People die in war, they die migrating, and sometimes they die because they no longer wish to live. What is death if not a mask, and what is life if not a nomos? If existence has a meaning, our relationship with its end is the gauge. And what is the meaning of life if not its sacredness? From shipwrecks in the Mediterranean to euthanasia and suicide, Luciano Violante reflects on death in an emotional and clear-headed essay, “But I Always Saved You: The Mask of Death and the Nomos of Life” (Bollati Boringhieri). “I always saved you” should be said by all mothers, in Libyan or Tunisian camps, in Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel. The phrase that reveals who we are, our identity. For the former magistrate and politician, there are no excuses. Death—alongside the defense of life, which is its necessary counterpart—is one of the principal “political acts” that a democracy must address.
In conversation with Elvira Terranova, AdnKronos.
