An American Girl (still) in Italy

For Italians, both her native born and adopted stragglers like myself, Giorgio Gaber’s song ‘Io non mi sento Italiano, ma per fortuna o purtroppo lo sono’ (I don’t feel like I am an Italian, but by good luck or bad luck, I am) paints a vivid portrait of the disillusionment of those who lhave a love-hate relationship with this country.

Last night, this song, sung by Silvestri moved many, including myself to angry tears. My adopted country, as many of my friends and loved ones know, is a place that I have fought hard to live in. A country where work is in short supply, where being foreign doesn’t help and where often, if not daily, one has to fight the urge to not give up, let go or just leave. To go back to America , a place where it’s easier financially and where hope for change isn’t a long forgotten word but one most of its' citizens still believe in.

Modern Italy – a founding member of the EU, Nato and the G8 and Nato, known for its opera and artists, fashion sex appeal and fast automobiles, has become a place where more and more people, feel left out, alienated and abandoned. Where the best and brightest at Italian universities now advise their young acolytes to immigrate elsewhere. Italy is a country where the average citizen, be he a man-about-town or a blue collar worker, would rather identify with their city’s long dead master artists, poets or heroes than their current government and its figureheads. They feel their country and what it stands for, is becoming more and more like one of Rome’s dusty monuments: too tattered, too destroyed and too expensive to fix.

Last night on RAI 3 television two Italians on a controversial new TV show debated whether or not they should stay or go, and gave very personal and very public answers to this question that plagues so many of us.

Fabio - Vado via perché non se ne può più.
Fabio – I go away because I can't take it any more.

Roberto - Vado via perché non mi sento un eroe.
Roberto – I go away because I don’t feel like a hero **this is the author of Gommorah who is under 24 hour national police guard for this story about the inner workings of the Neapolitan crime syndicate known as the Camorra . He is thought of as a hero and whistle blower against mafia and political corruption. To him though, this type of honor belongs to people like Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino who gave their lives fighting the Sicilian Mafia, Cosa Nostra.

Fabio - Vado via perché preferisco i paesi dove ci si può annoiare
Fabio - I go away because I prefer the countries where we can be bored. **In this he means where nothing is happening, where things are tranquil, something that Italy isn't.

Roberto - Resto qui perché non ho proprietà ad Antigua
Roberto – I stay here because I don’t have property in Antigua **this is a jab at Berlusconi's holdings on the island which include a mansion and six other homes purportedly purchased and set aside for for his friends and family. Antigua is best known for its fraud, money laundering, corruption, land expropriation and arms smuggling, not its pristine and sandy white beaches.

Fabio - Resto qui perché non voglio andare a Antigua
Fabio I stay here because I don’t want to go to Antigua **and hand out with thugs.

Roberto - Vado via perché voglio dimenticare tutto quello che ho visto
Roberto – I go away because I want to forget everything that I have seen.

Fabio - Resto qui perché voglio sentire le canzoni in italiano
Fabio – I stay here because I want to hear music in Italian. **interesting because in Italian, they use "sentire" which means “to feel” when speaking of music, where as "ascoltare" means , “to listen carefully”.

Roberto - Resto qui per scoprire chi è stato
Roberto – I stay here to uncover the guilty ones.

Fabio -Vado via perché mi sa che va via anche Cassano
Fabio – I go away because I know also Cassano has gone. ** Antonio Cassano is an Italian soccer player who left Rome’s team to play in Spain and only recently returned to play in Italy again. Cassano is an absolute genius soccer player but an extremely difficult guy to manage in an organization (behaviorally, he was raised orphan and on the street, soccer saved him from a life of criminality to be sure). Fabio is a supporter of Sampdoria, the team of Genova where Cassano grew up and then returned to after many years of wandering in other teams. He is a hero for the Genovese.

Roberto - Vado via perché non voglio più chiedermi cosa c'è sotto
Roberto – I go away because I don’t want to ask what is behind all this **the mafia, government corruption, lies and extortion.

Fabio - Vado via perché questo è il paese che ha inventato il “me ne frego”
Fabio – I go away because this is the country that invented the phrase “I don't give a damn” which is a motto of Italian Fascism first used my Mussolini, as an answer to any opposing question or moral concern about his actions.

Roberto - Resto qui per vedere lo Stato conquistare il Sud
Roberto – I stay here because I want to see the State conquer the South ** ‘Stato here is not meant as Italy the country but rather its organization of citizens, its communityand moral law. He is trying to say he wants to see the control away from the Mafia and given back to the people.

Fabio - Resto qui per vedere il tricolore conquistare il Nord
Fabio – I stay here because I want to see the Italian flag conquer the North ** Referring to Padania, an area of Northern Italy in the valley of the River Po; but more increasingly basically all of proseperous Northern Italy. This area is controlled politically by the Northern League (Lega Nord), headed by Umberto Bossi. This separatist northern Italian political party has proposed that the North should secede from Italy and form their own country. By tricolor he means the unification of Italy's people as represented by her flag, as a whole and not as individual splintered groups.

Roberto - Vado via per sentirmi normale
Roberto – I go away because I want to feel normal.

