Mala tempora currunt

Once more Italians can be proud of their government. Laws like this remind us that bad can always grow worse. A couple of days ago I was watching a tv movie, Edda it was about Mussolini’s daughter and her husband Galeazzo Ciano.  Was I trying to use fiction to escape from reality? Not exactly.

In the fiction Mussolini was not portrayed as a the strong tyrant you could expect, he  was represented as  a character unfit for the role he was in charge and blind enough to understand exactly where he was leading his country. Main exponents of Fascist party were depicted as cowards unable to express their own opinion; some of them were aware of the disaster upcoming but didn’t dare to warn anyone with laud voice.  Count Ciano was described as the most representative character of this entourage: a weak person specialized in doing the wrong thing in the wrong time with the only merit of writing a diary  delivering to history archive a picture of their weakness and misery.

Is present country very different from that? I don’t believe so. Of course modern Italy is a democracy, but current politicians are not stronger or more assertive than those of that time.  The country is ruled by a man that pretend to possess all the solutions but is simply unable to accept the truth about present situation and his personal limits. What about people? Always ready to complain but never able to react.

In Italy, nowadays just like then, a latin motto can definitely be recalled: Mala Tempora currunt (that can be translated as “we live in truly bad times”)

Carfagna vs Vendola?

So much have been said about minister Mara Carfagna’s election with more than 55 thousand votes in Campania. Was it a personal success? Was it an appreciation for what she has done as minister? For sure it has been a remarkable result. Actually what did she do as a minster to gain such a consensus? Searching on the web you will hardly find an explanation. Neither on the Wikipedia page about her.

So what do all that votes mean?

If we look for example at Nichi Vendola we have a much more clear (sorry if you would have said ‘clearer’) explanation. He was the former president of Apulia, he won first the primary election within the centre-left against the will of party establishment and then was confirmed in the office with 67% of votes. So we can say that people of Apulia are happy with its performance.

So what? Sometimes election’s results mean reward for one’s performance and sometimes not.

And the winner is…?

It is quite funny how in Italy after election everybody uses to claim a victory. Sometimes it maybe ridiculous, sometimes just usual, and it is fair to say when it goes too far.

The simple arithmetic says that center-right held on the 2 regions it already had (Veneto and Lombardia), and took from the center left further 4 regions (Piemonte, Lazio, Campania and Calabria). As Financial Times said “the real winners were seen as the ‘no vote’ by a third of Italians who stayed away, and the anti-immigration Northern League, which is allied to Mr. Berlusconi.”

Something truly reasonable can be read here and here.

Are Italians correctly informed in order to fairly express their vote?

Italians are not fairly informed about what happens in their country. If this statement seem to be too strong just give a look at things like this to get a confirmation.

The three main causes of  biased information are

1. Communicative noise from source of information supposed to be reliable
2. Too much complexity in the few  fair analyses available to large public
3. Lack of effectiveness in the way information is made available to large public

Here is called communicative noise the misleading message sent by sources of information supposed to be reliable that send out with the same voice official statements or statistics and pure propaganda without clearly distinguish what is what. The noise can easily cause misunderstanding in people lacking time and will to dig into the news to figure out what is really going on.

The excess in complexity is quite common among fair analyses. Highly skilled professionals (for example here and here) invest time in the effort to give an explanation to economic and political events. However the result is usually hard to understand for people without  specific education and serious interest.

The ineffectiveness existing communication is due to messages too concise (e.g. slogan, newspaper title, short tv announcement or advertisement) or too detailed (long discussion on very specific topics on blog or never-ending discussion in public debates). What is definitely missing is a series of summaries well structured and easy to understand.

So what?

We can complain and talk about how bad is the situation or we can try to fix it. How? Internet is an extremely powerful tool to spread ideas and social network can easily compound the transmission mechanism. A fair information is absolutely feasible: why don’t we give it a try?

Civil Unions and Catholic Church

Again roman church is talking about homosexuality.

Mons. Caraffa said: “Pepole supporting Gay civil union cannot belong to catholic church“. Card. Poletto said to Mayor Chiamparino that it was a mistake to attend a gay marriage even if it was not a true wedding.

Let’s try some basic reasoning as usual.

It is fair that a religion states whether something is compatible or not with its core beliefs. Actually catholic positions towards Homosexuality may not be exactly fair but this will discussed in a future post.

Fair enough that a religious movement endorses changes in civil law that lead to a pattern closer to their ethics. It is just what other non religious lobby do.

What seems definitely not fair is that in order to maintain law close to their view of the world Catholics are asking to deny to a minor group of people the opportunity of benefit of some legal protections available to others. This looks like a sexual discrimination.

A liberal catholic individual should say “Even if I do not like the idea, I am happy to live in a country that grants such opportunity to those people who may need it”.

Would this mean asking too much to a catholic person?

Actually it is not matter or being liberal or not. This is more about accepting or not that all men are equal before law.

Who watches the watchmen?

