The Extraordinary Humanity of Romans

One of the roads I walk almost every day intersects with the commuter rail tracks heading South of Rome. There is a pedestrian underpass, long, dark, dank, every centimeter of surface covered with graffiti. A homeless man lives here. Call him Carlo. He sets up a folding table with two chairs and a deck of cards. He lays some books out on a blanket. Throughout the day, passers-by stop to peruse the volumes he's laid out and talk about the books they are reading. Some stay to play a game of cards.

There is clearly something off about Carlo. His everyday life could not stand in greater contrast to those of his neighbors in the middle-class quarter of Rome which surrounds his grimy, well-trod den. Outside the sun shines, the sky is blue, there are plenty of derelict buildings and vacant lots where other homeless individuals have thrown up tents or huddle under blankets. But Carlo is not simply a homeless person. He is, in fact, a valued member of his neighborhood. And he is treated as a neighbor, despite his houseless-ness.

On a corner of the piazza where I go everyday to buy food or have a morning coffee, lives a man in his late sixties. He huddles on a box crate, surrounded by assorted cardboard boxes overflowing with stuff. He spends his day writing sentences in a flowing hand on the pages of a spiral notebook. Neighbors stop to talk and say hello. A lady and her grandson drop off a casserole with food for him to eat. He pulls out some sort of toy from his bundles of bundles. Another neighbor bought him a tent, long since lost, for the winter, when it rains almost everyday.  A local street artist made a graffito portrait of him, which he would sit next to, until the manager of the supermarket asked him to move because he was in the way of exiting  customers.

When people stop to talk, they greet him with a kiss on both cheeks, Italian style. They converse of local events, people they know in common. This is very different from the polite but prophylactic "good day" uttered to the beggar. Both of these homeless men are treated with a humanity which is both gentle and deep. There are no statement being made here, no pompous examples for the benefit of appearances or the good of the soul in the hereafter. No. These are Romans at their marvelous best.

A hundred meters or so from the underpass, is the river, the Tiber. It is a social no-man's land, a sort of border region where most Romans never go. Here there are also homeless people, mostly gypsies and foreign migrants, who have set up house. They collect furniture, cook food, defecate and bathe in the river. The belong to no community and are neither spoken to nor cared for. Not even the representatives of the state --the police or the park workers or the sanitary authorities-- seem to take note of their existence. And, every working day, early morning after the sun rises, bike commuters zip by on their way to work, and Roman joggers, grunting and feeling virtuous in the morning chill, pass without a glance.

It blows my mind that a place can live comfortably with both such caring, and such neglect.

Fear of Ebola Used to Stir Anti-Immigrant Paranoia in Italy

Here is a column I wrote for Al Dia. http://aldianews.com/articles/opinion/fear-ebola-used-stoke-anti-immigrant-fears/35069

Mario Balotelli, Luis Suarez, and Italian Racism

A figurine of Mario Balotelli between those of two
holy men: Pope Francis and Francesco Totti.

One star scored the winning goal against England, did nothing much in a loss to Costa Rica, and was replaced at half-time in the decisive game after getting a yellow card for a stupid foul. The other scored the winning goal against England, sat out a loss to Costa Rica due to injury, and committed an outrageous foul that elicited global scorn and got him banned from the remainder of the tournament.  Guess which star is being ostracized and singled out as the embodiment of flawed egoism.  Yes, the black man who plays for the white country.

After Italy's elimination from the World Cup, by toothsome Luis Suarez and Uruguay, a tidal wave of angry criticism of Mario Balotelli swept through Italian media and the Internet.

Balotelli is accused of being lazy and not trying, of being childish and unable to control his temper, and committing a stupid foul that forced his coach to bench him at a critical time. The coach, the argument goes, says he was worried that Balotelli would commit another dumb foul and get himself ejected, forcing the team to play with one man down. The great irony is that another Italian player, Marchisio, actually got himself ejected from that same game, and, yet, is not blamed for the defeat. Bad call by the referee, Italian pundits moan.  Marchisio, by the way, is white.

