In an effort to provide a little context for Magdi’s provocative posters, some reading from the archives in order to illuminate exactly what happened: The praying at piazza Duomo was connected to protests against the Gaza War and happened on January 3, 2009. Organizers of the protests say that the prayer was spontaneous. Coverage in …
Category Archives: Via Sarpi
Magdi Allam’s Politics of Fear
Some readers have criticized my use of the word “nutjob” to describe Magdi Allam. That is admittedly an imprecise description of a journalist-turned-demagogue whose views are nativist at best and racist at worst. Like Oriana Fallaci before him, Allam has a deep and abiding fear of Muslims in Europe. Unlike Fallaci, Allam was born in …
Life among the Lowly
Journalist-cum-politican Magdi Cristiano Allam loves Italy, he tells us. The Egyptian-born Italian, who made a publicized conversion to Catholicism, seems quick to absorb Italian values — if rampant, no-holds-barred race baiting is an Italian value. Going far beyond provocative and into offensive, his images of Muslims praying in Milan’s piazza Duomo, Chinese rioting against shop …
Thanksgiving Day post
You may be thinking of Ben Franklin as you dig into your turkey. Recall — as a graffito artist in my neighborhood apparently has — that the founding father also noted, as many a revolutionary did, that “they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” …
Sarpi on Sunday
This is just a first impression. And first impressions tend to mislead. But a Sunday stroll on via Sarpi finds an amazing bustle of activity. Fashionable, well-dressed people shop for shoes and crowd into grocery stores, arms full of fresh meat and vegetables. Every shop is open. A gaze into some shows that, beyond the …
La Chinatown milanese
The blog has been on hold recently due to my moving to the area around via Paolo Sarpi – Milan’s “Chinatown.” This is a fascinating neighborhood that has exploded in the past decade or so with Chinese wholesalers. It is an ideal place to see how immigration, trade and globalization effect modern Europe. The small …