Do Not Underestimate Silvio

He’s a survivor.

Beware the Ides of March?

He’s saved.  For now.  But rumors are afoot, thanks to no less than leading leghista Maroni, that the government will fall in March.  But for now, Fini has relented and they’re in it together for a bit longer.  How long?  It’s anyone’s guess but word over at UniCredit today didn’t contradict Maroni.  My contacts there, who I deeply doubt vote Lega, were in agreement with Maroni on this point.

The Death Penalty in Virginia and Iran

Sakineh: pollice verso?

Discussing study opportunities in the US with my wife’s cousin’s 15 year old, he suddenly interrupted his excited line of questioning about the Hard Rock Cafe and eggs for breakfast to ask something more serious: “Is it true that they execute women there, too?” Teresa Lewis’ execution in Virginia (a state that I’m not exactly from but that I have many associations with) was big news here, and as if to put it in counterpoint, I was reminded of the huge banner stating solidarity with Sakineh that was draped over Verona’s Roman arena.

Whereas certain European attitudes towards modernity might seem backwards to us — see Twitter for the Gallic sniff on Chinese work habits — we must realize that to them, lethal injection in Old Dominion is not much different than a stoning in Iran. I think we lose of sight of this sometimes as a consequence of our exceptionalism.

Of New Princes

Not anymore...

I realize how remiss I’ve been to have a blog on Italian politics without addressing, at least directly, the very acute crisis that Italian politics is going through right now. Angelo Panebianco’s front-page editorial in yesterday’s Corriere directly assigned the problem to factionalism. The following quote jumped out at me:

In the early ’60s, in the years of DC, Italian politics was judged incomprehensible by then-American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Things have not changed much. Why are Italian politics so opaque for voters? Because, in a democracy, transparency and the comprehensibility of politics is inversely proportional to the number of factions present in the game.

Well, I’d never heard that rule before, but I suppose it fits here. While not uniquely Italian by any means, it does encourage one to look back at one’s Machiavelli. I cribbed the following quote from Bufacchi and Burgess’s excellent Italy Since 1989 (in case those of you following my Twitter feed have been wondering):

Having carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to a new prince, and whether there were elements that would give an opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present.

What was true in 1513 and 1989 still rings true today. It is clearly time for a new prince, and how this unfolds will be interesting. What it will change, of course, remains to be seen, though — in many ways I feel that Berlusconi has become a sort of bugbear for the left (as evidenced by films like Videocracy, which is not bad in and of itself but which seems to ascribe far more sinister powers to the prime minister’s lowbrow TV shows). Will Fini as PM wake Italy up? He does at least boast a book and a think tank to his name — as well as, of course, the oft-cited fascist roots. We shall see.

Bossi Youth

MTV.it has an interesting series of videos up on the youngest members of the Lega Nord. I saw in the Corriere, mainly because I’d never imagine that MTV in the US would be capable of anything less than totally vapid. Have a look; although the one I watched (Filippo) is filmed in Novara province, the terrain reminded me a lot of the Polesine.

Class is in session

Meanwhile, the first week of school last week meant tons of education reform excitement in Italy (as well as less posted from your chronicler).  Yes — a subject that usually makes most Americans huddle and cry while as vaguely-defined horrors like state-mandated testing and No Child Left Behind is actually exciting in Italy. This year, Minister Gelmini has halved the number of teaching positions. Official state-certification bodies at all major universities continued to pump out teachers in droves till just a few years ago. The intelligent reader sees where this leads — lots of teachers sitting at home, waiting for a substitution assignment.  I should point out for the unaware that Europe’s university system, far more specialized than America’s liberal arts-organized model, is less tolerant of job-switching.  (Doubtlessly there’s something cultural to this as well.)  The upshot is that in the last couple of years, the level of opprobrium directed at Minister Gelmini — who is, incidentally, a lawyer and not a teacher by training — has moved from the graffiti-laden walls near student quarters to the headlines.  In her somewhat feeble defense, I usually say that this is to avoid the sort of public sector glut that crippled Greece.  But there’s no question that it could’ve been handled better — like by closing the certification schools a few years earlier, or at least limiting enrollment.

