 |
| Fall, 2017: Dejected Italian players after losing 1-0 to Sweden to miss Italy's 1st World Cup in 60 years |
Apparently it had been a lively happy hour so I came in on a "customer shift change" when a number of people who'd been there since late afternoon were getting ready to take off, and a couple regulars, like myself, were just stopping in.
I was still sipping my first beer when my friend Franco came in and took a seat at the bar next to me.
Franco is first generation Italian-American, he was born in a small coastal town in Italy and his parents emigrated here to the U.S. when he was still very young; if you met him in person and heard him speak, you wouldn't know he speaks fluent Italian.
Franco and I lamented the fact that both Italy and the U.S. failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, but given their long soccer tradition, it's a much bigger deal that a World Cup power like Italy isn't on the pitch this year.
The Italians have won four World Cup titles (1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006) and they played in the finals in 1970 and 1994; for perspective, perennial power Germany has four cups, and Brazil has five.
As someone with an interest in both history and cinema, over the past couple years I've used this blog as a platform to reflect on both the broader impact of World War II on Italian society, and the lasting influence of the Italian neorealism film movement.
 |
| Stunned Italian soccer fans watch as Italy loses to Sweden and fails to qualify for the 2018 World Cup |
So I genuinely both sympathize and empathize with how many Italians must be feeling as the excitement of the 2018 World Cup gets underway in Russia with their beloved "Azzurri" not taking part in the planet's most preeminent soccer tournament for the first time in 60 years.
In a country where reverence for soccer takes on an almost religious fervor, Italy's heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Sweden back in November, which eliminated the Azzurri from World Cup contention, still reverberates across the nation.
Especially in a politically tumultuous country that is still reeling from the repercussions of the 2008 global financial crisis, a fragmented European Union, and the divisive, ongoing debate over the undocumented immigrants that have poured across Italy's borders over the past few years.
As Turin, Italy resident and noted Italian soccer fan and podcaster Fabrizio de Rosa told reporter Sintia Radu last week in an interview for US News:
"There is a feeling in Italy that we are living in decline. And this was also reflected in the way we play soccer. People would always try to draw comparisons between how we play soccer and how the country's doing. In reality, in 2006, (when) we won the World Cup, people were happy and politicians were talking about the renaissance of Italy, but then that never really came. Actually, we had the (financial) crisis in 2008."
 |
| Trump's immigration policies have sparked dozens of protests across the US in June [Photo Spence Platt/Getty] |
Whether you chose to call the reckless and hyper-partisan brand of politics that now define America's Republican party "populism", or "nationalism", it's rooted in the same kind of division and chaos that defines the current White House agenda.
For example, while Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and white supremacist White House advisor Stephen Miller are responsible for revoking DACA and initiating a "zero tolerance" policy on immigration that instructs U.S. Border Patrol agents to separate the children of undocumented immigrants from their parents, Trump took to Twitter to blame Democrats for the policy.
But as Miller told the New York Times in an interview last week, "It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period."
So given that Trump's own senior advisor acknowledges that the policy was a "decision by the (Trump) administration", either Trump is lying to try and deflect the growing criticism his administration is facing for incarcerating young children - or he doesn't fully grasp that the Republican Party controls both the House and Senate, and therefore Republicans are responsible for introducing and passing legislation to be sent to the president to sign into law.
In my view, Trump is lying, and his childish attempts to blame Democrats for his own racist, anti-immigrant policies is little more than a chaotic and desperate ploy to try and bully Congress into authorizing $25 - $30 billion of taxpayer funds for the construction of the "wall" he promised his supporters Mexico would pay for.
 |
| Ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen at a press conf. in March |
Even though some recent polls suggested many later regretted the decision, and a recent CBI study suggests 18 of 23 British business sectors want to remain in the EU.
The Trump phenomenon and the UK Brexit vote arguably encouraged the rise of the right-wing (and decidedly-authoritarian) National Front during the 2017 presidential elections in France - but that ultimately ended with the centrist, pro-EU former economic minister Emmanuel Macron trouncing his conservative, anti-immigrant opponent Marine LePen (pictured above).
Two weeks ago the same anti-immigrant hysteria that Trump regularly uses as a tool to fire up his base (as if parents with young children seeking asylum represent a national security threat), prompted a strange coalition of right-wing political parities to assume control of the Italian government in a strange kind of "non-majority majority".
Neither the Northern League, or the Five-Star Movement (also known as M5S) had enough of a political majority to assume leadership of the government, but together, after some tricky negotiations, the two parties (along with other minor parties) cobbled together a coalition government that has a shaky mathematics-denying 67-seat majority in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies.
