... And now let me switch to English, because I'd need too much time to write something not senseless in German. I've been studying it for one year, during the following year (last year) I've been studying nothing at all, and I went to Kiel in September. My teacher (from Freiburg) in Italy was very talented, so that now I'm studying stuff like the Konjunktiv I, but I don't know enough words to talk in a decent manner - and I totally miss idiomatic expressions. I'm still not able to use most of the words I understand, so... Feel free to write in German. :)
I wrote so much about Italy on my Italian LJ... Too much. And my Italian friends kept repeating I was right - that's the worst part. When people say you're right it sounds like there's no solution: when people are already aware of something words are useless. They bring no solution, no awareness, they're just a way to complain. And I ended up thinking that's another facet of the Italian way of life: to complain. And sentences like "there's no solution", "everything's useless", "i can't do anything" and "whatever" (I hate the word "whatever") are something that I've been taught, by my culture, to recognize. They mean: no solution. I don't know the German culture enough to make a comparison, to conjecture and to write some persuasive statements. I just know that in Kiel I'm a person and not a woman, that I'm a student and not a parrot that's supposed to repeat everything professors say in order to get a good grade. I'm sure there are several facets of the German culture I wouldn't appreciate, but for the moment the only fact of some relevance is that when in Italy I feel useless. I don't know the solution, but I don't think I will find it in Italy.
I'm at the exact opposite end of Germany, Garmisch, near the Austrian border. This is where I have been born, and now I have returned..and ask myself how I have managed to stay away for such a long time. Yes, it is true that there are things in the German mentality which aren't too pleasant..but they can be easily ignored for the bigger picture: as you say, to be considered a person, not an object created only for breeding or coupling reasons. And to live in a place where people consider something outside themselves and their little families: the common welfare, the fact that if you damage public property you damage yourself, if you damage nature, you damage your own possibility for survival. That is something most Italians just don't get.. they keep the insides of their houses and cars spotless clean, and throw their papers, cigarette butts and gums on the floor as soon as they are outside, just to name one example.. and they don't understand that if you want to live in a "società civile", you have to be CIVILE yourself first.. no sense in ranting about the traffic if you always bypass the queues on the right, no sense in crying about the governo ladro if you don't pay your taxes, etc etc etc etc.. well, you know what I mean! But that is where you start to get on the nerves of every italiano medio, be he/she even of the sinistra variety, they always think that not following the laws is a sign of creativity and liberty, not of moral failure...
You summarized the matter perfectly. I wrote tons of examples like these on the other account. I think it was, and it is, a way to understand what I do and don't do, and a way to understand why people complain while they fuel the reasons of their complaining ("no sense in ranting about the traffic if you always bypass the queues on the right", like you wrote). I do what I think it's logical to do. Not because it's cool to be civil and polite - and it's so strange to think that sometimes in Italy who behaves properly is considered to be sort of "uncool". I'm sure there are historical reasons. Italy got accustomed to be ruled by foreigners who didn't care about the local environment, development and so on - but I do think people can change what they've been taught to be, emancipation is not only for women and gays. Apart from cultural and historical opinions, I think that he who thinks he's not respect can't respect anyone. And it's hard, in Italy, to think you're really respected. I don't want to say "It's fault of...", I just realized (or I'm just realizing, I'm still confused) I need that respect and I don't won't to become what now I insult.
