Vicenza: baxi si
The time for carnivals and other general mayhem when "everything goes" was almost over when Italy came to show open signs of a party-mood and finally threw a sizeable manifestation on the Dal Molin issue. For the past weeks, "Vicenza" has become the synonym of the leftist-pacifist event that took place on the 17th of February.
So what's the deal? Well, it's been going on for a bit of time already. Very simply said, the mayor sold the city's airport to the Americans who were planning to double the already existing military base in Vicenza. At first, noone knew about it. When the government changed, the issue came up along with the first doubting voices - the airport is remarkably close to the city centre and having F16-s depart from behind their houses didn't go down too well with people who don't approve of the US foreign policy. People started to manifest - there was one public protest after another in December, but the information didn't reach many. Vicenza voted yes on the political level, but few of your usual people-on-the-street would admit to approving the base-enlargement. The potential economical benefit and good relations to the US weighed up other arguments and the government, though carefully, said yes too. This simplified version is what I've gathered from the scattered opinions around here. Valdagno is situated 32 km north of Vicenza.
It wasn't until all the big newspapers had gone on about it for a while when Vicenza started to get real attention from all over Italy. Thus, coaches and reservation trains from Milano, Rome and Torino were organised; information blasted around the streets and websites; and the media did their bit of confusion. Three completely unconnected events taking place within a week of each other were all mixed into one: 1) the pacifist manifestation in Vicenza; 2) the arrest of 15 extreme-left terrorists; 3) the death of a police officer in the hands of Sicilian football-hooligans. The simple conclusion from all this would be that pacifism is almost as bad as terrorism, or that there will certainly be someone of this opinion ruining the whole thing. This scared a considerable amount of people off attending.
This was the reason why our small company arrived as late as 5 o'clock. We had spent the day relaxing, checking on the news and hesitating whether the whole din was worth it or not. Well, all in all it was much like your usual student day party where all kinds of leftsy* people come out to the fresh air - hippies, woollies (est: kampsikud), tree-huggers, punks, students, young political/ pacifist/ intellectual idealists and all others. (I do believe that only this kind of societal labelling will pass on the impression of it.) It was as peaceful an event as anyone could hope for and we saw nor heard of anything violent. That said, in my humble opinion the manifestation was rather an assurance of emotion than a political voice - coming out on the streets only after all the decisions had been made was never going to make a practical difference, though obviously it was worth something to show how 150 000 people feel about the base at Dal Molin.
But it was fun. In addition to providing a good picture of all kinds of political activists in the area, the event demonstrated some true playfulness. For example, in the photo on the left the sign reads: "BAXI SI ma co la lèngoa. no militari!" It's a play on words: baxi [read: ba:zi] in venetian dialect sounds similar to basi, (military) bases; but means baci, kisses. So - "OK to the bases/kisses, but only with the tongue! no soldiers!" My flatmates are illustrating how it goes.
----------
*leftsy - anyone not voting to the political right. In generalised stereotyped terms anyone who: doesn't devote their lives to earning money, and/or thinks about third countries, and/or wears colourful scarves, and/or relaxes, and/or doesn't mind reading Marx, and/or gives out communist leaflets, and/or is pro-choice, etc etc etc. This division is something new to me, as my life in Estonia has been blissfully apolitical (being certain that politics will corrupt any good ideas in no time and that in the end they're all the same and so on). By these Italian standards I'd categorise to the left -- all the more strange as I usually don't even know who to vote for, and regard the blue-eyed Italian communists as people who should reform their offensive flag and take a field trip to the nearest Eastern-European country.
So what's the deal? Well, it's been going on for a bit of time already. Very simply said, the mayor sold the city's airport to the Americans who were planning to double the already existing military base in Vicenza. At first, noone knew about it. When the government changed, the issue came up along with the first doubting voices - the airport is remarkably close to the city centre and having F16-s depart from behind their houses didn't go down too well with people who don't approve of the US foreign policy. People started to manifest - there was one public protest after another in December, but the information didn't reach many. Vicenza voted yes on the political level, but few of your usual people-on-the-street would admit to approving the base-enlargement. The potential economical benefit and good relations to the US weighed up other arguments and the government, though carefully, said yes too. This simplified version is what I've gathered from the scattered opinions around here. Valdagno is situated 32 km north of Vicenza.
It wasn't until all the big newspapers had gone on about it for a while when Vicenza started to get real attention from all over Italy. Thus, coaches and reservation trains from Milano, