Third reprimand:
For: 52, against: 66, abstained: 15 to 20.
Expulsion from settlement:
For: 81, against: 22, abstained: about 30.
Passed.
Considered as sound reason for absence — illness or serious injury:
For: 88, against: 2, abstained: 30 to 40.
Passed.
Minor injury or sudden fatigue:
For: 65, against: 35, abstained: 30 to 40.
Passed.
Menstruation:
For: 62, against: 3, abstained: about 70.
Passed.
I spent all day polling the settlers with Dumas, the Allegret brothers, and Agottani. The meeting was postponed. Mr. Crisson loaned me a book his wife wrote. It was published in Paris, but had been banned and wasn’t allowed to be sold.
March 21st
Twenty Frenchmen and thirteen Germans intend to settle elsewhere. On the other hand, all the Italians with the exception of Domenico Parodi want to continue the journey to Fraternitas. Domenico has become close with one of the German families and wants to go to the United States with them. There are now 141 settlers altogether. The Slavs have asked for a day to think it over. They explained to us that they aren’t Hungarians but Slovaks; Hungarians aren’t Slavs, they said, but occupiers. According to them, the Slovaks settled the territory first, along with the other Slavs, who have the oldest language in the world, apart from perhaps the Jewish one, which is why they are called Slavs, from the word slovo, meaning “word.” And it won’t be long before the Slavs break the chains of Austria and Hungary, and the Slavic tongue will sound throughout Europe, in Paris and Berlin, under palace ceilings and in destitute garret flats.
We’re nearing Brazil! According to the captain we should be coming within view of it tomorrow or maybe even today. Then less than a week of sailing along the coast awaits us until we reach Rio de Janeiro.
March 22nd
The Brazilian coast lies off our starboard bow, the cape of São Roque. We’re heading south. The captain had a pig slaughtered. But he doesn’t want to drop anchor, even though the water’s almost impossible to swallow, you have to hold your nose and drink it down as quickly as possible.
I told Decio what the Slavs said, it made him angry. He said that, next to religion, patriotism is the greatest pack of nonsense there is. Both lead to the manipulation of human emotions, he said, to unfreedom and intolerance.
March 23rd
Katharina is still throwing up most of her food.
March 24th
The pledge of honor is still not done. The Egalitarians are trying to revise it so that as many people as possible will sign it. Decio announced right from the outset that he wouldn’t sign, because all pledges of honor are the first step toward the loss of personal freedom and the exercise of personal discretion. And he appealed to every true anarchist not to sign either. A lot of Italians agree with him, including some who originally voted in favor of it.
I think it will be signed all the same. People are tired of meetings and debating regulations, they’re both impatient and glad that the voyage is coming to an end. Everyone walks the deck all day, squirting water at one another, singing and joking.
March 25th
We the people without a name, free of the hatred and malice due to which others acquire a name, we the people without ill will…In times of suffering we have suffered, in times of worry we have worried, in times of torment we have been tormented with humiliation, fear, and uncertainty. We have seen many wicked things around us and we are exhausted, drained; we have become innumerable. Those who scorn us have acquired dominion over us; we have bowed down before them, hoping for compassion; but those who scorn us have shown no compassion. We turned to our rulers, asking them to put an end to our suffering and torment, but our rulers did not want to listen, instead helping those who robbed and devoured us, and caused us to be diminished. We had but two choices left: to kill the rulers and become rulers, to acquire a name and torment others, or to flee and take shelter among the nameless. Here we are among our own.
March 26th
Giacomo said that Slav is not from the word slovo, meaning “word,” but from the old Italian word sclavo, meaning “slave.”
March 27th
I actually know very little about anarchy: that a man must remain free at all costs, that he should refuse to be conscripted into the army, and that marriage is neither necessary nor needed and free love is more dignified for man and woman alike. And that there is actually no such thing as authority, it’s only a convention. But I still don’t quite understand what freedom of man is. Or how to achieve that freedom. Decio said even the anarchists aren’t of one mind about it. Some say that anarchy is an intellectual movement while others say that it’s mainly a movement of action. And still others say that it isn’t a movement at all, but an individual stance. Some think that it’s possible to change society in such a way that more and more people adopt an anarchist stance and achieve freedom of thought and thereby form their own opinions of society, politics, religion, and so forth, and that that will lead to the breakdown of traditional society and the creation of a new one in which free people respect other free people. But others believe that that won’t happen by itself, that one has to incite chaos and anarchy and the breakdown of institutions, and only then will those who aren’t anarchists recognize that another world is possible and see that the government serves only to satiate the pathological ambition of fools who compensate for their own lack of individual freedom by depriving others of it, because those who out of cowardice or timidity have no authority over themselves seek to have it over their fellow citizens. He (Decio) said he didn’t believe that one had to commit assassinations and provoke chaos, that it was enough for people to cease to be afraid and they would insist on their rights. And that really the best thing would be if all the anarchists and those who sympathized with them would establish settlements all over the world where there was no authority and people could develop in harmony and freedom, because everyone’s opinion would be respected, and people who lived in countries where there are governments would simply cease obeying them.
But if every opinion is equally valid, how do you decide? Even for the idea that it’s the majority who decides, there had to be someone, some scholar or philosopher, who came to that conclusion, and whoever came to that conclusion first was at that moment the only one who thought so. And I’ve noticed another thing, too: people who think they’re free never agree on anything, while people who don’t, almost always agree on everything.
And how can I tell whether I’m free? If I refuse to be conscripted into the army and kill people who’ve done nothing to me, that still doesn’t mean I’m free. Poor people have no reason to kill other poor people, that stands to reason, it even says so in the Bible. But Decio says that religion is the very thing that laid the foundations of the unfreedom which people live in today. He also says that it will be a long time before people cease to believe in religion, and that there are only a handful of people today who don’t believe in God. But that would mean most people, or at least most unfree people, are wrong. But how can a person say he’s free if he can’t persuade somebody else that he could be free as well?