Country of extremes
The longer I stay in Italy the more my view of this country changes. I have spoken with many people at home who are complete and total italianophiles. Italy is this fantastic place of the Dolce Vita, slightly crazy, everything is possible, passionate, historic, warm, blue seas, creative, good food, fast cars, sunglasses, scenery, sailing, fascinating literature, art and a songlike language. This is however a very narrowminded and single sided view on one of the most complex countries in the union.
Now, I don't mean to say that I deny anything of it. I won't simply because most of it is very true. Italy is all that and more. And when you are sitting on a terrace in the city with a glass of the best white wine ever, you just don't want to be bothered by boring stuff. However, that boring stuff is very real and very much a same part of this country as the Dolce Vita. These things are not so nice, not so idyllic, not so friendly and sometimes very very scary. We, in the north, are informed, on occasion, of such events through the news. But for some weird reason we disconnect it from the Italy that we so much want to believe in: the Italy that we want, the Italy that is everything that we are not and maybe even the Italy that we need, although that is another debate.
Many dutch reporters and writers who live in Rome e.g. keep this legend, this myth alive. Partially for their own image of living the Dolce Vita, partially because their northern public doesn't want to hear anything else. That same public, when it goes on holiday to this country indulges itself in everything that keeps the fairytale intact.
Now, if you want to keep living in this dream, please don't read on. And also don't visit the poluted industrial areas of the big northern cities, or the gipsy areas, or the Romanian townships... you won't like what you see.
However, if you feel like getting a balanced view here is the deal. You are very capable of finding out all the good and nice and briliant sides that Italy has to offer. The interweb is filled with it, so instead I'll give you the dark side. This makes this post slightly unbalanced, I know, but just view it as a counterweight to all the happy-go-lucky pieces. Besides that, I am planning to do this only once and focus the remainder of this blog on the nice and crazy bits of living here :)
Whatever your idea is of italian politics, it's worse. Corruption cases don't make the news here anymore, because it is no news. What is currently news is the succesful attempt of the country's prime-minister to push a law through a rightwing dominated parliament that basically makes him and a couple of other highranking officials immune to prosecution. This does not make corruption legal, but prosecution of corruption illegal. For more information read this item at the BBC
The established elite in this country is involved in a long running battle with the judicial system. They claim it to be biased towards them. In my opinion the judiciary has all rights to be biased against them, they provide plenty of reasons. Judges are frequently attacked by government and currently there is going to be a freeze on all court cases before 2002 for at least a year. This also includes very serious mafia cases and a case that I will get into at the end of my post. Read for more information this item at the BBC.
The legal system itself is not without issues too. Judges in certain cases are plain corrupt. Prosecuting the mafia has always been a deadly business. So e.g. judge Edi Pinatto decided that if you can't beat them, join them. He sentenced a major mafiaboss to a long jailterm but kind of 'forgot' to file it. Thus the sentence had become null and void, the boss walked and he was fired in disgrace (but who cares if you got a healthy mafia pension and provided protection). I was unable to find any reports on this case in the international media. But google the guy's name and you are bound to find some juicy italian items.
The involvement of the mafia in Italy differs by region, but it is something that every italian is very much aware of. When possible it is ignored, paid off or consciously forgotten. The mafia, gomorra or however you call it, is not some briliant Godfather kind-of-movie story, this is a deeply involved political, economic and highly deadly power. For more information read this at the dutch NOS.
And I could go on... what about the way to deal with minorities and immigrants? Force them all to give of fingerprints? That led to a serious riot with neighbouring countries like Romania, Tunisia, Albania etc. So instead there is a new bill now being proposed just to force everyone single person living in Italy to give of finger prints! Don't believe me? Read more here at the BBC. With a government like Italy has, this would be reason enough to consider leaving the country and requesting refugee status in some more democratic country without these bizar ideas. You know a country as progressive and liberal as Russia for example.
All in all the above is not something many italians are proud of. The number of times I have been asked by now: "What do you in the north really think of Italy?" can't be counted on two hands. The desperation when italians talk about politics (which in this nation is synonymous to talking crime, catholicism and corruption) is something that I will never get used to. Some claim that they are just incapable of governing themselves. A friend even said, "you should just cancel the Italian state... we are excellent in cooking, making a holiday destination. Just turn this country in an EU governed vacation colony..." And it is sold as a joke, but underneath it is a sense that it will never be better.
Economically, this generation is the first to be considered significantly poorer than their elders. Young italians do *not* stay living with their parents because they are so attached to their mums (something that some dutch expat writers too drunk on the Dolce Vita would like us to believe). Friends of mine here, are in their early 30s and are only now making barely enough money to afford a house. Permanent jobs are simply not available and if they are people in general are not well-connected enough to get them.
I knew all this when I got here. But only today, this morning, did I realize how deep the desperation goes. Yesterday 15 police officers were released after being found guilty for excessive and organized violence resulting in the torture of demonstrators in the Genoa 2001 G8 meeting. The story is horrifying and if you didn't know better you'd assume it happened in South America in the 70s or 80s or modern Africa, but not in a western European country that is widely recognized as a modern democracy (when I hear people say such things, I tend to ask them if they could please define 'modern democracy').
Yesterday, these policemen were found guilty and were sentenced to 1-4 years in prison. Which after reduction etc. means they were now free to go. Simply because Italy does not have a law against torture and thus the officers could not be prosecuted accordingly. Chiara pointed this out to me when we were watching the news yesterdaynight but I reacted rather coolly. Only today after reading what happened and what these people did is it becoming clear to me in what kind of deep state of so called sh*t this country is.
The fact that it even came to trial does not prove the succes of the Italian legal system. Instead it is simply due to the individual efforts of prosecutors who just kept on going against the odds of the system. A legal and political system that is more determined to forget and ignore the issues that are not opportune at the moment, than doing justice. Of course, this does not mean that the Italian state has a policy of sanctioned police terror (because what happened *is* police terror). Instead it has a policy to cover it up. In my view this makes the state as much guilty as the people directly involved.
It is an honestly stomach turning story, the scale of which only becomes clear when you read the report here at the Guardian.
Yes it is long and horrifying but very much worth to read. At least to keep anybody from saying: "I did not know". On the other hand, do we actually want to know?
I quote The Guardian:
And as one of the victims' lawyers, Massimo Pastore, put it: "Nobody wants to listen to what this story has to say."
That is about fascism. There are plenty of rumours that the police and carabinieri and prison staff belonged to fascist groups, but no evidence to support that. Pastore argues that that misses the bigger point: "It is not just a matter of a few drunken fascists. This is mass behaviour by the police. No one said 'No.' This is a culture of fascism." At its heart, this involved what Zucca described in his report as "a situation in which every rule of law appears to have been suspended."
Fifty-two days after the [me: the police] attack on the Diaz school, 19 men used planes full of passengers as flying bombs and shifted the bedrock of assumptions on which western democracies had based their business. Since then, politicians who would never describe themselves as fascists have allowed the mass tapping of telephones and monitoring of emails, detention without trial, systematic torture, the calibrated drowning of detainees, unlimited house arrest and the targeted killing of suspects, while the procedure of extradition has been replaced by "extraordinary rendition". This isn't fascism with jack-booted dictators with foam on their lips. It's the pragmatism of nicely turned-out politicians. But the result looks very similar. Genoa tells us that when the state feels threatened, the rule of law can be suspended. Anywhere.
Especially the 'Anywhere' hit home. In the end I am not Italian, or American, or British, countries in which these policies to some extend or another have been implemented. I do not claim that as such they have turned into some kind of modern version of fascism. But it does make me worry. I am Dutch, and The Netherlands is the country with relatively the biggest number of phonetaps per head of the population worldwide. We keep email and internetdata stored for possible use in legal cases. But we all know that these laws were passed under a new international western idea of fear that we have learned to live with. Fear for the other, fear for Islam, fear for what we don't understand, fear for what we don't know. And of any country in the world we might have the nicest and most pragmatic politicians anywhere.
So I am not claiming that the western world, Italy at its helm, is degenerating into a some dark age of violence and state terror. The only thing I am saying is: let's keep a very very close eye on governments and politicians: especially on some rightwing populist nutcases who are going pretty far in wanting to implement Italian practices into Dutch society. You all know who I mean. I don't believe in some kind of inherent evil, either Left or Rightwing. Just let's keep a good eye on them because in the end I refuse to be afraid.
