ROME – Impetuous, often against the tide, always free: a well-known and eclectic signature of Italian journalism, Aldo Forbice, historical voice of Zapping, died this morning in Rome, at the age of 80.
Journalist, essayist, writer, Forbice was born in Catania in 1940: arrived at the Avanti in Milan at a very young age, he joined Rai at the end of the 1960s. In 1970 he made his debut with “Turno C”, the first broadcast in Italy dedicated to the world of work and workers’ rights, a commitment cultivated by Forbice for decades also within the trade union as a historian and biographer.
Author of numerous books on the history of the labor and trade union movement, he has reconstructed, with essays and researches, the history of the three trade union confederations, the elaboration of economic policy and trade union unity. He has written books on the father of Italian trade unionism, Bruno Buozzi, on Giacomo Brodolini (the minister of the “Workers’ Statute”) and on Walter Tobagi. After coordinating the regional offices on Tg1, at the end of the 1980s he became deputy director of Gr3.
In 1994, Zapping was born, the daily radio broadcast of the Giornale Radio Uno which inaugurated a real new format and which Forbice led, for 18 years, until 2012. Strong commitment on the human rights front with numerous campaigns conducted through its radio broadcast, with its books dedicated to civil rights and to topics such as arms trafficking, violence against children, the death penalty, world hunger, violence against women and torture and also with a Festival, “Humanitarian”. To try to make – he said – «an assessment of the last decades on human rights: on the progress made and on the many (too many) steps backwards».
Intellectual, deeply secular, from time to time tranchant in his judgments, a passion for painting and poetry, cultivated with numerous publications and also as a curator of exhibitions and festivals, Forbice has over 50 books to his credit including essays, poems, inquiries : the last published just a few weeks ago, “Buy a wife” (Marietti 1820) and another that he was writing; to always be there, even after the age of 80, because, as he wrote in a recent text: «the verses are to escape, but the flight does not save us. Never”.