Fabio - Vado via perché non voglio vivere dove comandano le mafia
Fabio –I go away because I don’t want to live (in a place) where mafias command. **he uses the plural to represent all mafia: camorra, ‘ndrangheta, nuova corona, etc.,

Roberto - Resto qui perché non voglio che le mafie continuino a comandare
Roberto – I stay here because I don’t want that these mafias to continue to command.

Fabio - Vado via perché non sopporto le feste patronali
Fabio – I go away because I hate patron saint festivals. **While sometimes beautiful, these festivals center on superstition, saving face, and appearances, not an real picture of Italy's day to day realities.

Roberto - Vado via perché qui si applaude ai funerali
Roberto – I go away because here we applaud at funerals. ** referring to the tradition in Italy of applauding when the casket passes as an expression of admiration. This is more common when the person isn't a family member but a respected or notorious individual or someone who dies tragically as a way to pay one's respect often when the group is too big to approach those in direct morning but as a show of solidarity. Sadly its usually only when the heroes are dead, as few support them before. The reference is to Falcone and Borsellino, who each had a lot of enemies while they were investigating mafia.

Fabio - Resto qui perché questa sera ho ascoltato Roberto Benigni
Fabio – I stay here because tonight I have heard Roberto Benigni ** Benigni was almost censured from performing on the opening night of Vieni Via Con Me, this new TV commentary, most likely because of hisvery strong anti-Burlesconi political stance. This boycott was framed by station heads at the government controlled TV network in financial terms, saying that the broadcasters didn’t have the money for his high salary. Benigni, then agreed to appear for free and with this their economic ruse was broken.

Roberto - Resto qui perché questa sera perchè mi hanno fatto un regalo Roberto Benigni e Claudio Abbado
Roberto – I stay here because tonight I have been given the gift of (hearing) Roberto Benigni and Claudio Abbado. **These were guests on the show. Abbado is Italy’s cherished conductor and has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera, and principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (just to name a few).

Fabio - Resto qui perché mi hanno fatto un regalo bellissimo Angela Finocchiaro , Nichi Vendola, Daniele Silvestri e poi perchè voglio ammazzarmi di carboidrati
Fabio – I stay here because I have been given the beautiful gift of (hearing) Angela Finocchiaro, Nichi Vendola, Daniele Silvestri and then because I want to to commit suicide by eating carbohydrates. ** Angela Finocchiaro is an Italian actress famous for the film “The Beast Inside the Heart”. Nichi Vendola is an openly gay, left-leaning Italian politician and the president of Apulia region. He is a strong opponent of the Mafia and organised crime and is pushing for civil rights reforms and cleaning up the environment. Daniele Silvestri is an Italian songwriter from Rome. The reference to carbs is that most Italian food is carbohydrate based.

Roberto - Vado via perché preferisco mangiare peggio ma vivere meglio
Roberto – I go away because I prefer to eat worse but live better.

Fabio - Vado via perché il cinquantennale di Piazza Fontana non lo potrei sopportare
Fabio – I go away because I cannot stand the they way we will support the 50th anniversary of the Piazza Fontana Bombing . ** Meaning the same way we do now. On December 12, 1969 at 16:37 an attack occurred at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura (National Agrarian Bank) in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88 when a bomb that was planted exploded. The same afternoon, three more bombs were detonated in Rome and Milan, and another was found undetonated. While the attacks were attributed to left leaning anarchists there has always been very suspicious circumstances around the tragedy, at all levels of the investigation. Every year Italy memorializes the tragedy and loss of life yet completely disregards the fact that like with September 11th, it was used to justify more strict laws and to prevent the Communist party from reaching power all the while leaving doubts as to who was actually responsible. Think Iraq and weapons of mass destruction for a similar bell-ringing.

Roberto - Resto qui perché a dicembre ci sono le arance buone
Roberto – I stay here because in December the oranges are good. ** Italy’s citrus at Christmastime is world famous.

Fabio - Vado via perché può bastare
Fabio – I go away because it could be enough. **meaning maybe what he's accomplished is his life here could be enough (to be remembered for).

Roberto - Vado via perché mi è già bastato
Roberto – I go away because it has been enough. ** meaning he is tired of all this.

Fabio - Vado via perché a Milano cacciano i bambini Rom
Fabio – I go away because in Milan they kick out Rom children. **from schools, from hospitals, from their shanty housing.

Roberto - Vado via perché dev'essere bellissimo tornare qui da turista
Roberto – I go away because I think to would be beautiful to return as a tourist here.

Fabio - Vado via perché non voglio veder crollare altri pezzi di Pompei
Fabio – I go away because I don’t want to see the collapse of other pieces of Pompeii ** referring to the collapse of the House of the Gladiators at Pompeii for lack of adequate maintenance.

Roberto - Resto qui finché Mina non torna in tivù
Roberto – I stay here until Mina returns to television. ** A very very famous Italian singer , considered by some to be the best of all time. While she still records, she has disappeared from public life and its an expression to say I will stay until....kind of like in America "Until hell freezes over".

Fabio - Resto qui perché due figli non li sposti facilmente
Fabio – I stay here because its not easy to move my two children. **uproot them from their home, their schools, their city.

Roberto - Resto qui perché sono italiano
Roberto – I stay here because I am Italian.

Fabio - Vado via perché dobbiamo sgomberare il palco per il finale
Fabio – I go away because we need to clear the stage for the finale.