Italian soccer has been rocked
by repeated racist incidents.

Balotelli is further charged with failing to carry the team into the second round. He was the offense of the team. It was designed around his particular skills. This is often the case with great talents. Portugal is designed around Cristiano Ronaldo.  He scored one goal, just like Balotelli, and the Portugal are also out. Sweden is built around Ibrahimovic, and they didn't even make it to Brazil.  Uruguay is structured around Luis Suarez (with all due respect to the talented Edison Cavani), and his oral fixation has most likely condemned the team to a quick exit. The failure of these teams has lead to some grousing about their mega-stars, but no cascade of hate and blame, even in the case of Suarez where global shame is being heaped on the player.

All of these players are superstars. They receive a disproportionate amount of attention and are paid outrageous sums of money to play, what is in essence, a kid's game. Along with the inevitable envy of their riches, fed, in some cases, by outsized egos and by relentless publicity, there is also a baseline of admiration and respect accorded to great players by fans. And come World Cup time, by co-nationals. There is solidarity and loyalty.

But not with Balotelli. He was immediately fingered as the culprit by his fellow players. Balotelli left the team locker room alone, and sat on the bus alone, while the coach bade goodbye to the  rest of the team. He was subject to racist rants and posts on the internet. Italian fans regularly greet Balotelli with the chat that "there are no black Italians." And on TV, despite a general consensus the the whole team played badly, only one player was singled out for blame: Super Maro.

African immigrants in the police
immigration center.

Balotelli, in a raw post on instagram, responded to a fan's accusation that he had not tried because he was not a real Italian. His response is heatbreaking: I was born in Italy, he writes, and chose to be Italian. He then lashes out at the lack of solidarity he feels from his fellow Italians. Africans are smarter than us, they do not turn on their brothers, he pleads. This last comment, of course, was received as a slap in the face by the Italian media. Poisonous, one pundit describe his post. Out of bounds, declared a football official. Not the racism Balotelli is regularly subjected too, one supposes, but the temerity of comparing Italian unfavorably to Africans.

After the loss to Uruguay, the Italian national coach and the director of Italy's national football federation presented their resignations. The witch hunt rages on. Mario Balotelli, a black Italian, is the perfect outsider - too young and rich and talented. Too tall. Blame him. Rip him to shreds.

Racism and Obama's Visit to Rome

U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Italy has stirred up a number of embarrassingly racist reactions. This front page, for example, from the Left-wing  daily  newspaper Il Manifesto, is so blatant and cringeworthy, one has to ask, was it done intentionally or just the result of colossal incompetence?

More ominous,perhaps, is the bizarre show of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin by a motley crew of European white supremacy groups and right-wing political parties. Even former Italian Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and radical comedian turned political firebrand Beppe Grillo got into the act. 

Berlusconi is Putin's old buddy. And Grillo likes throwing gasoline on fires, but how much of the rest is motivated by simple racism?

Italian Politics Take a "Game of Thrones" Turn

Italy gained a new government this past weekend, and did so with all the intrigue and drama of "Game of Thrones" (minus the bloodshed and the chain mail armor, but not the sex).

Matteo Renzi has used is position as Mayor of Florence
to showcase a problem-solving, ideology-lite approach.

The new Prime Minister is Matteo Renzi, the ambitious 37 year-old mayor of Florence, who has made a career by running against the leadership of his own center-left political party, the PD. In this, Renzi has been absolutely brilliant. He recognized, much like Berlusconi before him, that the old guard that ruled the PD were not only out of touch with Italian voters, but also unrepentant, even proud, of that fact. He pushed for internal party primaries to determine it's leadership and, though he lost, did well enough to go from relative nobody to political star. And when the old guard's candidate ran a disastrous campaign, squandering a once-in-a-lifetime sized lead to cross the wire essentially tied with a discredited Berlusconi and comedian-turned-political-gadfly Beppe Grillo, Renzi was the only figure left standing in the wreck of the left.

