thisweekinitaly.com

Pluses and Minuses of European Parliamentary Systems

I’ve expressed before my admiration for the European system that separates the symbolic head of the nation (usually called the President but sometimes a King or Queen) from the political head of the government (usually called the Prime Minister). In this system the political head cannot wrap himself or herself in the nation’s flag and claim that attacks against him or her are also attacks against the nation. The Prime Minister is not the Representative on the country.

This works well internally, but it leads to problems externally. Usually few outside of the nation know the name of the person who is President; to those outside the nation the Prime Minister is in fact the Representative of the country. When Berlusconi says and does things in very bad taste, most Italians just shrug it off saying “well that’s Silvio.” They don’t seem to realize that the rest of the world is saying “well, that’s Italy.”

Summer Festivals and Dinners

In the summer almost every little town has a festival such as festival of the rabbit or festival of the wild boar or festival of beer. These last a couple of days and feature outdoor dinners of the food or drink featured. In addition there are one night outdoor dinners put on by organizations and groups. The restaurants complain that all of this is unfair competition. Recently I went to a dinner in honor of Pistoia’s patron saint, Saint Jacopo, that was held on the eve of his saint day. This featured (1) antipasto of salami, ham, rice salad, tomato/bread soup, and bread with mushrooms, or tomato, or liver pâté; (2) lasagna, (3) large macaroni with duck sauce, (4) cooked duck with string beans, (5) roasted ham, and (6) Italian cake. Of course there was water and white and red wine. The cost was 15 Euro ($19.50).

Serbia??

The headquarters and main manufacturing facility of Fiat is in Turin. Recently Fiat announced it will build its newest model in a factory in Serbia. A national outcry ensued. Some pointed out, of course, all the aid Fiat has gotten from the Italian government over the years. When something like this happens in Italy, it is not at all certain that Fiat’s plan is a genuine one. It may be just a ploy to exact more aid from the government and concessions from the Italian unions.

German Tragedy from an Italian Perspective

The tragedy at the Love Festival in Germany was news all over the world. This kind of horrible event could happen anywhere. Still as I watched the film of it, I tried to determine just what went wrong. It seems the police had a plan and strategy to control the crowds that was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers in attendance and the features of the terrain. Had this occurred in Italy, I think the police here would have abandoned the plan when they saw it was not working. (A more cynical American friend in Italy said they just would have gone off for coffee.) Italians are not obsessed with sticking to the rules, and the good side of this tendency is that they are flexible in the face of difficulty.

Minor vs. Major Frustrations

Generally in Italy you accomplish what you want to do although often a little slower than anticipated. You have to learn to tolerate the minor inconveniences along the way I went to Rome airport to catch a flight. The large board that shows all departures does not give a gate for flights, only the location of the counter where you check in. So I go counter and see my Baltic Air flight is at gate D2. When I get to D2 there is listed over the gate an earlier flight from another airline. There is nobody at desk at the gate. I ask folks sitting by the gate if this is gate for my flight, and they say yes. I go off to look around (I am there early) and when I return another flight of a different airline is now listed at this gate. I see another gate with a Baltic air flight so I go to ask a Baltic Air person at that flight about my correct gate, but , of course nobody is at desk at this other gate. While I am there two Alitalia representatives come by to this, and other gates, telling people that a certain flight to Seville has a gate change. When I return to D2, the people there are now moving to D1. Somebody has finally told them there is gate change. At D1 my flight is listed over the gate. Below the notice for my flight is a notice that next flight after mine from this gate is one to Prague. While I am checking in, it is announced at this gate that in fact the later flight to Prague will leave from a different gate. Nothing major just a succession of typical inefficiencies.

Interviewing Politicians and Business Leaders

When I am on vacation, as I am this week, I often see the BBC news on TV at the hotel. In Italy, persons doing an interview almost never ask tough follow-up questions or point out inconsistencies in the responses of the person being interviewed. The reason is said to be that the media covet access to politicians and business leaders, and this access would disappear if the media was at all hostile. In the USA, you do get follow up by the interviewer who may politely challenge the person being questioned. In Great Britain, it is war. The interviewer is like a lawyer in court cross examining a hostile witness. Because there is no in depth challenging of politicians in Italy by the media, a politician can say X one day and non X the next day, without any detrimental effect.

Quick Impressions from Two Days in Lithuania

Vilnius was the first stop on a quick tour of the three Baltic countries – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The old town section of Vilnius is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a pretty city and easy to navigate. Right now the country is suffering from world wide recession; there had been a burst of economic activity that came to a quick halt as the world economy worsened. Still the long term prospects are good. Prices here are quite reasonable.

From 1938-91 this nation suffered form occupations and repression b y Russians, then Germans, and then Russians again. There is a KGB and Human Genocide Museum in the old headquarters/prison that was used both by the Germans and the Russians (showing again that those great enemies, Fascism and Communism, were close to identical twins). The museum meticulously described what happened in those years of repression and names the German and Russian officers who were in charge of all this. In WWII Lithuania lost the greatest percentage of its Jewish population of any nation and in absolute numbers only Poland had more Jews killed. Aside from the 200,000 Jews killed by the Nazis, more Lithuanians were killed and imprisoned by the Soviet Union than by the Germans, but the Russians were here a lot longer. Still when the Soviet Union began to come apart in 1980s. The Lithuanians were leaders in the Eastern block in pressing for end of Soviet domination.

One part of Vilnius, in a tongue in cheek manner, has declared itself the independent Republic of Uzupis. They have their own currency, officials, and Constitution. The Constitution contains ringing affirmations of human rights but also other important items such as “Dogs have the right to be dogs” and “Cats have the right not to be loyal to their owners although they may help in time of need.”

Despite centuries of various foreign domination, it is a country of proud tradition and culture. It was the last country in Europe to be Christianized. Now Vilnius is a city of churches. Some are still in not good shape because of degradation during the Communist years.

As for art, it is only city in world with a memorial to Frank Zappa. There is a rumor this is to be sent to the USA so it can be like France’s gift of Statue of Liberty.

I did not see any woman in Lithuania with a tattoo.  Are the ladies of Lithuania more sensible or less fashionable than those of Italy?

Following the News on Italian TV

 Although I don’t catch every word, I can usually follow news stories on Italian TV. There is one big exception – stories about the latest political or financial scandal. Here the names, the insinuations, the plots, the subplots, etc. come in such a torrent that it is impossible to keep up.

 Pistoia Blues

 This year the three-day event was expanded to five. As I’ve noted over the years the music has been .less and less blues and more and more rock and jazz.  This year the schedule openly noted this fact. Another big improvement was the location of many chemical toilets near the concert scene. People going to the bathroom in streets and alleys have been an unpleasant feature of Pistoia Blues in the past. Local stores could not sell beer in cans or bottles during the five days of the event.  All in all the problems with crowds may have diminished this year because of better control (despite the typical stories in local papers about drugs and drunks) , but the newspaper reported that first night there was a fight on stage between a musician and his manager.

 There was one other little hitch with Pistoia Blues. The dates were delayed this year to avoid conflict with the World Cup. As a result, on the final night of the Blues, the central plaza was not available because it was being prepared for the next big event, La Giostra di Orso in which contestants on horses tilt at targets. Unfortunately the tickets for the last night listed the location as the central plaza. There were shuttle buses to the alternate location, but it was not clear to those arriving from elsewhere that location had been moved, where the buses were, and what the schedule of the buses was.

 Big Time Legal Case

 It appeared to be a minor case.  In Milan some producers of clothes were being sued for using the name of a famous person on their products without permission. The famous person – George Clooney – had to testify, and the courthouse was mobbed.  More media coverage than a double murder.

 No Room for a Local Oral Roberts in the Catholic Church

 Oral began his career as a Pentecostal faith healer. North of Pistoia, a local priest began to do faith healing, speak in tongues (as Pentecostals do), and explain some biblical passages as indicating the arrival of UFOs. Crowds were starting to come from other parts of Italy, but the Pistoia Bishop pulled the plug on the guy.  My suggestion to the local priest – learn English (if he doesn’t already know it), leave Catholic Church, and move to the USA.  There he could have a good future.

 Sex Sells

 I still think the naked lady in the Italian TV ad for shower and tub caulk may have been the most outstanding example of the Italian propensity to use sex in every kind of ad, but there is ad now running that has a sexy couple giving torrid looks to each other in order to sell canned tuna.  Well, it might qualify for second place.

 Momma’s Boy in Trouble with Mother and Montecatini Pays

 An adult son living at home in Naples took a trip to nearby Montecatini Terme.  This city of spas is probably better known now for its prostitutes. While soliciting a prostitute, he was pinched by the local police and given a fine. As a true citizen of Naples he, of course, didn’t pay the fine. So Montecatini got some office in Naples to deliver the fine to his house.  Here it was given to his mother who opened the envelope (not sealed) and all hell broke loose at home.  He sues Montecatini on grounds that his privacy was invaded; the notice of fine was not delivered in a sealed envelope as required by the law.  He is awarded 5000 Euro. Question number one: if the envelope had been sealed, what is the probability expressed in percentage that his mother would have opened it anyway?  The choices are: 90%, 95% and 99.9%.  Question two: how many prostitutes can he hire with his new found wealth?  This depends upon how luxurious his tastes are.  This sum would not even serve for one night’s fun for Tiger Woods, but I think our man from Naples can stretch the money much farther than that.

 A Very Believable Political Story

 A business leader who is a colleague of Berlusconi said that when Silvio was a young man playing in a band, the other band members fired him because instead of singing and playing the string bass, he was spending too much time chasing after the girls in the audience.

 An Example of Why Italy Cannot Control Illegal Immigration

 I’ve noted before that to control illegal immigration, Italy would need a much more efficient police and judicial system.  Here is an example.  A friend of mine was called to act as interpreter in a court case involving a Nigerian who spoke English well but not Italian.  Twice before this guy was detained for being without proper papers and ordered to leave the country.  This was his third arrest. The judge asked why he had not left when ordered to do so. He said he had no money for a ticket back to Nigeria – most probably true.  This time Italy was willing to buy the ticket. It turns out, however, that in September 2009, he had applied for proper immigration papers under a sort of “amnesty” law. The judge asked what the result of his application was. He did not know. The case was continued for one week and his lawyer was told to find out the status of the Nigerian’s application. Meanwhile he would remain in local prison.

 The next week the case was to start at 9 am. Of course, the prisoner was not brought to the courtroom in time.  So the case was finally heard at 11. There were in courtroom at this time, the judge, two assistant judges who write down the proceedings (but appear to be more than mere court reporters because they wear robes) two policeman who arrested the guy, and two policemen from the prison who brought him in and would take him back and the two lawyers.  It turns out that there had been no reply to his application almost a year earlier. The judge therefore continued the case until such a reply comes from the government. There will be another hearing soon to determine if he (1) stays in local prison, (2) if he is sent to an immigrant detention center, or (3) if he is released to an address he has in southern Italy. If number 3 is the choice (or possibly also number 2 where security is minimal) , you can be sure that if he finds out that his application was denied, you won’t see him in court for the next hearing.

Accentuate the Positive…

My Italian friends sometimes complain that I am too critical of Italy in my newsletters. My personal life here is quite good, and I enjoy Italy very much as a place to live. The travel magazines in the USA paint a rosy picture of Italy, as they should, so that people in the USA often already know the positive side of the country. I get many of my items from the media. In Italy, as in the USA, media stories emphasize the more negative side of life. So my news from Italy often reflects this media bias. It is not that these media stories are false; it is just that they often overlook the positive aspects of life here. Finally I am attracted to stories that show the silly side of life in Italy, and these can be viewed as presenting a negative image of the country.
If I were an Italian reporting on life in the USA, I would probably seem similarly negative toward America.

A Day of Strikes

On July 9 (of course a Friday) there was one of the not infrequent one-day strikes of busses and trains. By law these must run during rush hour even on a strike day. I was due to go to Florence, but I arrived at the station a little too late to get the last rush hour train. There was also a one-day strike of journalists (newspaper, radio, and TV) to protest a proposed law limiting the interception of telephone messages and publication of the content of the wire taps. Actually one newspaper did publish an issue, the one that is the house organ of Silvio Berlusconi. It could hardly take part in a strike aimed at a law he is proposing. So if one ever becomes tired of the constant onslaught of the news (even 24 hours on some stations in the USA) and dreams of a day without news, July 9 was that day in Italy.

Each afternoon I watch the end of the day’s stage of the Tour de France on TV. On July 9 the race was shown but with no commentary because of the journalists’ strike. I did not miss the commentary; I could follow what was happening.

The Growing Pervasiveness of the English Language

I’ve mentioned about beggars on the train. They pass out a slip of paper to passengers and then come by later to collect money. If the beggar is a young man, the note says he is one of five brothers without work and food to eat. If the beggar is a woman it says that she has no work and three young children.
This week I saw for the first time a bi-lingual version of the note in Italian and English. This may be in response to the fact that in summer the trains have many tourists and English is the most common language understood among them.

Getting Back into the Swing of Life in Italy

My first weekend back started with a visit to the semi-weekly traveling market after which I had coffee with friends. I then stopped at the photo shop to pick up the last photos of my tour of 11 National Parks in the USA and put these in my album of the trip. Then I went off to an art exhibit at Pistoia’s new museum of modern and contemporary art with a local friend. Part of the exhibit was of artists from Pistoia. My friend knew the names and backgrounds of many of these. Smaller cities in Italy have a more vibrant artist community than is common in the USA.

After dinner on Saturday I went to see the film “Basilicata Coast to Coast.” I doubt that this film will ever make it to the USA. It is about a small music combo that is invited to a festival in Basilicata. As a publicity stunt the group decides to walk across the region of Basilicata to attend the event. I was especially interested because this is the region from which my maternal grandparents immigrated to the USA in the early 1880s. It was fun to see the landscape of this rugged rural region which I have visited a few times. The film also showed a procession with a statue of the Virgin Mary that is identical the procession in the home town of my ancestors.

On Sunday morning I went to church where the special music was provided by an opera student from the USA studying in Florence this summer. She had a marvelous voice. During the summer such students often perform at my church. After lunch with a friend from Florence, I went to a party of the classes of adult students of the German language from Pistoia and from Siena. The party included a number of Germans who live in Italy. Of course, I could talk English or Italian with them. It has been almost 50 years since I studied German so as Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca: “My German is a little rusty” We watched the final match of the World Cup. Although many Italians go to Germany to work because of the better opportunities there, it is less common for Germans to come to Italy to work. Not surprisingly some of the Germans were women who had married Italian men.
A delightful weekend of varied activities.

“Summer Talk”

This is the phrase a friend uses to describe the political news now. If one believes the newspapers, the Berlusconi coalition (which has a strong majority in Parliament) is on the brink of falling because of infighting among the various factions within the group. Of course these catastrophic predictions never seem to come true. Italy, like all European nations, has to make unpopular budget cuts during the recession. This naturally leads to political controversies.

Many friends in the USA asked me if Italy’s economy is about to go the way of Greece’s. I think not. Italy, unlike Greece, has not been running large debts recently. Italy does have a very large national debt from the years before it changed from the Lira to the Euro, but in the last few years it has had fairly prudent financial policies.

Is This Law Enforced Everywhere?

An Italian friend tells me that it is against the law in Italy for a bar or restaurant to serve someone who is barefoot or clad only in flip-flop sandals. I’ve never noticed whether patrons have such minimal footwear, but I’m willing to bet a lot of money that the bars in Florence that have a clientele of American students (for whom flip-flops are worn year-round) don’t enforce this law.

