The View from Bologna

Tuscany and the death penalty

November 30th marked a worldwide protest against the death penalty. The date was chosen to commemorate the first State to officially abolish the death penalty - the Duchy of Tuscany in 1786.

There's little to add to this, apart from the fact that the number of States where the death penalty has been abolished is 86, two hundred and nineteen years after this enlightened move.

Silence of the film-makers?

It's rare that this monkey feels the need to defend Sig. Silvio Berlusconi, but reading this week's Lettera dall'Italia in Internazionale, written by film critic Deborah Young, I have the unsettling urge to rally to Berluska's defence.

Young, on contemporary Italian film making writes:

"The worrying thing is that the last spaces for freedom of expression are closing. Even in the cinema, a voice traditionally democratic."

While citing George Clooney's Good night and good luck and Iranian film The forbidden chapter as prime examples of films that take on taboo subjects, she continues:

"So why is it that Italian directors are silent? Notwithstanding their famous left-wing anti-Berlusconismo, lately they've done little to trouble the sweet dreams of their leader. The motives aren't difficult to find. There are no longer funds for projects that are critical towards the government".

While there is certainly less official funding for films in Italy at the moment, this is surely more down to the bleak economic climate rather than some plan to stifle the last space open to freedom of expression*.

The real reason, with the notable exception of Sabina Guzzanti's fine documentary Viva Zapatero, that film-makers have not made films specifically critical of Berlusconi, or for example of Italian foreign policy, lies not in censorship but in artistic sensibility.

There have been plenty of films made during Berlusconi's tenure, that cast a reflective and disparaging eye over the political class of which Berlusconi is but the most notable and current example.

Fame Chimica set in the peripheria in Milan has as its protagonists the new class of 'precari', workers on short-term contracts with no security or future. A residents group led by a loud mouthed racist mirrors much of the immigration policy ushered in by Berlusconi's government. It's not a film strictly about Berlusconi, but is certainly a bitter look at the real effects of government policies.

Lavorare con lentezza> is set in 1977 Bologna, around the pirate radio station Alice. Amongst its themes are the regulation of information. Because it's not set in 21st century Italy doesn't mean the film is without significance for current day voters.

I giorni dell'abbandono by Roberto Faenza tells the story of a happily married woman who is abandoned by her husband, and loses her meaning, her context. An internal drama that could be set anywhere in the world, at any time? Perhaps, but under a government that has done little to further women's rights, and has given precious little support to its Minister for equal opportunities, one of the two female ministers, the film has found a particular context making it a favourite amongst cinema goers.

Private by Saverio Costanzo, an Italian film about Palestine and Israel, which was chosen as Italy's entry for the Oscars but rejected by the Academy as the actors involved were not Italian, is scarcely complimentary to Italian foreign policy and its almost blind support for the government of Israel and its military.

The truth is, I suspect, that much as it may pain Berlusconi to discover it, for Italian film-makers he is but one small (and passing)element in the society about which they wish to tell stories.

*The idea that cinema is a fundamentally free space that gleefully attacks taboo topics is a chimera. Films are financed by large and conservative groups who wish to make their money back, preferably with what could be considered an immorally large profit. Sure, there are films that are important social commentary, but they are in the minority - in every film-making country.

Jihadismo, Pimpaggio, & Zapaterizzazione - Neologisms

A new report from England, on the effects of texting on literacy, will be of some comfort to Italy's cultural guardians. The study, conducted at the the department of communication and science at City University in London, found that there were no significant differences in the instances of grammar and spelling mistakes between two groups of children, mobile phone users familiar with txt messaging and those without, aged between 11 & 12. The children, according to speech and language therapist Veenal Raval, were able to 'code-switch', or slip between different modes of communication - just as they do between playground slang and formal speech. Italy has some 62.7 million mobile phones in a population of 58 million.

Text messaging had developed its own lingo in Italian as well as English, with abbreviations like
perchè (why) = xkè
comunque (anyway) =cmq
come (how) = cm
non = nn
ti voglio bene (I love you) = tvb
ti voglio tanto bene (I love you a lot) = tvtb
qualcosa (something) = qlc
quando (when) = qnd

The English report takes as its subject 11&12 year olds, mainly to see whether the use of texting shortcuts has limited their literacy. It doesn't concern itself with another interesting phenomena: the deliberate and proud deployment of these shortcuts outside of the context of text-messaging by 'bloggista's, or blog writers, who often are well aware of the rules of language, but choose to flaunt them. Blog posts throughout the Italian sphere of the internet include these shortcuts, not necessitated by tiny screens and time constraints. In often complex arguments which have no doubt taken some time to write, one comes across the abbreviations like a secret code or badge of honour. To write 'x' instead of 'per' [per means for. In Italian mathematics 2x4 is read due per quattro] is to identify oneself with a modern outlook, comfortable to interact in an increasingly globalized world.