And after this very happy and joyful blogpost I will now return to living in this amazing country, if you don't mind ;)
Now, I don't mean to say that I deny anything of it. I won't simply because most of it is very true. Italy is all that and more. And when you are sitting on a terrace in the city with a glass of the best white wine ever, you just don't want to be bothered by boring stuff. However, that boring stuff is very real and very much a same part of this country as the Dolce Vita. These things are not so nice, not so idyllic, not so friendly and sometimes very very scary. We, in the north, are informed, on occasion, of such events through the news. But for some weird reason we disconnect it from the Italy that we so much want to believe in: the Italy that we want, the Italy that is everything that we are not and maybe even the Italy that we need, although that is another debate.
Many dutch reporters and writers who live in Rome e.g. keep this legend, this myth alive. Partially for their own image of living the Dolce Vita, partially because their northern public doesn't want to hear anything else. That same public, when it goes on holiday to this country indulges itself in everything that keeps the fairytale intact.
Now, if you want to keep living in this dream, please don't read on. And also don't visit the poluted industrial areas of the big northern cities, or the gipsy areas, or the Romanian townships... you won't like what you see.
However, if you feel like getting a balanced view here is the deal. You are very capable of finding out all the good and nice and briliant sides that Italy has to offer. The interweb is filled with it, so instead I'll give you the dark side. This makes this post slightly unbalanced, I know, but just view it as a counterweight to all the happy-go-lucky pieces. Besides that, I am planning to do this only once and focus the remainder of this blog on the nice and crazy bits of living here :)
Whatever your idea is of italian politics, it's worse. Corruption cases don't make the news here anymore, because it is no news. What is currently news is the succesful attempt of the country's prime-minister to push a law through a rightwing dominated parliament that basically makes him and a couple of other highranking officials immune to prosecution. This does not make corruption legal, but prosecution of corruption illegal. For more information read this item at the BBC
The established elite in this country is involved in a long running battle with the judicial system. They claim it to be biased towards them. In my opinion the judiciary has all rights to be biased against them, they provide plenty of reasons. Judges are frequently attacked by government and currently there is going to be a freeze on all court cases before 2002 for at least a year. This also includes very serious mafia cases and a case that I will get into at the end of my post. Read for more information this item at the BBC.
The legal system itself is not without issues too. Judges in certain cases are plain corrupt. Prosecuting the mafia has always been a deadly business. So e.g. judge Edi Pinatto decided that if you can't beat them, join them. He sentenced a major mafiaboss to a long jailterm but kind of 'forgot' to file it. Thus the sentence had become null and void, the boss walked and he was fired in disgrace (but who cares if you got a healthy mafia pension and provided protection). I was unable to find any reports on this case in the international media. But google the guy's name and you are bound to find some juicy italian items.
The involvement of the mafia in Italy differs by region, but it is something that every italian is very much aware of. When possible it is ignored, paid off or consciously forgotten. The mafia, gomorra or however you call it, is not some briliant Godfather kind-of-movie story, this is a deeply involved political, economic and highly deadly power. For more information read this at the dutch NOS.
And I could go on... what about the way to deal with minorities and immigrants? Force them all to give of fingerprints? That led to a serious riot with neighbouring countries like Romania, Tunisia, Albania etc. So instead there is a new bill now being proposed just to force everyone single person living in Italy to give of finger prints! Don't believe me? Read more here at the BBC. With a government like Italy has, this would be reason enough to consider leaving the country and requesting refugee status in some more democratic country without these bizar ideas. You know a country as progressive and liberal as Russia for example.
All in all the above is not something many italians are proud of. The number of times I have been asked by now: "What do you in the north really think of Italy?" can't be counted on two hands. The desperation when italians talk about politics (which in this nation is synonymous to talking crime, catholicism and corruption) is something that I will never get used to. Some claim that they are just incapable of governing themselves. A friend even said, "you should just cancel the Italian state... we are excellent in cooking, making a holiday destination. Just turn this country in an EU governed vacation colony..." And it is sold as a joke, but underneath it is a sense that it will never be better.