Flip Down Sunglasses

I’ve never seen these for sale in Italy. I buy my pairs in the USA. Recently I saw a film in which one of the characters was meant to be a bit strange. He had stopped talking when his wife died. He always had a silly smile on his face. To complete his portrait of eccentricity, he wore flip down sunglasses. I guess I will never be mistaken for an Italian (at least a normal Italian) while I wear these sunglasses.

In Matters Artistic….

I always defer to the Italians. On my recent trip to National Parks in the west I took a series of photographs of wild flowers in the parks and along the roads. I had wallet size copies made of these images with the plan to mount them all in a single large frame. The lady at the frame shop said “no” to my idea. She suggested a series of small frames of different colors, one for each photo. The photos were to be mounted between two panes of clear glass. Of course she was right.

The Unopened Restaurant

Some friends were talking about a fully completed luxury restaurant that has never opened on the top floor of a building in Florence. I asked if the owner had encountered financial problems, but, of course, things are never that simple in Italy. In Italy, for reasons I don’t fully understand, many buildings are constructed without proper permission. These are called “abusive” structures. Four things may happen after one builds such an”abusive” building: (1) nothing, (2) an amnesty is declared for such buildings in a certain area and after you pay a fine, the building now is “legal,” (3) the court may order the building demolished (rare), or (4) the building may be seized by the government and used by the government temporarily –during legal proceedings—or even permanently. Apparently the building (built long ago) in which the man put his restaurant was seized by the Florence city government, and now the guy can’t open his restaurant.

Retrieving a Registered Letter

When I returned from vacation I had a notice to retrieve a registered letter from the Post Office. I took the notice to the main Post Office, but then I noticed that the slip indicated to pick up the letter at a different Post Office. So I went to that Post Office. After a 25 minute wait, I got to the counter to discover that to get a registered letter you had to go to a different room in the Post Office. That room was already closed for the day. The next time I went to the correct room where I learned that since the notice was over a month old, the letter had already been returned to the sender.

I wrote in an earlier newsletter ( number 332 August 1, 2009) about why there is slow service is places like Post Offices and banks. I’ve written more than once about the slow service in Post Offices. In Italy, as elsewhere in Europe, the Post Office also operates as a bank. So the Post Office is the worst of all possible places – the slow service of a bank combined with that of a Post Office.

Italian Education System

I spoke with the young son of a friend who moved from Italy to USA three years ago. He likes school here, but notes how easy it is compared to school in Italy. At end of high school students in Italy have to pass a comprehensive test. Here is a list of topics from which they had to choose for an essay on the test:

1.about the search of happiness (36.9 %-students’ choice ) with referring to art 3. of Italian constitution and American Declaration of Independence, and to the sociologist Bauman

2.about the function and the role of music, starting from a quotation of Aristotle

3.” Piacere e piaceri”-short essay ( novel ” Piacere” by D’annunzio…Matisse and Botticelli)

4. The role of young in politics( quotation of MUSSOLINI, Togliatti, Aldo Moro e Giovanni Paolo II)
5.Foibe-History….from 1943 to 1954 ( the choice was only 0,6%)

6.Primo Levi-”with the novel: “la ricerca delle radici”-
7. the u.f.o.- “Are we alone?”

How many American students could write a cohesive essay on such topics?

As the following description shows, the Italian secondary schools (and universities too) require a great deal of individual initiative by students while, ironically, Italian society in general inhibits independence among its young people.

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Seen some long faces on Italian teens (and their parents) recently? Summer’s the season when young students all over Italy learn the hard lesson of ‘too little, too late.’ At the end of each year, high school students (aged 14 and over) are promossi (permitted to pass to the following grade), rimandati (made to sit again in September the exams in subjects they have failed, with the hope of then moving into the successive grade) or bocciati (failed: they must repeat the year).