Yes, uncool, that you are certainly in Italy when you try to behave civilly. And after so many years of always arriving (and consigning my work) on time, waiting patiently in my queues, paying my taxes and bus and train tickets and thousands of other things like that.. I've gotten simply tired of always being laughed at as the "typical German" (and most of them don't even know that I am actually a Jew from Eastern Europe, LOL). And see others get the good jobs, the nice apartments, the fancy cars, obviously with the money and connections they started to make already in University, cheating on their exams while I still believed in honesty as the ultimate weapon. Which in Italy simply has no sense. I also, for many many years, tried to find excuses for this country, dominations, climate, genetics.. but in the end, when I see that the majority of them finds Berlusconi "cool" because he cheats, he whores, he behaves "dispettoso" towards the politicians of other countries and women in general.. well, what can you defend there? I think he represents the worst in Italian culture, and voting for him, Italians somehow seem to have gathered the courage to let out the worst which is in them.. their dark side, as Jung described it, and as Germans did when Hitler came to power. Every country certainly has such a dark collective subconscious mind, and if a leader manages to put his (or her) feelers into it, and charge it, then bad things are going to happen. Italians maybe won't kill millions of people like the Germans did, but they will destroy their own country, its economy, culture and nature, and they are already infecting big parts of the world with their criminal tentacles of mafia, camorra and ndrangheta.. which are growing and growing under the present climate, until they'll strangle everything which is still resisting, and Italy will become one of these places where you can live only if you keep your mouth shut, your eyes pointed only on your own affairs and your ears hidden under the earphones of your ipod....
I always try to think it’s better not to compare Berlusconi with other dead or alive politicians. The comparison with Mussolini and Hitler is so easy to make that I think it can’t be so easy to solve this matter. Italy is too different from Germany and the current Italy is too different from the older one. The «Berlusconi Matter» is a son of the here and now, even though its roots are to be find in medias and so people blabber on about «propaganda», and when you say «propaganda» it’s so easy to add «Fascism!», that’s like to say «Here the villain!», and I do think that no thought based on the principle «Good VS Evil» can bring an useful solution. I wouldn’t vote for Berlusconi, but I don’t hate him, and I somehow think that part of the problem is that he who doesn’t vote for Berlusconi automatically hates him. I don’t think Berlusconi is the Italian problem. Berlusconi is a paradigm - and something useful because it lets me find out what Italians think. The fact that Berlusconi is still there means that Italians tolerate him - this is the problem IMHO. As for the Mafia... I think the typical Italian flaws in Italy are different from the typical Italian flaws abroad. Mafia in the US is something that nowadays has nothing to do anymore with Mafia in Italy, and nothing to do with the ethic laissez-faire you can find in Milan.
Oh I would not compare Berlusconi with the past dictators.. he hasn't the "statura" for something major. He is eroding, rather than building empires. He IS not the problem.. he simply represents something a lot of Italians secretly want to be.. unpunished sinners, to say it short. And the fact that he GOES unpunished, and CAN permit himself to spit in the face of justice, so to say, encourages more and more people to behave always worse. Italians don't tolerate him, they look at him as the living representation of what they theoretically know is not right, but practically want to practise daily, and he empowers them to do so. It is a kind of vicious circle, which includes not only the average citizen and Berlusconi and his croons, but also the organized crime, because let's face it, without them (and it is not only "ethic laissez-faire" in Milan, believe me, I have been working with public institutions there since 1992 and know what I am talking about..) he would never have arrived where he is, and never been able to conquer political power. I have been observing the slow but unstoppable crumbling of anything resembling civil resistance in Italy since the early 80ies, when I first came to live in the country, and went to University there. And the mafias (I write it in lower case on purpose, because I don't mean the American "cosa nostra" with that, but the close-knit network of criminal associations which work together when it suits them, and kill each other whenever business makes it necessary, in Italy or abroad, Italians against Italians, against Russians, against whomever disturbs their activities...)have been "evolving" ever since, from something nearly theatrical to organisations where the power figures have been to the most important universities in Italy and abroad, where they frequent politicians and bank tycoons.. and still keep their tentacles in their original quarters, where the "pocket money" for their operations comes from drugs, counterfeit goods and prostitution. And Italian youngsters take the drugs because it is cool, Italian guys run after the Russian, Romanian and Nigerian prostitutes because they love the feeling of power this gives them, and Italian women buy overpriced Gucci bags produced by exploited Chinese and other immigrants, kept prisoners by their own countrymen happily consorting with the various mafias. And the powers that be look to the other side, because they get some money or other favours for it.. from the smallest police officer who gets blowjobs from the prostitutes to the politician who gets big contributions to his election campaign, they are all on the take, one way or the other. These are not simple "flaws".. this is a certain road to complete corruption, not the rather simpatico and romantico one described in films and books..but something which is about to undermine the survival of many, many people, economical and cultural. Only those who in some way "arrange themselves" with the goons will be able to live in a way which is not miserable in future Italy, for the others there is contratti a termine, if they are lucky...