Alpine Sun in front of Adro's Il Polo scolastico Gianfranco Miglio

Last week’s other interested drama was a private school in Adro, in nearby Brescia that festooned its entryway with the “Alpine Sun.”  There’s a particularly prominent one at the entryway to the school.

Apparently it’s just a ‘cultural symbol.’ Of course this doesn’t take into account that the school is named after a prominent member of — guess what party?  One that just coincidentally happens to use the Alpine Sun as the main symbol of their made-up country.  Let’s compare.

Obviously a coincidence.

Adro’s mayor, Oscar Lancini, has been at the center of this debate.  Not entirely surprisingly, he is also a leghista.  Gelmini has come out and told him to order to have the symbols removed from the school.  He’s saying today it will cost 30 thousand euros.  The whole idea of branding teenagers with your political party’s symbol would just seem pathetic if, as I try to highlight on this blog, immigration in Europe were not such a pressing issue.  I’ll keep you posted on how it plays out.   Gelmini, linked to Berlusconi, is playing a risky game by coming down hard on Bossi, of course, lest he go the way of Fini, but I’d like to think it’s inconceivable that she not endorse this move.

As a side note, the left, in their predictably opportunistic fashion, is trying to make educational spending an issue, without really saying much other than ‘time to roll up out sleeves.’

Ok, money for education is shrinking, you're out of patience, you're rolling up your sleeves, and -- what next?

Svezia, inferno e paradiso

One expects political upheaval in Italy. After all, the country has had as many governments as Boliva since World War Two, and my primer on Italian politics had a photo of parliamentarians fist-fighting on the cover.

From the back cover, "Fisticuffs in the Italian Parliament"

But — Sweden? As Stephen Castle wrote in yesterday’s New York Times, Swedish politics are usually “worthy, high-minded and often utterly predictable, Swedish politics has rarely offered much by way of excitement” — pretty much the exact opposite of Italy’s opportunistic and treacherous circus, in other words. It’s certainly new to me — I’d have expected to hear more about the Netherlands, France or, if you want to look at the Scandinavians, Denmark — but inasmuch as it traces all the main themes common to the Italian debate — the future of the welfare state, the decline of industrial society, and rising immigration — I’ll be following it closely.

More on the Roma Debate

Il Cav courtesy of Le Figaro

Berlusconi comes out with Sarkozy against criticism on France’s treatment of Roma. Quoted in Le Figaro yesterday, “[EU Citizen’s Rights Commissioner] Reding would have done better to treat the subject in private with French leaders before speaking publicly as she did.” Some of the right-leaning Italian press is calling it a new French-Italian “axis” against immigration. Meanwhile, the NYT does a story on the Rom, and the comment of a Romanian official bears a striking resemblance to a comment on this blog a couple weeks back.

Bossi: Today’s News (?)

Celtic Myths = Power at the Ballot Box

Well, Rachel Donadio has been a busy woman lately, and she’s hitting all the right places. Observing Bossi’s Lega Nord has been one of my preoccupations since a wealthy Amerophile in Parma told me in late 2004 that Italy should ship all its Communists off to North Korea and Cuba. But that’s neither here nor there. Donadio’s piece today is good, informative and clearly designed for the casual outside-of Europe observer — which, of course, is understandable given the audience of the NYT. But I have to take issue with the implication that LN is any kind of rising power. Bossi declared during LN’s first electoral rout in 1996 that they were the ‘new Christian Democrats,’ and many the observer of Yugoslavia’s dissolution in the early 1990s was eager to compare Slovenian and Croatian separatism to Bossi’s. They were wrong, of course — Berlusconi is no Milosevic — but consciousness of the League’s substantial populist power is nothing new. And finally, in 2010, is it really Bossi and his absurdly bearded, myth-aspiring vikings that we need to pay attention to, or is it Fini?  As a note to an upcoming post, Bossi’s Po River water hardly has the mythic heft of Napoleon’s coronation with Charlemagne’s crown, which one can reflect on outside in Milan in Monza.)  I haven’t read Fini’s new book, but it’s on my list, and although I’m most aware of his origins within MSI, I do grow tired of hearing him referred to as a ‘neo-fascist’ as if he routinely dressed in all black and used a Roman salute.  Of course, in some, but my no means all, European countries that would a difficult label to shake off, but it’s not in Italy. But Italy’s level of de-Nazification is a different subject. What is not is that most likely, we are looking at the end of the Berlusca years and thus, the end of an era.