The Italian scholastic system is very different from that of Anglo countries, for example, not only in terms of structure, content and pedagogy, but also in terms of the considerable individual responsibility that is heaped upon the very young-and often very immature-students. At just 14, when they start high school (where they will stay for five years, until they are 19), the kids are faced with a tough decision: what do you want to do with the rest of your life? At 14, each child must decide which type of school to attend: classical (which includes Latin and ancient Greek), scientific, industrial-technical, art and design, hospitality industry, agricultural sciences, commercial and marketing, accounting, piloting-you name it, there’s a school for it! Subsequent to that terrifying decision there is no flexibility. There are no options, no electives, no choices: the course is set for the next five years.

And then there is the school day itself. Italian high schools typically run Monday to Saturday, from roughly 8am to 1:30pm. In the afternoon, millions of latch-key teens are at home alone, where they are expected to put in at least a couple of hours of self-motivated study. It’s a tall order for even the most mature, enthusiastic students.
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The American system has much more emphasis on development of the whole person. The Italian (and Europeans systems in general) are more narrowly academically oriented.


Returning to Italy from USA — A Comedy of Errors

A friend drove me on Thursday July 1 from Gettysburg to Dulles airport outside of Washington to start my flight from Washington to New York to Pisa. All international flights from Washington to Europe start at Dulles, but my first flight was Washington to New York. I looked at my ticket and noticed for the first time that my flight left instead from Reagan Airport. It was too late now to drive to Reagan airport.

Still all was not lost. I told my friend to wait to see what I could do before leaving. I decided simply to try to get a seat on a flight from Dulles to New York and then catch there my plane from New York to Pisa. I would have to pay, of course, for the new flight from Dulles to New York. I asked the ticket clerk at Delta if I could credit for my scheduled flight from Reagan to New York that I was going to miss. He got going on the computer and told me that my reservations from Washington to Pisa had been voided by Air France (with whom I flew to Washington). I was very upset and went to Air France counter. There I was told that the reservations had been voided by my travel agency in Pistoia who issued the ticket for me. At this hour the agency was already closed in Italy.

So my driver took me back to Gettysburg. I sent an e mail to a friend in Pistoia who visited the travel agency for me the next morning. She told me that I had the wrong itinerary for my return trip. I told her this was the only itinerary I ever had. It turned out that this was an itinerary for an tentative reservation that had been made and then cancelled when the agency found a better one for me. They printed out the tentative one by mistake rather than the final one.

The travel agency suggested that I return to the airport and try to get a flight that evening. Rather than do that I called Delta. I discovered the first open seats were on Sunday, July 4. Then I was told first (1) no problem and then (2) I would have to pay for a complete new ticket. I got to a third person who got me a ticket but I had to pay a $250 change fee.

Needless to say, I expect the travel agency to reimburse me for this $250.

Irony number 1. Had I gone to Reagan airport, as my itinerary said, I would have said good-by to my friend who drove me and entered the terminal. Then I would have discovered that my tickets had been voided, but my driver would have already left to return to Gettysburg. I would have had to find someone else to come to retrieve me from the airport.

Irony number 2. My correct itinerary, of which I got a copy by e mail from my friend in Pistoia, actually had me leaving on Thursday from Dulles, not Reagan. I was at the right airport, but did not know it.

The whole problem would have been solved without any difficulty had I asked one question. When the clerk said my reservation had been voided I should have asked “Is there any other reservation in my name?” The clerk then would have found my correct reservations in the computer and told me my flight would take off from Dulles in two hours.

I Hate to Say I Told You So, But

I’ve written before about how the government did a good job of quickly constructing temporary housing for victims of the earthquake last year in L’Aquila. I noted that this was part of a multi-phrase plan of which the next step was rebuilding the city itself so people could move back into their own houses. I expressed doubt that the rest of the plan would go quickly. This week there was a protest in Rome of residents of L’Aquila.  It even turned violent.  They were protesting that almost nothing has been done to rebuild the city.