I am bitter, yes, but that is because I have lived inside that system for too many years.. I haven't just seen it from the distance, I have worked with politicians, journalists and researchers, in places like Sicily. I have seen and heard a few things too many, and there is no way back from that.. you can either let yourself be consumed by anguish and rancor every day, or you can go away. I chose to leave, because there is no noble fight for a country which doesn't want to be noble, which only wants the newest cars, phones and clothes, and funny things in television. Germany is certainly not perfect..but you can concentrate on a "noble task" and will find support, without having to battle every single moment against those who want to drag you into the mud with themselves...
Scheiße, so to say, Dadi, you won. I mean I couldn’t answer back, nor I wouldn’t. But I don’t want to end up saying something like «there’s no solution», not because I want to be optimistic, but because I like to study history and I know that things change - don’t know how much time this will need to change, and who knows? The only thing I know it’s that there’s no solution for me and now in Italy - that’s enough to make a decision. I could - like a pained ex-girlfriend - say that Italy is the worst ever, or something the like, but in fact I have no experience to make such a statement. It’s not my job.
I didn’t mean to say that the situation in Milan is better than the one in Sicily, just that they’re different. And I’m sorry I made you spend so many words to express your experience - and I’m glad and grateful, because I need reports, of any kind, and yours are especially rich. And I thank you for things like: [there is no noble fight for a country which doesn't want to be noble] Because you expressed feelings I was and am still not able to express. I need time, to compare and think.
Wie geht's? Wo wohnst du jetzt?
... And now let me switch to English, because I'd need too much time to write something not senseless in German.
I've been studying it for one year, during the following year (last year) I've been studying nothing at all, and I went to Kiel in September.
My teacher (from Freiburg) in Italy was very talented, so that now I'm studying stuff like the Konjunktiv I, but I don't know enough words to talk in a decent manner - and I totally miss idiomatic expressions.
I'm still not able to use most of the words I understand, so... Feel free to write in German. :)
I wrote so much about Italy on my Italian LJ... Too much. And my Italian friends kept repeating I was right - that's the worst part. When people say you're right it sounds like there's no solution: when people are already aware of something words are useless. They bring no solution, no awareness, they're just a way to complain. And I ended up thinking that's another facet of the Italian way of life: to complain. And sentences like "there's no solution", "everything's useless", "i can't do anything" and "whatever" (I hate the word "whatever") are something that I've been taught, by my culture, to recognize. They mean: no solution.
I don't know the German culture enough to make a comparison, to conjecture and to write some persuasive statements.
I just know that in Kiel I'm a person and not a woman, that I'm a student and not a parrot that's supposed to repeat everything professors say in order to get a good grade.
I'm sure there are several facets of the German culture I wouldn't appreciate, but for the moment the only fact of some relevance is that when in Italy I feel useless.
I don't know the solution, but I don't think I will find it in Italy.
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I wrote tons of examples like these on the other account. I think it was, and it is, a way to understand what I do and don't do, and a way to understand why people complain while they fuel the reasons of their complaining ("no sense in ranting about the traffic if you always bypass the queues on the right", like you wrote).
I do what I think it's logical to do. Not because it's cool to be civil and polite - and it's so strange to think that sometimes in Italy who behaves properly is considered to be sort of "uncool".
I'm sure there are historical reasons. Italy got accustomed to be ruled by foreigners who didn't care about the local environment, development and so on - but I do think people can change what they've been taught to be, emancipation is not only for women and gays.
Apart from cultural and historical opinions, I think that he who thinks he's not respect can't respect anyone. And it's hard, in Italy, to think you're really respected. I don't want to say "It's fault of...", I just realized (or I'm just realizing, I'm still confused) I need that respect and I don't won't to become what now I insult.