All manner of comment welcome, as always.

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 streets brim with outlets selling cheap clothes, costume jewels and watches, plastic toys, electronics, industrial items, and every other type of mass produced good imaginable.

A shopkeeper watches over his wares

(Although I’ve yet to find an outlet for cheap kitchen goods as serviceable as Ma Cosa?! in my old neighborhood on via Farini.)  The Chinese food on offer looks to be much more adventurous than what you typically find in the West, and the density of the old streets, full of purposeful activity, lends the place a vibrant air that is at once familiar and alien – that couldn’t be more different from the Chinatown in my last place of residence, which was based more on tourist’s eating habits and less on trade and commerce.  Along via Rosmini and via Bruno, most of the shops appear to be tiny storefronts. A proprietor stands guard outside in the mild fall weather, and at various points during the day men rush masses of boxes into the store.

A link in the global supply chain

A less cursory look reveals that many that many storefronts are essentially warehouses that sell only to wholesalers.  Many of the shops adjoin large ring-shaped apartment buildings ringed around a central courtyard.  More boxes arrive via van, truck or in the case of smaller streets, the ubiquitous bike outfitted with sturdy wooden shelves above both wheels.

Keeping the balance of trade

Yet it’s hardly monoethnic: I hear Italian spoken as often as Chinese, and in the mass of overwhelmingly Chinese storefronts one spies the typical Italian bar, trattoria or even a highly-vaunted vintage shop.  (I’m told Milanesi come from far and near to shop at Grani e Vaghi.)

A rave review of a Chinese-managed Italian restaurant

In perhaps a sign of the shape of things to come, these trattorie that make risotto alla milanese or osso buco have Chinese cooks or managers; I struck up a conversation with a Chinese butcher working at the deli counter of a decidedly Italian grocery as he cut me prosciutto, immeasurably thin just like most Italians like it.

These experiences are, or should be, commonplace to any resident of northern Italy – Corriere della Sera publishes a Chinese edition, the Duomo’s tourist office has signs written prominently in both languages, and even tiny Veneto hamlets like Villanova del Ghebbo have burgeoning Chinese communities – but might come as a surprise to the non-resident, who might’ve read news of the 2007 ‘riots’ in Chinatown with a hint of surprise that such a place even exists.

This post, in addition to being an update, should serve to remind the reader on the other side of the Atlantic that the Chinese influence is being felt in a myriad of ways, across both sectors and geography.  No matter what the area of competitive advantage, China cannot escape notice.

Just inside a doorway, a warehouse bulges

So, in New York talk may center on the (under)valuation of the renminbi; down in DC, Congress and the Pentagon publish volumes guessing as to China’s military capability; but here in Italy the focus is, of course, on clothing, shoes and leather – Italy’s historic areas of advantage.

A diverse capital for a monoethnic party?

The Northern League often proclaims Milan as its Padanian, and presumably monoethnic, capital.  The most cursory visit to Milan’s via Sarpi should reveal the folly of this.  The Chinese are here to stay, and I look forward to updating readers on the goings-on in this nexus of cultures and economics.

Underwriting Milan's mortgages
A match rooted in the travels of Marco Polo... va tranquilo, Senatur!