Maria remiddi:
a commitment to peace in post-war italy
by Anna Scarantino

War, as we all know, is always a topic of current affairs. Luckily occurring far away from our immediate borders, it is brought into our homes by the mass media as they blast us with daily modern war bulletins from the ‘hottest’ parts of the world where the U.S.A., Europe and to some extent also Italy are most involved. Naturally, peace is discussed too, but mostly in relation to war. Media attention is maintained in this field above all by political-diplomatic attempts at resolving the current conflicts or by the initiatives of key individuals or of peace movements that for decades have gained popularity and manage to make themselves heard on certain occasions across the world. Yet it cannot be said that peace, now as ever, “ makes news”, that it can interest public opinion, with the exception of some special event, with the same ground-breaking force as war can.
This is an old story, in that not only journalists but also professional historians are partly responsible. If we look at the past and believe in the historical reconstructions we can actually see that things were not so different. Generations of students learnt from manuals that concentrated on incidents of aggression, wars for conquest, raids, dynastic conflicts, struggles for power, almost as if history only proceeded because it was pushed by such dramatic and destructive events. The French call it “histoire-bataille”. It was they, the historians,who above all,  since the 1930s, revolutionized this view of history, extending their research to hitherto untouched sectors, to help fill the documentary gaps which had been necessary to assess the traditional historiography of the Middle Ages and the beginnings of the modern age. Since then the way opened on to man’s multiple manifestations has not ceased to widen, and today it can be said that there is no sector, topic, mental attitude, or even material object linked to human activity that does not fall under the lens of some historian. This has resulted in the theme of peace too coming under scrutiny, though only recently in Italy. No longer just neutral territory on a field where other events – political, social, economic, cultural and religious- hold their ground, peace has at last become a subject of study in its own right.
At first it was a limited group of enlightened thinkers , who refuted the traditional and fatalistic idea of war as an evil ineradicable by man, that brought peace out of this state of disinterest  and negative view  and started to see it as a reality that man can build and consolidate. They were gradually supported by the masses and were followed by the creation of peace movements and associations of both a lay and religious nature.
During the course of this lengthy event that developed over at least two centuries – the 1800s and the 1900s -  in Europe and America, the two world wars were enormously traumatic  as regards conscience as well. The trust in the constructive and pacific force of reason that had been prevalent in the 1700s and early 1800s was less apparent.It was understood that reason itself, even though freed from superstition and barbarity, could be exploited by an ideology and a technological apparatus that, far from allaying the prospects of war, actually made it even more deadly and efficient, risking the very existence not only of a people or a State but of the entire human race.
Reflection on these topics as well as the tragic experience of a dictator who forced our country to experience first-hand the effects of a devastating war and a crushing defeat encouraged the creation of numerous, though small, peace associations in the post-war period in Italy, too. Although short-lived, these were generally very active. They combined satisfaction at re-discovered democracy with a longing to come to terms with the past,  and intended to make a practical contribution to constructing a lasting peace, which was not limited to enduring the conditions imposed upon them by the victorious countries but sprang from renewed international collaboration.
Among these groups, despite its limited size, A.I.M.U. deserves to be remembered: the International Association of United Mothers for peace, created in 1946 by Maria Remiddi, a teacher born in Rome but who had strong connections with the regions of Abruzzo and, above all, the Marches. She was the subject of a recent article of mine entitled “Women for Peace. Maria Bajocco Remiddi and the International Association of United Mothers for peace in cold-war Italy” (FrancoAngeli, 2006). Opening the archive to the public and making its activity public knowledge, in contact with numerous other peace associations in Italy and across the world has allowed light to be thrown on an as yet little-known reality, also on a specialist level like that of Italian pacifism.Looking at it from a fresh angle – a sector of society unfamiliar to the parties, although not apolitical, a form of women’s middle-class, lay  associationism – the actions of this association also furthered understanding of the 1940s and’50s, which as is known were crucial to the reconstruction of peace from many points of view: material, institutional, political, economic, social as well as moral and ideal.