Italian website Lavoce.info reported about a group of economists collecting in a book all the public statements of Italian finance minister Giulio Tremonti which they proved to be incorrect, misleading or contradictory. The title sounds like “Tremonti, Misuser’s guide”.

The issue raised by La voce is why newspapers and other media did not pointed out these issues in the past. Again comes out the ancient question posed in latin “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?” meaning who watches the watchmen?

In a modern democracy Media should watch over governors, over their behavior and their declarations, but who should watch over Media active execution of this crucial role?

We should.

La voce is a very good example of clear explanation of what is going on in Italian and international Economy, probably the best available in Italian language. However it is written by economists and a minimum education is required to understand the articles. Furthermore it is a website and it reaches far less people than newspaper and television do.

What can be done to avoid leaving unwatched watchers?

We need to endorse those who clearly provide transparent information and clear explanation of news and deny support to media not pursuing these goals.

Mob in Italian Culture

About 300 African migrant workers have been bussed out of Rosarno in Calabria, Italy, after a shooting which sparked two days of rioting that left at least 37 injured. The clashes with local residents and the police began after two Africans were wounded with pellet gunfire in an attack blamed on racism (Timesonline-Jan 9,2010)

This is the piece of news. A lot have been said about Mob in Italy regarding the recent events and words such as “mafia” or “camorra” are usually associated to image of Italy as well as “pizza” fashion and so on. However a little has been said about how much Mob is present in Italian culture.

Many professors consider university chair as their own property (that their son or other relatives may inherit) and are often called barons. The term “casta”(meaning “caste”, from the title of a popular book by G. Antonio Stella and Sergio Rizzo) is widely used to define politicians because no matter which is their party they tend to act as a lobby. It is quite common that in southern Italy normal rights that law should grant are sold in exchange of some form of barter. And these are just small examples.

Why can we say that Mob is present in Italian Culture? It is because the toleration of small law infringements has led people to consider law itself a sort of option rather than a binding rule. This is a serious threat to Rule of Law existence.

Presence of Mob in the culture mean silent agreement to the fact that sometimes some people are allowed to break law and they will not be prosecuted. If current behavior of Italian government may seem sometimes weird let’s consider that it may be just a mirror of country culture.

That light difference

Scott Brown, a Republican former model, won the Massachusetts Senate race. The election, in a state where Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans (and independents account for around half of the electorate), was held to replace Ted Kennedy, a Democratic stalwart who died last year(The Economist).

If you look at the event just in US Politics perspective, it was a clear message to President Obama and Democratic party and will affect dramatically the fate of the health-care. But those voters also expressed what should be considered normal in a normal country: their democracy is healthy and  they watch over their governors.

What can we say about Italy?

According  to a recent pool trust in Italian premier is stable and his party is likely to won in upcoming administrative elections.The performance of Mr. Berlusconi as premier is pretty well known not only in Italy but also abroad since many foreign newspapers and magazines have discussed some of his more controversial government actions as well as some parts of his private and public life.

Do Italians watch over their governors?

Can Italian democracy be healthy if voters do not endorse good behavior and sanction bad?

The answer may explain why Italian politicians seem so lacklustre when they do not look definitely weird.

Berlusconi best performer against mob

Italian Premier said his government has been the most active again Mob. (read more here)

Is it true? Can anybody please list those actions that made him so publicly proud? Or are his words simply false? It would be very helpful if a newspaper or a website were so kind to remind us the main actions taken against mob and which governments put them in place. But Italians listen?

Here is what happens in Italy today: a politician can say whatever he wants, nobody is going to check whether it is true or not

Italians won’t agree, not even if you are right

«A former director of Italy’s national television network RAI has caused a stir with a letter lamenting the lack of opportunities for the young in Italy, published in Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
Pier Luigi Celli, who is currently general director of LUISS university  addressed the letter to his son, who is soon to complete his studies.» (Quoted from the  Theromanforum.com).

In his letter Mr Celli lamented lack of meritocracy in Italy, a country he defines “impossible to remain in with pride” and therefore he invites his son to go abroad in order to find a fair field to play in. What do you think Italians did regarding the letter? Do they discuss the content? Do they express agreement or disagreement?
Not at all.  Italian people are simply not  able to focus on what real matters and discuss the content. They are for you or against you as soon as they can tag you as black or white (or red if you prefer). It was like this in Dante’s time when Ghibellini (supporters of emperor) fought Guelfi (supporters of pope) and it is not so different in modern time. The most Italian part is that even if they are on your same side they cannon admit to completely agree with you.

Nobody can truly say Mr Celli was wrong in his letter about opportunities for young people in Italy. Nevertheless many people questioned his right to express such a point of view given he belongs to establishment that has made Italy what it is today.  Actually he did not set himself aside, since he wrote “we would have made [this country] different but we failed.” However criticize him (not his argument) is definitely easier than pay attention to what he said. And finally there have been also a small number of people ready to deny evidence (can you figure out who taught them this lesson?)

Here is modern Italy: most people want  to talk loud and criticize even if they do not realize what; very few are ready to listen and consider what they are discussing and, above all, nobody is able to focus on what really matters.