Well, not the only one. One of the princes of the PD, Enrico Letta, was able to put together a deal with Berlusconi to form a coalition government, one that joined center-left and center-right, representing two-thirds of the electorate. In theory, this would give Letta a broad mandate to govern; in practice, all the government's energy was spent, it seemed, holding itself together. It's biggest achievement was to survive an attempt by Berlusconi to tumble the house of cards and call for an early vote. Stability was Letta's byword. Not change. Not reform. Stability.

This might have worked, if Italy were not going through the biggest economic crisis in its history. And, if Matteo Renzi were less ambitious. While Letta fiddled, Renzi took control of the shattered PD. He handily beat the candidate of the old left, to become party president and, soon after, started turning up the pressure on Letta to do something.  But, of course, as all could plainly see, Letta had no space to maneuver. Like a junkyard car, his awkward coalition of enemies could only hold together at rest, in the absence of sudden moves.

Renzi had always vowed that he would not become Prime Minister without winning a national election. (This is why enemies within in his own party have blocked an electoral law from passing, so there can be no new elections to win.) He also promised to "help" his "friend" Letta but, as Letta slowly sank in public opinion, with European elections looming, Renzi, perhaps sensing that he was caught in a trap, engineered a palace coup, replacing Letta's unelected government with his own posse.

Mired in a deep legitimacy crisis, Italy's
political class fear that the bells toll for them.

Renzi'a new cabinet is young, most of the ministers are under 40. A full half of the ministers are women. Both are revolutionary developments in a country heretofore dominated by old men. The media, both left and right, responded with horror and sexism and disdain. Talking heads commented and criticized the clothes the new women ministers wore to be sworn in...too bright, too tight, too too...  None of the ministers was a heavyweight, pundits sniffed.  And Renzi's inaugural speech to congress, left pundits and pols aghast. It was actually directed at the Italian people and not at the parliamentarians and journalists, the horror, the horror.

The Italian political elite's rejection of Renzi, and this includes the big left and right newspapers, has much to do with their mistrust of popularity and elections.  For the Left, elections are what they lose because the Italian voters are befuddled by too much TV and too much soccer.  Each of the major figures of the PD, each a grey party apparatchik with no aptitude or respect for modern electoral politics, has been defeated by Berlusconi in an election. Each of them, instead of retiring to the Italian equivalent of Kansas (Emila Romagna?), has hung-on to their political retainers and chunk of political turf. And they spin webs and scheme their return while ostensibly selecting the next center-left champion to serve as Berlusconi fodder. That is, until all this primary nonsense spoiled the party.

One the right, there is the fear that there are no conservative voters in Italy, only Berlusconi voters. The former premier looms over everything, consuming all the oxygen in the room. Because he is a convicted felon, guilty of tax fraud, and also of paying for sex with a minor, and perhaps soon of bribing a Senator, Berlusconi cannot run for office. But he seem determined to not let anyone else run in his stead. The center-right is his soccer ball, as it were, and no one else is allowed to score.

So, Renzi makes everyone nervous. He is too ambitious, moves too fast, is too young and too popular. He represents a threat to the usual game of thrones. Or he did, at least, before he assumed power. Now that he is Prime Minister, he has to do what Letta could not: Act.

Much like bayonets, one can do anything with power except sit on it.

Is the Sun Setting on the Italian Lifestyle?

Seen from the outside, there is something inspiringly right about how Italians live.  They close up shop to eat a home cooked lunch every day. They buy their food fresh; personally know their butchers and bakers and candlestick makers; spend a month (or two) on the beach in the summer and a week (or two) on the ski slope in winter.  And they own houses, often in stunningly beautiful locations. Italy has one of the highest homeownership rates in the world, and few kids and shrinking families mean that properties are often inherited from both sets of grandparents as well as parents. City apartments are rented out. Country homes are used, if for nothing else, for olive trees, from which they press, their own oil.