Maria Bajocco Remiddi was the founder and leading light of this association. It was her idea to create a women’s group based on the common denominator of maternity, something which at that time, just after the war, was particularly evocative, material but above all ideal, symbolizing the protection of life right from birth, a universal element which was to help bring together women (such as German, French, British, and American) from former enemy countries as well as Italian women who had been divided amongst themselves because of their different political affiliations. It was Maria Remiddi’s perseverance most of all that enabled her group to last over ten years, starting up many new initiatives and making use of every possible channel, especially through schools, to spread her ideas. It was her idea too to follow the commitment to peace, influenced both by her war experiences which she had endured mainly at Muccia, her mother’s town of origin in the Marches, and by the spontaneous demonstrations of solidarity shown between civilians and occupying soldiers of which she was both witness and protagonist. It was she who showed ability to fuse the ideals that had inspired her right from the start with an understanding of the actual spaces for action and the aims that could effectively be reached; it was she who had the humility to try to understand the sense of political events and the powers that were, bearing in mind the motivations of the “others”, while avoiding any suggestion of a general solution but assessing each event individually; and it was she who was convinced that governments, and not vague pacifist utopias, should find the possible solutions within international law and rights and supporting federalism, while the role of associations like her own was to act as a stimulus with letters and appeals to politicians and to sensitize public opinion.
Supporting peace was a way of life that Remiddi continued to sustain. From the end of the 1950s she continued to promote international understanding working above all in education through the Italian Commission of UNESCO, and Aldo Capitini invited her to be part of the honorary committee at the congress of International War Resisters ( held in Rome in 1966), that is, one of the oldest organizations in defence of peace and conscientious objectors, alongside people like Norbetto Bobbio, Giorgio La Pira, Ignazio Silone and Lelio Basso.
In her work Remiddi was able to count upon the valid support of at least two colleagues; Anna Garofoli, journalist and writer, and Marina Della Seta, one of the few women in the ‘30s with a law degree, and who was soon to lose her father and any possibility of starting a forensic career because of fascist racial discrimination. Garofalo, who died in 1965, defended the condition of women in Italy with her newspaper articles in the lay press, affronting even the then burning issues of prostitution and divorce, and helping to ensure that women’s issues were not only focused on by a limited sector of society but should be a question of general public interest, and an index of the civil growth of the country. She united her interest for women and for investigative journalism with the defence of peace in politics and education.
Marina Della Seta worked side by side with Maria Remiddi, bringing her sensitivity as a woman of “the minorities” to the association, as well as her ability to speak foreign languages. It was Della Seta who was to become the Italian representative of a great international women’s association which had started during the First World War to defend peace and international justice – the ‘W.I.L.P.F.’ ( Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom). In 1957 A.I.M.U. decided to become the Italian section of W.I.L.P.F.,thus realizing its hopes of acquiring an international dimension and gaining prestige from the fact that W.I.L.P.F. had received two Nobel peace prizes in 1931 and 1946 and from its recognition for working closely with the U.N.O. and its specialized agencies.
Like Garofalo, Della Seta was also able to travel abroad to meet other women’s associations. Today this might all seem banal, but it certainly was not at that time, both for financial reasons, given the high costs involved in travelling, and for the fact that it was still rare to see women travelling alone. On the other hand, however hard it was for a small association that supported itself entirely by the personal sacrifices of its members, contacts with associations abroad were of primary importance for two reasons: firstly, there was the conviction that peace initiatives could not be limited to national settings but needed to be linked to foreign organizations with similar objectives; secondly, because the situation of women in Italy was particularly difficult to penetrate either because it was already politically alligned, or because it was diffident and hostile towards any form of public participation.
Research thus revealed an unexpected reality. Against the widespread conviction – stronger than today, but nevertheless still  persistent – that women have a particular attitude, a vocation for peace, the history of that period marked by strong political and civil passions has shown however how the “peace” question not only failed to unite women, nor represented them, as A.I.M.U. had hoped, but the moment it ceased to be a mere abstraction and became part of the political agenda, it was actually more of a reason for conflict between parties than an opportunity for dialogue and reflection. It became, in fact, one of the causing factors that consolidated the political blocks and generated harsh political and ideological confrontation in our country.
The end of the 1940s saw the creation of a mass movement for peace, ‘Partisans for peace’, whose first significant campaign was against the signing of the NATO alliance, considered by many at the time as an attempt to prevent peace. But it was common knowledge even then, and history has widely confirmed it, that the manipulative nature of that very organization was at the service of the Communist party and behind that of the Soviet Union. Despite the capacity of its campaigns to attract , especially among those groups more sensitive to the theme of peace, and the attention reserved for propaganda to women, the Manichaean vision of the movement, that set imperialist and war-mongering countries on one side and peace forces that recognized the politics of the USSR on the other, was destined to radicalize the conflict and make the term”peace” a sort of unpronounceable taboo in the moderate sectors of the country.
For their part, the women dedicated to the country’s political life especially after gaining the vote, did not avoid the climate of completely opposing ideologies, with the result that the peace issue, monopolized by only one of the political sides, widened the gaps in the women’s associations, leaving organizations like Remiddi’s, that in spite of everything tried to keep a dialogue going, isolated, caught up in accusations of cryptocommunism on one side and attempts at absorption on the other. Only with the dawn of a new political era and the first timid signs of international distension would the conditions be created for the auspicious collaboration between women’s groups. But all this started with the battle for equality, long before that for peace.
The activity of A.I.M.U. was not however wasted but continued by its leaders on a personal level in ways more suitable to the times and less tied to the strict political contingency. That first experience bore witness to a noble effort made against the stream which in certain cases was even forerunner to positions and initiatives that would follow in the years to come, especiallly in the field of education. Under the conviction that to enjoy full citizens’ rights women’s suffrage, obtained in 1945, represented a starting rather than a finishing point, the association spent  a great deal of energy in training and informing women. This was achieved by studying, holding conferences, creating a basic library, and establishing correspondence with women from other countries , mostly to help large numbers of women schoolteachers go beyond their limited provincial horizons, accustoming them to dialogue and to comprehension. The effort to increase awareness of world reality in women’s lives too, the ability to formulate autonomous opinions in every field, and updated information on the activity of international organizations were particularly appreciable if we bear in mind that the substantial lack of interest in these topics shown by the press in favour of internal politics was to be added to the years of isolation endured by Italy under fascism, together with the tradional reluctance of women to get involved in international questions and the same foreign policy, issues long considered to be a purely male domain.
Of equal importance was the organization of meetings and later of training courses and education towards peace for primary school teachers; the aim of these was to spread a democratic and anti-war spirit amongst those who were responsible for education and belonged to an environment that appeared in those years still profoundly imbued with traditionalist rhetoric. Supporting education towards peace for the young was crucial, undertaken with various initiatives including the promotion of pacifist literature for children, which was particularly needed in Italy, by creating ‘ad hoc’ stories like those written by Remiddi herself, whose literary vocation was as strong as ever,  as well as translating and circulating foreign books.
It is hard to think that more could have been done at the time. The association, though full of idealistic motivation , had limits in that it was lacking in conceptual elaboration, available means, and organizational possibilities, and these limits were further hampered  as has already been mentioned by the historical difficulties of the time. There was also an error in perspective that more or less joined all the peace movements in the post-war years : that of having interpreted the widespread but generalised desire for peace on the part of the people as meaning that they were willing to take an active stand in that sense. It must not be forgotten that the immediate post-war years were marked with the fear of another possible war which might once again be waged in Europe. There was particularly strong feeling about this in Italian public opinion, as shown by a survey conducted in 1947 in various European countries. Italy, in the west, but with the strongest communist party in the capitalist world, seemed to be on the border between two profoundly divided worlds, and its eastern borders were not only still an open wound but also an unknown quantity for the future. Thus fear conditioned the people’s natural pacifist feelings and pushed them to demand above all security from their government by reinforcing defence and adopting “energetic”policies. 
If these were the objective limits within which A.I.M.O. and the other peace associations operated, they also represented their merits. Although it had its problems the association, under the leadership of its founder, was in fact part of that positive climate, that desire for freedom, for participation and renewal that particularly affected women and that made the immediate post-war years a somehow unique period.  But even in the years to come , trust  did not diminish in the values of reason and rights and the possibility to educate a person to behave peacably right from birth. This has been the outstanding legacy of A.I.M.U. for future generations.

Roma, fine anno '40. Fondazione Besso, Maria Remiddi siede alla destra della Presidente Lia Lumbroso Besso

Roma, 1952. Maria Remiddi prepara una mostra di autoritratti di bambini alla Fondazione Besso

Maria Remiddi nel 1990

La famiglia Bajocco Remiddi nel 1945 alla fine della guerra