Luca Coscioni died today, this morning at 11.20 AM. Ten years ago he was diagnosed with ALS, the awful Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Everybody predicted he couldn't live as long as he could, and still, it feels incredible he's gone.
He fought for these past ten years for the freedom of scientific research in Italy, a country where medical studies that might one day save lives of those affected with such illnesses are forbidden, because of a convenience that only stupidity can call driven by religious beliefs.
Luca Coscioni's biography, in political and human terms, is staggering. Not just for the one hundred Nobel prizes that supported his cause, or for the Italian Radical Party that followed him in his most important fights against the italian political establishment, offering their microphones and political stages to the synthetic voice of his laptop. But for all the strenght and courage he had, to pick it up and start his battles in the worst moment of his life.
Remarkably, he wasn't really a political person until he got ill.
It is incredible to think that a person, under such dire physical conditions, could become a political leader in such a small amount of time. Because he was trapped into his own ill body, and he could not speak anymore, and it took him thirty seconds to write any single word, he had to be very efficient in his speeches (the laptop read his speeches for him) and still, his digital speeches, as I heard them broadcasted by Radio Radicale, were the most moving and intense thing. He expressed a story of hope and not of illness.
I have been moved by his words so much and so many times I ended up being a member of Luca Coscioni's association for the freedom of Scientific Research in the past, and this is the only political group I ever supported in my life. It was, and still is, the only group whose goals have been transparent and reasonable and unserstandable to me.
Luca Coscioni was a great leader, and a great man. And there is something mysterious, or possibly reasonable, with the fact that this greatness blossomed up in body about to be wrecked. No effort of no italian political figure in the last decades has ever been as brave and inspiring as Luca Coscioni's. I really hope he's not forgotten too soon. And sorry for the rethoric here, I guess I am just very disappointed that Luca couldn't live long enough to see his own country move for once toward the real progress and the real freedom it deserves, the one that could better people's lives instead of making them duller.

** update:
Apart what you may read, in italian, on the websites of the Italian Radical Party about Luca Coscioni, (radicali.it, radicalparty.org or radioradicale.it), I suggest to my italian reader the beautiful recollections of Luca from this blogger, and to my english reader the english pages of Luca's association and, most notably, this letter of Luca to ALS Interest Group, dated back to 8 April 2001.

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