
peter Nichols
Rome Why the almost physical horror? Moro's death was in no way unexpected. The terrorists who kidnapped him on 16 March had brutally murdered his whole bodyguard in the process, had threatened and then confirmed his execution in a series of statements. The actual end must at least have been quick. A burst of some eleven bullets in the area of the heart can have left him little time to do more than instinctively raise a hand to defend himself, which he did,
to judge by the reported damage to a finger. He himself knew that his death was practically certain. His letters from captivity show as much and, if they are full of anguish at the thought of a lonely death, deprived of c, ousolation, death at that point must have riad, one hopes, some element of relief for
him.
Yet the shock was great: more emotional, More disturbing than one could have foreseen. The type of man he was goes some vay to explain this awful dismay. Physically, Ile gave the impression of being particularly vulnerable. As if he knew as much, he avoided physical contact where he could and so the very idea of so brutal an end seems against nature itself and not just against human nature. Mom in the final Phase of his political career enjoyed a degree of adulation, and his remoteness With a constant touch of sadness in his expression enhanced this almost sacerdotal quality about him. Whatever may be said of his policies and his character, his death had a suggestion of sacrilege. What hope remained in the last few days depended on faith in the logic of the human albeit political mind: that the terrorists Would not kill him because they would !nerdy destroy whatever bridgehead they 'tad gained in public opinion and present the Christian Democrat Party with a martyr the form of their murdered chairman. he thinking of the 'Red Brigades' was rdifferent but worrying not for its diversity alit because it has a chilling logic of its own.
The killing was calculated to revive old hatreds. It was meant to destroy the policy of the Christian Democrat leadership and of the Communist leadership by reawakening familiar accusations that the Communists themselves were to a large extent responsible for the climate in which terrorism can breed because until a matter of a few years ago their attacks on Christian Democracy and on the capitalist system were virulent. Temperate reminders of the Communist past are never out of place. But the blood runs cold if a politician has to be so cruelly done to death to arouse passions of this kind.
Moro's philosophy of life was conciliatory and gradual. He moved slowly and hoped to gather everybody with him. It was an idea of how the body politic should be treated which many would not share. He had nevertheless given Italy the promise of some political stability which avoided both the threat of a dangerous split between the left and centre while holding in check the fears that the Communists must inevitably march nearer and nearer to membership of a government through some preordained determination of Italian affairs. He was the one man in the Christian Democrat Party who could convince or persuade his factious colleagues to maintain their unity of approach, even in seemingly dangerous areas, and he was the one man who the Communists felt could talk to them with the full authority of his party behind him. Suddenly this odd mixture of manager, manipulator and temporiser was dragged from the scene, tormented, made the subject of cruel stratagems to humiliate him and the authorities, and then shot.
The idea of democracy which he followed' was, in Western European terms, sui generis, but was related to democracy as
others envisage it and at the opposite end of human experience to that of the politics and practices of his captors. The conflict is grotesquely deep. British democracy obviously rejects the whole notion of terrorism. But because it is accustomed to firmer patterns and to a fuller acceptance of what the state stand for it could be expected to react in a brisker way than the Italians if it should ever face to face a similar threat.
This is not simply a comparison: it is saying that the vulnerability which Moro himself personified is there in his system when it is brought face to face with the harsh, oxy-acetylene glare of the terrorist
threat. Moro's death could have a variety of effects. It could strengthen a seriously ailing Republic because martyrs sometimes have that effect. 'He died,' the Corriere Della Sera stated the day after the body was found, `so that the Republic could live.' Certainly, had the government and his own party given way to emotional promptings and agreed to negotiate with the terrorists, the chances for the long life of the Republic would have been seriously reduced.
Thd killings could mean the beginning of the end of his system without suggesting anything with which to replace it. In this way, the Moro murdei is different from the other celebrated political murder in modern Italy, the killing of Giacomo Matteotti by the Fascists in 1924. The death of Moro is intended to destroy present political reality.
In one way, the two murders may be related. The establishment of Fascism had consequences still deeply felt in Europe despite a world war intended to extirpate it. And the first examination of Moro's body had hardly been begun before fears were expressed that Italy's terrorism may, too, emerge as a threat of European proportions.
It is early to say this. The full ambitions of the Italian terrorists are not yet known. Nor can their foreign contacts yet be properly identified. But it is not too early. There are rational reasons for treating the threat as aimed beyond Italy's democracy. If there were not these rational reasons, the instinctive feelings of horror would provide a warning in themselves. The deed is horrifying enough. Yet they seem to go beyond it.
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