Checkmate to the Empire
Former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer is free again
The comeback after eight months in Japanese prisons, Bobby Fischer escapes U.S. “vengeance” obtaining Icelandic citizenship
Pio d’Emilia, il manifesto, March 24, 2005
TOKYO — Free. He took eight months, this time, to deliver checkmate. But in the end he did it. And with his last move he beat United States and Japan in one fell swoop. Thanks to the help of a brave Parliament (the Icelandic one, which granted him citizenship) and a fistful of supporters who have married his cause since day one, helping him even against his will, and although, with his behaviour and his provocations urbi et orbi, he made things more and more difficult, Robert James “Bobby” Fischer, the chess genius, is free again and will arrive tonight, except for twists during the stopover in Copenhagen, to Reykjavík, in Iceland. Where he will be welcomed with all honours, like a hero. It was since last July 13 that Fischer was held, against his will and in flagrant infringement of any laws, in a deportation centre nearby Tokyo. Together with the “clandestine migrants” accused of illegally entering Japan or caught without a residence permit. In this centre, isolated and located near the Tokaimura Nuclear Plant (fact that has further stressed the former World Chess Champion, terrified of being contaminated), Fischer was held in absolute isolation, with only fifteen minutes of fresh air a day and the light turned on 24 hours a day, for almost 8 months. On a couple of occasions, following his protests for the food scarce and of poor quality, he was beaten by the guards. But he also received hundreds of visits from old friends who had purposely come from all over the world (it seems that even his everlasting frenemy Spassky got him on the phone, to arrange a visit, however refused by Fischer: “I don’t wanna see him again: then maybe he asks me to redo a match and frankly I’m just not in the mood”), e by Japanese ordinary people attracted by his fame.
“The most moving visit was that of an old chess player”, Fischer told us. “In the form distributed at the entrance, he indicated the desire to play a game as a reason for his visit. I haven’t played chess in years, but I would have done it for him. It is just that those jerks didn’t give me a board...”. On the other hand it seems that a guard, out of order, even dared to ask him for an autograph!
Eight months. Then, after a sparkling series of moves, partly conceived — often unbeknownst to him — by the committee for his liberation (chaired by a Serbian journalist based in Tokyo, John Bosnitch), partly dictated directly to his lawyers, the solution. Legally unexceptionable (unlike his detention, blatantly illegal). Fischer, to whom the U.S. authorities revoked and physically destroyed the passport (an unprecedented act: an official of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, allegedly named “Peter”, entered the room where Fischer was being held, asked for his passport and, in front of everyone, tore it up), is a foreign citizen without a travel document and as such he must be deported.
The law provides that he gets deported to his country of origin, unless the subject gives serious reasons and indicates another country, which gives its prior consent to his welcome. This country, which until a few weeks ago might have been Germany (Fischer’s father is German), has become Iceland. The Ambassador himself, two days ago, handed into the hands of Fischer’s lawyers his brand new passport. The pressure on the Japanese government became unsustainable, especially after that even the local press began (after eight months!!!) to deal with the case and some opposition MPs carried out parliamentary investigations.
A final check with the United States, to verify if an arrest warrant for tax evasion could be issued within a few hours and then, finally, the surrender. Bobby will not end his days in an American jail, but among the “hot ices” of Iceland, as a radiant John Bosnitch commented yesterday. Reached by telephone last night, in the prison where we had met him a few weeks ago, Fischer commented on the news as follows: “Finally. Honour to Vikings, and shame on Japaneses. I thought they were braver... instead they are nothing but yellow Jews”. The usual, paradoxical, anti-Semitic refrain which, by now, Fischer, a Jew by birth, repeats maniacally, and that — according to many — may be at the root of the fury with which the United States hunted him for over ten years all around the world.
Not so much, perhaps, for violating the embargo and playing the famous rematch against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, in 1992, at the invitation of Milošević, but for his persistent, frenzied attitude of challenge and contempt for the homeland. In order to satisfy the United States’ desire for revenge, the Empire of the Rising Sun has slipped into an increasingly narrow corridor, to the point of becoming impassable, of abstruse and illegal moves, where Knights, Rooks and Pawns were no longer subject to any rules, but they moved in a disordered way, without any certainty. Anyone else would have got his fingers burnt. Fischer no. In the end, he won again.