(Think House of Representatives but with 195 more seats and dozens of different political parties that must form alliances to form coalition governments to achieve a functioning majority.)
 |
| Fake resume? So what! Italian PM Giuseppe Conte |
And of course, exploiting growing frustration over mass migration from North Africa and the Middle East.
The leader of this strange coalition is Giuseppe Conte, a rather obscure 53-year-old law professor.
Professor Conte has held no government office, has no political experience and is the country's 5th unelected prime minister in a row, but Italian President Sergio Mattarella asked M5S leader Luigi Di Maio and the Italian Parliament to back him as sort of a "compromise prime minster" that would be acceptable to the members of the fragile center-right populist coalition.
As The Economist reported back on May 24th, the new PM was elected despite the fact that:
"Mr. Conte had padded his professional CV with courses abroad that he had neither taken nor taught. His curriculum stated that he had 'perfected his legal studies' at numerous seats of learning, including New York University, the Sorbonne, and an 'International Kultur Institut' in Vienna. But NYU had no record of Mr. Conte. Nor had the Sorbonne. And the seemingly august Austrian Institute turned out to be a language school."
So Mr. "perfected his legal studies" will now lead the Italian government during a critical time in the country's post WWII history.
 |
| Italy's new Interior Minister Matteo Salvini |
Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, a former radio host who has made a career out of stirring up resentment over undocumented immigrants, was tapped as the Ministry of the Interior and quickly set off on a tour of the country promoting his desire to close Italy's borders and begin mass deportations.
As the BBC reported two weeks ago, at a League rally in northern Italy, he announced that it was time to tell undocumented immigrants seeking asylum and work in Italy, "Get ready to pack your bags."
To be fair there's little doubt that Italy, like other Western European nations, are facing a range of political, social and economic issues related to the unprecedented waves of undocumented immigrants that have poured into Europe in the past few years.
But I'm not sure electing the Italian version of Trump or Rush Limbaugh to handle the immigration crisis is really the answer either - after all, Matteo Salvini (like Trump) is a man who plays to stereotypes, fears and ethnic and racial hatred as a means to consolidate his own power.
It's not just anti-immigrant views either, two weeks ago global markets and bank stocks didn't react well to the news that the right-leaning 81-year-old Paolo Savona was tapped as the Ministry of Finance by both the League and M5S.
Italian President Mattarella quickly rejected him as markets panicked over the fact that Savona was a staunch opponent of the Euro who advocates Italy leaving the EU and reintroducing it's own currency - despite the fact that debt consumes a staggering 132% of Italy's Gross Domestic Product.
The question for many Italians is should such views be the basis for forming a new government?
 |
| Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler take in the sights in Germany, June, 1940 |
From a historical standpoint, it's disturbing that Italy, which birthed an early 20th century Fascist government (eventually led by Benito Mussolini) that aligned itself with the delusional nationalistic aspirations of Nazi Germany, now seems to be touting similar elements that birthed the Fascist Spanish government under dictator Francisco Franco starting in 1939.
In these volatile times it should be pointed out that the militaries of both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy used the bloody three-year Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) as a proving ground for some of the weapons, aircraft, munitions and battlefield tactics that would be used in WWII starting in September of 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.
The countries may be different, as are the names of the political parties that have embraced a distinctly far-right agenda, but the staunchly conservative policies, including an embrace of anti-immigrant hysteria, the scapegoating of minority populations for the nation's problems and a disturbing flirtation with authoritarianism (jailing and killing writers, teachers and journalists etc.), are basically identical.
Again, while I'm not Italian and respect the right of Italians to elect who they want to office, casually dismissing the thousands of men, women and children who've risked their lives to flee famine, war, drought, poverty and repressive governments in northern Africa and the Mid-East as "violent African migrants" as some conservatives have done on social media, is a dangerous road to start down.
Time will tell whether the new fragile "populist" coalition in Rome will actually govern on behalf of the Italian people - or if it simply becomes an outlet for irrational anti-immigrant hysteria, crass bigotry and indifference to human suffering.
But it's sad to think how quickly some seem to forget the massive human and economic ruin of WWII that devastated Italy and so many other nations - a horror brought about in no small part by the rise in "populist" governments and creeping authoritarianism sewing division across the European continent today.
Sadly, for Italians, their beloved Azzurri not playing in the 2018 World Cup could be the least of their problems - depending on which direction the newly appointed leaders of their fragile governing coalition decide to take the country.
Based on Trump's chaotic year and a half in office, to the Italians I can only say, In bocca al lupo.
No comments:
Post a Comment