Economically, this generation is the first to be considered significantly poorer than their elders. Young italians do *not* stay living with their parents because they are so attached to their mums (something that some dutch expat writers too drunk on the Dolce Vita would like us to believe). Friends of mine here, are in their early 30s and are only now making barely enough money to afford a house. Permanent jobs are simply not available and if they are people in general are not well-connected enough to get them.
I knew all this when I got here. But only today, this morning, did I realize how deep the desperation goes. Yesterday 15 police officers were released after being found guilty for excessive and organized violence resulting in the torture of demonstrators in the Genoa 2001 G8 meeting. The story is horrifying and if you didn't know better you'd assume it happened in South America in the 70s or 80s or modern Africa, but not in a western European country that is widely recognized as a modern democracy (when I hear people say such things, I tend to ask them if they could please define 'modern democracy').
Yesterday, these policemen were found guilty and were sentenced to 1-4 years in prison. Which after reduction etc. means they were now free to go. Simply because Italy does not have a law against torture and thus the officers could not be prosecuted accordingly. Chiara pointed this out to me when we were watching the news yesterdaynight but I reacted rather coolly. Only today after reading what happened and what these people did is it becoming clear to me in what kind of deep state of so called sh*t this country is.
The fact that it even came to trial does not prove the succes of the Italian legal system. Instead it is simply due to the individual efforts of prosecutors who just kept on going against the odds of the system. A legal and political system that is more determined to forget and ignore the issues that are not opportune at the moment, than doing justice. Of course, this does not mean that the Italian state has a policy of sanctioned police terror (because what happened *is* police terror). Instead it has a policy to cover it up. In my view this makes the state as much guilty as the people directly involved.
It is an honestly stomach turning story, the scale of which only becomes clear when you read the report here at the Guardian.
Yes it is long and horrifying but very much worth to read. At least to keep anybody from saying: "I did not know". On the other hand, do we actually want to know?
I quote The Guardian:
And as one of the victims' lawyers, Massimo Pastore, put it: "Nobody wants to listen to what this story has to say."
That is about fascism. There are plenty of rumours that the police and carabinieri and prison staff belonged to fascist groups, but no evidence to support that. Pastore argues that that misses the bigger point: "It is not just a matter of a few drunken fascists. This is mass behaviour by the police. No one said 'No.' This is a culture of fascism." At its heart, this involved what Zucca described in his report as "a situation in which every rule of law appears to have been suspended."
Fifty-two days after the [me: the police] attack on the Diaz school, 19 men used planes full of passengers as flying bombs and shifted the bedrock of assumptions on which western democracies had based their business. Since then, politicians who would never describe themselves as fascists have allowed the mass tapping of telephones and monitoring of emails, detention without trial, systematic torture, the calibrated drowning of detainees, unlimited house arrest and the targeted killing of suspects, while the procedure of extradition has been replaced by "extraordinary rendition". This isn't fascism with jack-booted dictators with foam on their lips. It's the pragmatism of nicely turned-out politicians. But the result looks very similar. Genoa tells us that when the state feels threatened, the rule of law can be suspended. Anywhere.
Especially the 'Anywhere' hit home. In the end I am not Italian, or American, or British, countries in which these policies to some extend or another have been implemented. I do not claim that as such they have turned into some kind of modern version of fascism. But it does make me worry. I am Dutch, and The Netherlands is the country with relatively the biggest number of phonetaps per head of the population worldwide. We keep email and internetdata stored for possible use in legal cases. But we all know that these laws were passed under a new international western idea of fear that we have learned to live with. Fear for the other, fear for Islam, fear for what we don't understand, fear for what we don't know. And of any country in the world we might have the nicest and most pragmatic politicians anywhere.
So I am not claiming that the western world, Italy at its helm, is degenerating into a some dark age of violence and state terror. The only thing I am saying is: let's keep a very very close eye on governments and politicians: especially on some rightwing populist nutcases who are going pretty far in wanting to implement Italian practices into Dutch society. You all know who I mean. I don't believe in some kind of inherent evil, either Left or Rightwing. Just let's keep a good eye on them because in the end I refuse to be afraid.
And after this very happy and joyful blogpost I will now return to living in this amazing country, if you don't mind ;)
posted by TheFabulousJourney at
11:22 am
4 Comments