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Italy is too different from Germany and the current Italy is too different from the older one. The «Berlusconi Matter» is a son of the here and now, even though its roots are to be find in medias and so people blabber on about «propaganda», and when you say «propaganda» it’s so easy to add «Fascism!», that’s like to say «Here the villain!», and I do think that no thought based on the principle «Good VS Evil» can bring an useful solution.
I wouldn’t vote for Berlusconi, but I don’t hate him, and I somehow think that part of the problem is that he who doesn’t vote for Berlusconi automatically hates him.
I don’t think Berlusconi is the Italian problem. Berlusconi is a paradigm - and something useful because it lets me find out what Italians think. The fact that Berlusconi is still there means that Italians tolerate him - this is the problem IMHO.
As for the Mafia... I think the typical Italian flaws in Italy are different from the typical Italian flaws abroad. Mafia in the US is something that nowadays has nothing to do anymore with Mafia in Italy, and nothing to do with the ethic laissez-faire you can find in Milan.
Reply
I have been observing the slow but unstoppable crumbling of anything resembling civil resistance in Italy since the early 80ies, when I first came to live in the country, and went to University there. And the mafias (I write it in lower case on purpose, because I don't mean the American "cosa nostra" with that, but the close-knit network of criminal associations which work together when it suits them, and kill each other whenever business makes it necessary, in Italy or abroad, Italians against Italians, against Russians, against whomever disturbs their activities...)have been "evolving" ever since, from something nearly theatrical to organisations where the power figures have been to the most important universities in Italy and abroad, where they frequent politicians and bank tycoons.. and still keep their tentacles in their original quarters, where the "pocket money" for their operations comes from drugs, counterfeit goods and prostitution. And Italian youngsters take the drugs because it is cool, Italian guys run after the Russian, Romanian and Nigerian prostitutes because they love the feeling of power this gives them, and Italian women buy overpriced Gucci bags produced by exploited Chinese and other immigrants, kept prisoners by their own countrymen happily consorting with the various mafias. And the powers that be look to the other side, because they get some money or other favours for it.. from the smallest police officer who gets blowjobs from the prostitutes to the politician who gets big contributions to his election campaign, they are all on the take, one way or the other.
These are not simple "flaws".. this is a certain road to complete corruption, not the rather simpatico and romantico one described in films and books..but something which is about to undermine the survival of many, many people, economical and cultural. Only those who in some way "arrange themselves" with the goons will be able to live in a way which is not miserable in future Italy, for the others there is contratti a termine, if they are lucky...
I am bitter, yes, but that is because I have lived inside that system for too many years.. I haven't just seen it from the distance, I have worked with politicians, journalists and researchers, in places like Sicily. I have seen and heard a few things too many, and there is no way back from that.. you can either let yourself be consumed by anguish and rancor every day, or you can go away. I chose to leave, because there is no noble fight for a country which doesn't want to be noble, which only wants the newest cars, phones and clothes, and funny things in television. Germany is certainly not perfect..but you can concentrate on a "noble task" and will find support, without having to battle every single moment against those who want to drag you into the mud with themselves...
Reply
But I don’t want to end up saying something like «there’s no solution», not because I want to be optimistic, but because I like to study history and I know that things change - don’t know how much time this will need to change, and who knows? The only thing I know it’s that there’s no solution for me and now in Italy - that’s enough to make a decision. I could - like a pained ex-girlfriend - say that Italy is the worst ever, or something the like, but in fact I have no experience to make such a statement. It’s not my job.
I didn’t mean to say that the situation in Milan is better than the one in Sicily, just that they’re different. And I’m sorry I made you spend so many words to express your experience - and I’m glad and grateful, because I need reports, of any kind, and yours are especially rich.
And I thank you for things like:
[there is no noble fight for a country which doesn't want to be noble]
Because you expressed feelings I was and am still not able to express. I need time, to compare and think.
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