In a world where English, Spanish, and Chinese(for simplicity's sake) are increasingly dominant, the Italian language is often the subject of a defensive policy, with people railing against neologisms that depend heavily on other languages.

Language, though, is never still, and whether you embrace new forms or are on the defensive, they occur anyway. Some integrate terms from other languages, while others are simply imaginative combinations of the existing language. The newly published dictionary of neologisms (2006 Parole Nuove. Un dizionario di neologismi dai giornali) presents some great terms coined over the last couple of years (as reported by Antonella Barina in Venerdì di Repubblica):

1)Zapaterizzazione
The imposition of a political/social model similar to that of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Coined, not surprisingly, by arch conservatives who one might think would be opposed to neologisms. Not, it would seem, when searching for a handy catch-all phrase to label those gay-loving, church-baiting, pinko liberals!

2)Pixellato
To describe a face in a digital photo that has been made unrecognisable by the enlargement of pixels.

3)Jihadismo
The fundamentalist Islamic movement advocating a holy war against the infidels. A blunt term that doesn't take into account the diverse meanings of jihad for Muslims, but then again, who ever said that neologisms had to be either fair or theologically correct?

4)Filaro
Intriguingly, a person who queues in public offices for payment to save others the trouble. This Monkey will be searching for a dependable Filaro as soon as possible, estimating that it may save him a couple of entire days queueing per annum.

Time will tell whether MTV Italia manage to create a neologism with their imported and customised show Pimp my Wheels. Based on the US show Pimp my Ride, the Italian version presents the desperate owners of decrepit Vespas and out of shape Apes [the Ape, which means bee, is that super cool three wheel covered mini-van seen around Italy] seeking the opportunity to have them 'pimpate'. The two/three wheel vehicles are taken into the 'sala di pimpaggio' to be reconstructed. The dream of any decent cocacolista*, one imagines.

Hmm. Maybe there is something to be said for defending the language from neologisms...

*Cocacolista
Someone who regularly drinks coca-cola. By extension, someone who embraces wholeheartedly the American life-style.

Like a blank slate - Marching against Iran

Last night in Rome ten to fifteen thousand people marched in a candlelit procession to the Iranian embassy, to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that 'Israel should be wiped off the map'.

Were this Monkey in Rome yesterday, he would have attended the march, albeit with an apprehension as to what one's presence would be taken to mean. Marches are always difficult, as Three Monkeys pointed out back in April of last year. March for peace, and you're likely to find yourself marching alongside those, who advocate fighting for peace, for example those who support Palestinian militancy & bombing civilians. March to protest against the looney tunes emanating from the Ayatollahs in Tehran, and you'll find yourself alongside those chomping at the bit to use military force against Iran, and thus also against its citizens.

Marches are a blank slate that the professionally political amongs us, be they parliamentarians or dedicated activists, are only too willing to colour in for the rest of us.

The ever-alluring promise of media coverage, both national and international, had Minister for Reforms, Roberto Calderoli, of the Lega Nord party, eager to stand by Israel, or perhaps more correctly to denounce Iran:
"One Khomeni dies and they make another, seeing that Ahmadinejad is following in the footsteps of his master. Here the only country that needs to be un-recognised is Iran, excluding it from the international community and from every type of diplomatic relationship while a madman terrorist is in charge, that, apart from his serious declaration, is tyring to get an atomic bomb, if he hasn't already made one. This is a danger for the world, and this affair could present the occasion to check which Islamic countries are on the good guys side, and which are the baddies".[1]

Calderoli - it should be remembered - had previously, while Italian hostages were held in Iraq, come up with a solution for Islamic terrorism: "You don't deal with terrorists, you eliminate terrorists. For every day that one of our fellow countrymen is held hostage, 1000 Muslims coming from one of these so-called 'rogue states' should be kicked out and sent home".[2]

In the fevered minds of those of Calderoli's ilk, there is no difference between the Government of Iran and its people.

I'd like to think that most people attending the march sympathised more with the words of Rome's chief Rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni:

"We are not protesting against Iran, or against the Iranian people, whose civilisation we admire. We have observed events in their country with anxiety in recent years”, said Mr Di Segni. “We do not burn flags.”