As Always, Upon Returning to Italy

You notice what a beautiful country it is. You also notice that the first two ticket machines you try to use at the train station don’t work and that only one of the three trains you take to get home has air conditioning,

Italy and the World Cup

I was in the USA as Italy ingloriously exited quickly from the World Cup, but I read the articles in the Italian press on the internet. Whereas American papers called the performance of the USA team “disappointing” or “discouraging”, the Italian press used the word for “shame” and “disgrace.”

My Article in The Florentine (English Language) Newspaper on Graffiti

I wrote this article at the request of a friend who wants to stir up an anti-graffiti campaign in Florence.

Getting a Handle on Graffiti

Although the word is Italian in origin, the problem of graffiti exists throughout the world. The gravity of the problem, of course, varies widely. Graffiti on the beautiful buildings of Florence is more discordant than it is on buildings in an already degraded neighbourhood of the Bronx in New York. If it is a graver aesthetic assault here, then what are the prospects for taming this plague in Florence?

The easy answer is that Italians are not particularly law abiding, so the problem is insoluble. Consider, however, the success of the smoking ban in public places in Italy. Many doubted that it would be obeyed, but it has been. Is there a renaissance of respect for the law in Italy? I doubt it. We have to look elsewhere for an explanation. I believe that after the new smoking rules were proclaimed, to smoke in public, especially in the immediate vicinity of others, was to make a brutta figura. So, cultural norms triumphed over habit. Of course, others may have a better rationale.

Yet a strong element of the culture in Italy is its strong aesthetic sensibility. This expresses itself in clothes, design, art, down to the way a package is wrapped at a store. Italian homes show a flair for interior arrangement and fanatic cleanliness. So one would expect that Italians, whose public spaces are some of the most beautiful in the world, would defend these spaces against the scourge of graffiti in a way that surpasses this battle in other nations.

Why has this not happened? One must consider another element of Italian culture: the general disregard for the cleanliness and maintenance of public spaces. The attitude toward public space is the exact opposite of that toward private space. There probably is no single explanation of the lack of concern for the public space, but my prime villain would be what a social scientist studying Italy calls familismo. The family is the sacred rock of Italian life. Furthering the interests of one’s family is the Holy Grail. As a result, a society in which people take seriously their civil obligations toward their fellow citizens is diminished. The public space is not my problem, not my family’s problem. It is something for the government, to which we pay our taxes (or, perhaps more accurately, to which we should pay our taxes) to take care of. If the government does not do so, it is no big deal.

I don’t wish to sound like an enemy of ‘the family,’ the prime source of joy and satisfaction in Italy. Like all virtues, however, when taken to excess, it leaks into the area of vice. To be sure, an analysis of the positive and negative roles of the family in Italian life and culture goes far beyond a discussion of the public space.

The results of the lack of respect for the public space, however, are obvious. Litter is omnipresent. The external maintenance of buildings and streets is poor. Finally, graffiti abounds.

I recently read a newspaper article (see ‘It’s war!’ in TF 124 and related article on page 5, this issue) about the city’s plans to enforce the rules against graffiti both in terms of apprehension of violators and the penalties meted out to them. This is one obvious approach to the problem. Another is to provide a public space where graffiti ‘artists’ are invited to practice their craft. Such approaches may have some effect, but when the underlying impediment is cultural rather than legal, I am not optimistic.

The situation, however, is not necessarily hopeless. In my years in Italy, I’ve discovered the Italians do unite around some issues and bring about necessary change. As we recently observed the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Italy in 1945, one could recall a strong, widespread (certainly not universal) movement in Italy to confront the German occupiers at the cost of many lives. Every time there is a natural disaster in Italy, citizens from all over the nation unite to aid to the victims. Italians can move beyond ‘what’s in it for me and my family.’ Consider far northern Italy, where the culture, for lack of a better term, is more ‘Germanic’: the public spaces are much cleaner. To make a successful effort against graffiti in Tuscany and Florence will involve a change in attitude toward public space in general.