The birthday of the special correspondent author of legendary reportages. Among the dearest memories, the friendship with the Afghan hero Massoud who made Orwell love him
It will also be a paradox, but today, alongside Ettore Mo, it is possible not to think about the war in progress on the borders of Europe. We talk about life, happy encounters and even hilarious moments from his long career as a globetrotter. If he has a secret nostalgia for the battlefields, he knows how to disguise it well, the prince of the gods foreign correspondentthat variegated international tribe of war correspondents who, for years, have struggled to keep up with him, in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the rubble of Chechnya, in the Balkans, in Southeast Asia or Latin America, in Africa, in Iraq or, even earlier, in the Khomeinist revolution, in Tehran.
So, when it comes natural to ask him if he would like to be now scouring the Ukrainian trenches with his notebook, infiltrating the front lines, trying to reach the commanders or mercenaries, listening to the stories of those who flee and those who fight, one would expect an impetuous “yes”. Instead Mo smiles sweetly from the armchair of her house in the hills, takes a long look beyond the window panes towards the gray line of Lake Maggiore. And finally he replies, with the simplicity that belongs to him: “No”. He doesn’t feel compelled to explain why. At ninety, at least sixty of which he spent adventurously around the world, he seems to have exhausted all curiosity about the most dismal and ferocious of human occupations. Or, perhaps, all hope. Having explored the ravines of human madness as a speleologist, he likes to be celebrated, especially today, as the dean of envoys. Of all the envoys. Of war, but also of peace. Because he has always considered himself just a reporter.
But it is inevitable to ask him about Ahmad Shah Masood, the “lion of Panshir”, whose photo welcomes guests at the entrance: «You could not have been friends with him. He was unique ». Not just because he was fighting against Soviets and fundamentalists. Or why he reasoned in the Western world: “He was educated. He respected women ». On the eve of an attack, he threatened his mujahideen: “Tomorrow we enter Kabul, those of you who put your hands on a woman will have to deal with me.” In his light messenger’s luggage, Mo always carried a few books: «Hector, tell of how Massoud discovered thanks to you Orwell and his Tribute to Catalonia», His wife, Christine, intervenes. It went that Khalili, Massoud’s English-speaking adviser and interpreter, was forced to translate a chapter of it to his leader every evening.
Christine, the companion of a life, the ideal Penelope of a reckless Ulysses. She only learned after many years that Ettore was preparing to die during a fight, crouched behind an embankment near Jalalabad: “he confessed to me that that time he had started writing me a farewell message”. Which fortunately she has never read: “What did you write to me?” She asks him. “And who remembers it?” He laughs.
Have you ever dreamed of a quieter life, perhaps as a correspondent for some prestigious capital? Buenos Aires, she replies. Christine, a thoroughbred Englishman, knows why: “There was a war for the Falklands Malvinas!” Moscow would have been impossible: “In Afghanistan, the Russians had put a price on your head, Ettore “, reminds him of his friend, and historical envoy of the «Messaggero», Valerio Pellizzari. “And in Iran he was on the black list of revolutionaries, in 1979, for having thus finished a piece in which he talked about the destruction of a wine shop: there is no longer any religion”.
Together, in 1994, Mo and Pellizzari crossed all “that sad Russia of the Volga”, embedded in a convoy of Finnish trucks, 5,500 kilometers from Helsinki to Varal, Kazakhstan. Together, they returned from Tibet crossing the border with China after hiding the documents in his shoes of the monks proving the tortures suffered. The treacherous metal detector tried to report them, but the Chinese didn’t dig deep enough into Mo’s boots.
A country that has remained in his heart? «Uganda. A spectacular beauty, “he replies. A missed interview? “Pol Pot”, the former leader of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge is one of the few who escaped our special envoy. Great hound, but an enemy of technology. When the Corriere organized the first courses to use computers, Mo gave up after five minutes and on leaving he ran into Indro Montanelli, who misunderstood: “You in that course? I would not have expected Ettore from you ».
March 31, 2022 (change March 31, 2022 | 21:50)
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