HI preferred guerrilla warfare to silence, uncomfortable words to tears, the dark look and studs to mourning clothes. A few days after the feminicide of her sister Giulia, Elena Cecchettin’s words are causing discussion. At 24, she says words that activists, feminist movements and associations that deal with women victims of violence have always said. The scandal is that the sister of one of them is speaking. Instead of licking her atrocious wounds and remaining silent, she speaks.
The words of Elena Cecchettin: where is the scandal
While the Meloni Government works on alightning approval, before November 25th, of the Roccella bill which aims to strengthen legislation against gender violence. While the political world violently and generically becomes indignant by attacking Filippo Turetta. Elena Cecchettin speaks.
He wrote it in a letter published by Corriere del Veneto and he said it on TV. Filippo Turetta is not a monster, but a “healthy son of the patriarchal society, which is full of rape culture”. That «femicide is not a crime of passion, but of power, it is a State murder, because the State does not protect us and it doesn’t protect us. Femicide is not a crime of passion, it is a crime of power.”
Thousands of people take part in the torchlight procession in Padua dedicated to the memory of Giulia Cecchettin, the 22-year-old university student from Vigonovo killed by her ex-boyfriend. The posters feature a phrase also said by Giulia’s sister, Elena Cecchettin ANSA/NICOLA FOSSELLA
The scandal is all here, and how difficult it is to take note of it is demonstrated by the reaction of Filippo Turetta’s family. “Seeing us now described as a patriarchal family pains us a lot, we believe our son has gone crazy,” he said the father in an interview with Corriere del Veneto. It is easier for a father to think that a son has gone mad, for a State to think that a citizen is a monster, rather than to imagine having a part in a crime and in a phenomenon of this type and scale. But the responsibility is there, and it is collective, widespread, deep-rooted.
The responsibilities of men in a patriarchal society
«It is often said “not all men”. Not all men, but they are still men.” Elena Cecchettin’s request, not desperate but black with anger, to men is therefore «to dismantle the society that privileges them so much». «To educate and call out friends and colleagues as soon as they hear the slightest hint of sexist violence. Tell that friend who controls his girlfriend, tell that colleague who catcalls passers-by, make yourselves hostile to behaviors of this kind accepted by society, which are nothing more than the prelude to femicide.”
Sister Elena and father Gino Cecchettin during the torchlight procession in memory of Giulia, Vigonovo, 19 November 2023
ANSA/ANDREA MEROLA
It is necessary for everyone to change their daily behavior, not only by avoiding making flirty jokes but by calling out the neighbor at the desk or cup, at the bar, when he makes them. Scandalous? It’s an invitation to one gentle revolution, a cultural revolutiondaily and without excuses or discounts for anyone.
For Giulia, don’t keep a minute of silence, for Giulia, burn everything
Kind, of course, up to a point. Another phrase by Elena Cecchettin that has greatly struck those who have listened and read it is: «For Giulia, don’t have a minute of silence, for Giulia, burn everything». Exactly what she is doing, who no, is not keeping quiet at all (below her latest post, a photo of her sister as a child hugging her mother, who passed away in October 2022, at the age of 51) .
The joke, often used during demonstrations by the feminist association Non Una Di Meno, has a reference: it is in fact the “verse” of a text of thePeruvian feminist activist Cristina Torres-Cáceres. “If I don’t come back tomorrow”, as the text is remembered, is a sort of poem of denunciation that has been shared a lot on social networks in recent days. Torres-Cáceres wrote it in September 2017, in the aftermath of Mara Castilla’s femicide. A 19-year-old student killed in Puebla, Mexico, by the driver of a chauffeur-driven rental service she had turned to to return home after an evening with her friends.
And in fact Castilla’s name is among the many that appear in brackets: names of women victims of feminicide.
Elena Cecchettin, the applause of the activists of the anti-violence centers
Elena Cecchettin is therefore not saying something new but she is saying it at the right time and to the right microphones. Those who would like to hear her cry, as the victims are asked, and who instead find themselves taken aback. Instead, the activists and workers who deal with women victims of violence applaud and burn with her.
The network of anti-violence centers Di.Re wrote an open letter to Elena Cecchettin, thanking her for her words: «Patriarchy, rape culture, feminicide as state murder are topics for which we feel you, even more, close and sister in this fight against male violence against women. The anti-violence centers of the DiRe Network have been affirming the same concepts for decades. Let’s hope it’s the moment when no one will be satisfied with minutes of silence for the murdered sisters.”
The echo of his battle is also strong on social media. And there are those who write to her: «Now you have many sisters scattered across Italy who think of you and would give you a piece of their heart to keep you going.”
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