The comeback after eight months in Japanese prisons, Bobby Fischer escapes U.S. “vengeance” obtaining Icelandic citizenship
Pio d’Emilia, il manifesto, March 24, 2005
TOKYO — Free. He took eight months, this time, to deliver checkmate. But in the end he did it. And with his last move he beat United States and Japan in one fell swoop. Thanks to the help of a brave Parliament (the Icelandic one, which granted him citizenship) and a fistful of supporters who have married his cause since day one, helping him even against his will, and although, with his behaviour and his provocations urbi et orbi, he made things more and more difficult, Robert James “Bobby” Fischer, the chess genius, is free again and will arrive tonight, except for twists during the stopover in Copenhagen, to Reykjavík, in Iceland. Where he will be welcomed with all honours, like a hero. It was since last July 13 that Fischer was held, against his will and in flagrant infringement of any laws, in a deportation centre nearby Tokyo. Together with the “clandestine migrants” accused of illegally entering Japan or caught without a residence permit. In this centre, isolated and located near the Tokaimura Nuclear Plant (fact that has further stressed the former World Chess Champion, terrified of being contaminated), Fischer was held in absolute isolation, with only fifteen minutes of fresh air a day and the light turned on 24 hours a day, for almost 8 months. On a couple of occasions, following his protests for the food scarce and of poor quality, he was beaten by the guards. But he also received hundreds of visits from old friends who had purposely come from all over the world (it seems that even his everlasting frenemy Spassky got him on the phone, to arrange a visit, however refused by Fischer: “I don’t wanna see him again: then maybe he asks me to redo a match and frankly I’m just not in the mood”), e by Japanese ordinary people attracted by his fame.
“The most moving visit was that of an old chess player”, Fischer told us. “In the form distributed at the entrance, he indicated the desire to play a game as a reason for his visit. I haven’t played chess in years, but I would have done it for him. It is just that those jerks didn’t give me a board...”. On the other hand it seems that a guard, out of order, even dared to ask him for an autograph!
Eight months. Then, after a sparkling series of moves, partly conceived — often unbeknownst to him — by the committee for his liberation (chaired by a Serbian journalist based in Tokyo, John Bosnitch), partly dictated directly to his lawyers, the solution. Legally unexceptionable (unlike his detention, blatantly illegal). Fischer, to whom the U.S. authorities revoked and physically destroyed the passport (an unprecedented act: an official of the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, allegedly named “Peter”, entered the room where Fischer was being held, asked for his passport and, in front of everyone, tore it up), is a foreign citizen without a travel document and as such he must be deported.
The law provides that he gets deported to his country of origin, unless the subject gives serious reasons and indicates another country, which gives its prior consent to his welcome. This country, which until a few weeks ago might have been Germany (Fischer’s father is German), has become Iceland. The Ambassador himself, two days ago, handed into the hands of Fischer’s lawyers his brand new passport. The pressure on the Japanese government became unsustainable, especially after that even the local press began (after eight months!!!) to deal with the case and some opposition MPs carried out parliamentary investigations.
A final check with the United States, to verify if an arrest warrant for tax evasion could be issued within a few hours and then, finally, the surrender. Bobby will not end his days in an American jail, but among the “hot ices” of Iceland, as a radiant John Bosnitch commented yesterday. Reached by telephone last night, in the prison where we had met him a few weeks ago, Fischer commented on the news as follows: “Finally. Honour to Vikings, and shame on Japaneses. I thought they were braver... instead they are nothing but yellow Jews”. The usual, paradoxical, anti-Semitic refrain which, by now, Fischer, a Jew by birth, repeats maniacally, and that — according to many — may be at the root of the fury with which the United States hunted him for over ten years all around the world.
Not so much, perhaps, for violating the embargo and playing the famous rematch against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia, in 1992, at the invitation of Milošević, but for his persistent, frenzied attitude of challenge and contempt for the homeland. In order to satisfy the United States’ desire for revenge, the Empire of the Rising Sun has slipped into an increasingly narrow corridor, to the point of becoming impassable, of abstruse and illegal moves, where Knights, Rooks and Pawns were no longer subject to any rules, but they moved in a disordered way, without any certainty. Anyone else would have got his fingers burnt. Fischer no. In the end, he won again.
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