A declining industrial power, Italy is finding that
it can no longer afford to live Italian style. 

Seen from the inside, Italian families are trapped inside a compression chamber. They work long hours, the lunch break is offset by working late, often six days a week. Wages are low. Promotions are out of the question. And yet, those with a job, no matter how grinding, are grateful, because most people under 40 have given up on getting staff positions. They subsist on short term freelance contracts. No bennies. No security. No niente. To lose a job in Italy is a form of economic death.

And the home cooked meals? They have to be cooked by someone. Italy has the lowest percentage of women in workplace in old Europe (after Greece). Italian women cook and keep house (Italian men know how to make coffee), do the daily food shopping, keep house, and care for the children and elderly parents (the state neither provides daycare nor elderly care). Grown children, often unemployed, live at home into their forties.  

And the houses? Those rented are used to supplement the meager family income, and as a trust fund for unemployed offspring. Landlords live in terror of the deadbeat tenant. It can take decades to evict someone. Those houses not rented, decay. Families age and shrink. Less space is needed, maintained. Italy is house poor, falling into ruin.

Fresh food means constant shopping.

Falling slowly but surely into economic destitution, most Italians use tricks to survive. They cheat on taxes. They skimp on maintenance of their properties. They stop paying rent, buying medicines, eat less.  But this cannot last. 

Is there a way out? Perhaps, but it runs against all the  conservative Italian instincts: 

To create more jobs, make it easier to fire workers. The fact that no one can be fired from a job functions as a curse on the poor, because new jobs are not created or filled. Those who have job, even ones they hate or are under-qualified for, hang on to their jobs with a white knuckled death grip. No one takes a chance on something new. Greater job insecurity, ironically, would increase the turnover and vitality of the job market. 

To get money flowing in the economy, tax property. Real estate is to Italy what the stock market is to the US and savings accounts are for Germany. That is were the wealth is stashed. But real estate is not a productive investment, a house, unlike a business or an investment, does not create jobs. By taxing home ownership, and using the revenue to reducing taxes on labor,  Italians would be forced to sell and spend the gain on something more productive for the economy. But this is hard for Italians, barely making ends meet, but inheritors of a long tradition of valuing home ownership, to swallow. Berlusconi made much hay campaigning against this in the last election. 

Falling surely into destitution,
most Italians use economic tricks to survive. 

To get the population off the death spiral, it is time for welcoming immigrants, and their new ideas and habits and demands, instead of fighting them every step of the way. Italy needs growth and investment, and that requires loosening all the state regulations that keep the economy and society an insiders-only game. Let the sunshine in. 

So, to create more jobs, Italians need to give up job security, lose their second homes, and let go control of what their country looks like (and sounds like). In essence, to gamble on an uncertain future, while relinquishing some of the social gains that made the past more stable and secure.

In other words, to save the Italy, Italians may need to relinquish what, from the outside at least, is seen as the Italian lifestyle --slow, sweet, unchanging.

Europe Will Be Asked to Pay for Italian Politician's Sins

The legitimacy crisis of Italy's political class is so deep and so broad that it takes your breath away. I used to think that the image of Nero playing the violin while Rome burned was poetic exaggeration. Now I see it was politics as usual.

Over the past week, the country has been wracked by intermittent, and intermittently violent, protest. The protestors are collectively known as the "Pitchfork" movement, but they are not an organized or coherent group. They are a motley collection, united only by anger. Farmers blocked roads and bridges with tractors to protest food imports bearing misleading "Made in Italy" labels; Truckers slowed their rigs down to a crawl, tangling traffic on highways; artisans and small biz owners spoke against taxes and the government in town squares; Students protested cuts in education; Xenophobes and neo-Fascist groups marched against immigration and Europe.  In Turin, the country's hard-hit manufacturing capital, the riot police removed their helmets in show of solidarity and sympathy.

