Elio Bonazzi
From Philosopedia
Elio Bonazzi (29 August 1960 - )
Bonazzi was born in Calais, France, to Marialuisa Cesati Bonazzi and Giuseppe Bonazzi, a renowned Italian sociologist.
He received his education in political science in Italy at the University of Turin, where he obtained his master's in business administration. In Australia, he received his Master in Applied Science of Information Technology from RMIT University in Melbourne.
In the 1980s, he worked in Milan, Italy, for Digital Equipment Corporation. In 1991, he relocated to Australia and for an American company - Enterprise Engineering (EEI) - becoming a consultant for the financial and pharmaceutical industries.
In 2002 he relocated from Australia to New York and currently is the Chief Technology officer for EEI, a technology company operating on the Wall Street market.
Bonazzi's books include the following:
- Software Engineering With Oracle: Best Practices for Mission-Critical Systems (1999)
- Oracle 8i and Java: From Client Server to E-Commerce (2001)
Asked by reporter Jamie Glazov of Frontpagemag.com about his views concerning Islamist terror and tyranny, Bonazzi responded:
- As a former left wing militant, I think I can respond to this question exhaustively. I lived in Iran from 1975 until the beginning of the revolution, and having learned Farsi, once I was back in my country of origin (fall of 1978), I participated actively with my Iranian friends living in Italy to the frantic revolutionary activity of support to the movement in Iran.
- While Foucault was probably the most renowned intellectual to be involved in the support of Khomeini, major sectors of the European left were enthusiastic about the historical changes taking place in Iran. To understand why, a little historical background is necessary. The left had reached its apogee between 1974 and 1975, between the “Revolution of the Carnations” occurred in Portugal in April 1974 and the fall of Saigon in April 1975. The US was in that phase weak, leaking its Watergate scandal wounds, and unable to lead the Western world through a sufficiently strong leadership. The Soviet block was gaining a considerable advantage over the free world. But the first symptoms of decline for the left were appearing, first the Soviet gerontocracy that was fossilizing the once vibrant and progressive ideas of the October revolution, and then the recurring problems with the satellite states of the Warsaw pact, like Poland, where consensus towards the communist ruling was constantly diminishing.
- The Iranian uprising was perceived by the left first and foremost as a defeat for American imperialism, which had brought the Shah to power through a coup in 1953, and considered Iran as the a puppet regime in the Middle East. That sentiment was coupled with a generic love for the idea of a revolution, no matter what the outcome, typical of the left-wing rhetoric. This romanticized revolutionary myth was entrenched in the DNA of the left, and embodied by the character of Che Guevara, whose glorified image was present in every rally and every function held worldwide, immortalized in banners and t-shirts. A commonly used metaphor of that period was the one that compared the revolution to giving birth. One should not focus on the loss of blood and the excruciating physical pain experienced by the mother to dismiss the value of the new creature coming to this world. The left was generally very forgiving of the excesses committed by revolutionary forces, as the supposed good coming from new the world brought about by the abrupt change would have justified the sacrifice of the elements of the old guard, indiscriminately killed and executed during the overthrowing of the old regime. Mao Zedong summarized this concept in the famous sentence “The Revolution is not a gala dinner!” The uprising led by Khomeini occurred concurrently with the revolution in Nicaragua. In those frantic months at the beginning of 1979, the most politically savvy left-wing intellectuals tried to conceal the deep crisis that started affecting the left by driving the attention of the left-wing public on the two revolutions, hoping that the galvanizing forces unleashed in Managua and Tehran would have postponed and possibly avoided altogether the painful realization of the several failures of the Soviet Union, which became even more evident a few months later, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan.
- In addition, the initial phase of the Iranian revolution saw the participation of all leftist political forces, from the Feddayns to the Communist Party (Tudeh), from the more centrist followers of Mossadeq to even strata of society that were previously supportive of the monarchy. After Khomeini managed to centralize all power firmly in his hands, and started executing left-wing militants, the left was still prepared to defend the more anti-American aspect of the revolution, symbolized by the humiliation the US suffered in the occasion of the hostage crisis. The common analysis at that time was that, yes, there was a clerical involution occurring in Iran, but in the grand scheme of worldwide geo-politics the fact remained that Iran was no more in the sphere of influence of American imperialism. The left was always completely oblivious to the “collateral damage” provoked by the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran). European governments even turned a blind eye on the killers sent by Tehran to execute activist expatriates living in Europe, sometimes even escorting the killers to the airport where a plane was ready to bring them back to Iran in first class seats.
Bonazzi was never a believer, "thanks to my upbringing," he wrote when asked about humanism. "My father did not try to inculcate religion in any of his children," he added, saying he has always been an atheist.
With his wife, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, he writes widely for journals and the two are recognized as prominent Middle East pundits. His three sisters - Ilaria, Livia, and Valeria - live in Melbourne, Australia.