[1] Morto un Khomeini se ne fa un altro, visto che Ahmadinejad sta seguendo passo su passo le orme del suo maestro. Qui l'unico Paese che bisogna disconoscere è proprio l'Iran, escludendolo dalla comunità internazionale e da qualunque tipo di rapporti diplomatici fino quando a gestirlo vi sarà un pazzo e un terrorista che, oltre alle gravissime dichiarazioni, sta cercando di farsi la bomba atomica in casa, sempre che non l'abbia già fatto. Questo è un pericolo per il mondo e questa vicenda può rappresentare l'occasione per verificare quali Paesi islamici stanno dalla parte dei buoni e quali da quella dei cattivi - (AGI)
[2] "Con i terroristi non si tratta, i terroristi si eliminano. Per ogni giorno di prigionia dei nostri connazionali, 1000 islamici provenienti dai cosiddetti paesi canaglia siano sbattuti fuori e rimandati a casa" - As reported on One More Blog

The day of the dead - Pier Paolo Pasolini

November the 2nd is, across the Catholic world, the day of the dead, a day when families visit the final resting places of their dearly departed, physically or metaphorically.

Thirty years ago today, on a patch of wasteground near the beach resort of Ostia, the brutally beaten body of poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini was found.

Pasolini was a controversial figure during his lifetime. A 'Catholic Marxist', who was expelled from the Italian communist party for alleged homosexuality, outside of Italy he is perhaps best remembered for his film The Gospel According to St.Matthew (Il vangelo secondo Matteo - paid for in part by the Catholic Church). Other films, like his final one Salo or the 120 days of Sodom (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) were widely banned under obscenity laws, featuring as they did graphic portrayals of sex and sadism.

Pasolini was also considered one of Italy's most important post war poets, with collections like Cenere di Gramsci (Gramsci's Ashes) and La Religione del mio tempo (The religion of my time) confronting themes of history, religion and consumerism.

Film-maker, author, poet, intellectual, Pasolini was also a journalist, writing opinion columns for Italy's daily Corriere della Sera. His opinions were as troublesome as much of his art, and unwelcome in many sectors of Italian society. For example, in '68 he spoke out against violent student protests, angering his left-wing supporters. His stance was based on the idea that the students were, for the most part of the borghese, like himself, while the policemen they found themselves in opposition with were the proletariat - an unpopular idea, to say the least. At the same time, his homosexuality, criticism of the Christian Democrats who governed Italy and fascism made him plenty of enemies on the right side of the political spectrum.

The official explanation for his death was murder at the hands of a young male prostitute, Pino Pelosi. According to the reconstruction, Pasolini attempted to sodomise Pelosi with a wooden stake, at which point Pelosi attacked and killed the poet. Killed in an extraordinarily violent manner - Pasolini's body was battered beyond belief - and yet Pelosi was unstained. There were numerous inconsistencies in Pelosi's statements at the time, and much physical evidence that suggested that Pasolini was killed by more than one person.

After thirty years, Pelosi has taken back his confession, suggesting that in fact three men with Southern accents killed Pasolini and then threatened Pelosi to keep quiet. It's not a huge surprise to many who have argued over the years that Pasolini's murder was politically motivated (it certainly wouldn't be to his fellow intellectuals Calvino or Moravia, were they alive today).

In 1975 Pasolini's murder was reasonably easy to gloss over. It was a distasteful end to a life that, for many at the time, was distasteful. The element of gay sex was enough to make people blush and turn away while an inconvenient voice was fatally censored.

A couple of months ago a series of ads appeared in the glossy news magazine market. They depicted two men on a couch, fully clothed (though one is tugging his shirt off), kissing each other. Controversial and shocking (more relevantly, to this monkey, cryptic - I don't have the faintest idea what product or company they were promoting) according to the Comitato di controllo dell'Istituto dell'autodisciplina pubblicitaria (Iap), the body that regulates advertising standards. "The vulgar and provocative display of situations connected to sexual intimacy makes this ad fall into an unacceptable category for public sensitivity," their judgement explains.

This in a country where lingerie-clad dancing girls present the football results, and where the ultra-catholic magazine Christian Family is running an ad focussed completely on the naked and shapely butt cheeks of a faceless showering woman.

This heterosexual recovering catholic Monkey(it's like alcoholism)was astounded by the acres of female flesh on display in the Italian media when he first moved here. Now I've sussed it, though, and realise that it doesn't pertain to vulgar display of sexual intimacy. Of course not - that's a term reserved for homosexuals, isn't it?

For further reading on Pasolini, and a poem hithertoe unpublished in English, follow the link to Direland - the web site of writer Doug Ireland.