Living under a bridge: As more Italians fall into poverty,
the welfare system has proven woefully inadequate. 

Meanwhile, the response of Italy's political elite has been either to freak out or to freakily try to play the anger to their own ends. The Interior Minister [from the Center-Right] ordered the cops to keep their helmets on and come down hard on "Troublemakers." The Left started talking about how the protests have been infiltrated and hijacked by Fascist groups, a line made easier to believe by a number of video clips showing a small group of protestors giving the Roman salute and showing off tattoos of Mussolini.  Berlusconi, who believes himself to be a bit of a pitch-fork wielding, barn-burner himself [even if the pitchfork is by Versace and is actually wielded by a hired hand] scheduled a meeting with pitch-forkers, only to cancel out when he realized that some of the anger might be directed at him. [Some in the angry mob, it seems, are under the impression that his having been in power 20 of the last 24 years, might have something to do with the dismal state of things.] Beppe Grillo, the leader of the 5 Star protest movement has been cheering the Pitchforks on with his usual subtle message which can be summarized as: Burn, Baby, Burn.

The most freaked-out was Giorgio Napolitano, the 87 year-old President of Italy, who warned Parliament that, if they did not take action to reform the country, a social explosion wasn't out of the question.

Cheering the Pitch-forks: Beppe Grillo and Silvio Berlusconi have looked
to turning the anger to their own political ends. 

Napolitano is a good example of how the Italian political elite rules without having to submit to elections or popular consent. This year he was elected to a second 7 year term as President of the country by the Parliament [and a few other political actors] despite his age  -he will turn 94 before leaving office- and against his stated wishes. The parties in parliament simply could not agree on anyone else and begged him to stay. He has never been voted for directly by the people he represents.

Napolitano was critical in brining the current coalition government into being after no party got enough votes to govern alone. The Left had run on the promise that they would never, never pact with Berlusconi. But, under Napolitano's prodding, they did. Berlusconi agreed to the coalition government and then changed his mind. But when he tried to pull his party out of the government, half of his deputies refused to go. So, in a sense, on both Left and Right, this is a government that no one voted for, no one wanted.

Added to the profound electoral disconnect is a profound immobilism and an unseemly refusal to cut back on the perks of power. For the past year, this circular reasoning has governed: No laws can be passed because on party has a majority; to call a new election and get a new majority, you first need to reform the electoral law; but no reform can be made for want of a majority.  The same logic applies to bills the parliamentarians don't like but which are hugely popular with voters, like cutting politician's salaries and pensions.

The there is also corruption. Despite multiple promises that the parties would run so-called clean slates that excluded anyone under indictment for a crime, this has not fully happened. Dozens of deputies have been elected -in Italy you vote for a parliamentary list rather than for a single candidate- with the impunity from prosecution that comes with it.

The notion that the political 'caste,' as Italians call it, is impervious to public opinion and corrupt to the core is part of the reason abstentionism has risen to higher than US levels. It has also fueled a whole gaggle of angry movements, from Grillo's 5 Stars to the Pitchfork crowd.

There is a sense that the political structure of this country resembles a termite infested house. It is impossible to know how much of the strength of the structure has been hollowed out and whether it could give at any moment. This fear might be fueling Napolitano's urgency; that and the fact he's too old to outrun the pitchforks.

So, what happens if the unthinkable happens? What if the political structure of Italy collapses under its own weight? The good news is that there is an insurance policy in place: Europe. The European Union would pick up the pieces. But, there is also bad news. After years of European enforced economic austerity, Europe has never been this unpopular. It has gone from being the parent who insists that you eat your vegetables, to being accused of, by the xenophobic and racist Lega Nord party of perpetrating a "crime against humanity," that would be accepting Italy into the Euro zone, and requiring that Italy adhere to European regulations on thing like recycling its trash and solving prison overcrowding. Oh yes...and pay its debts. The gall! The gall!

And these demagogues are just getting warmed up. Stay tuned.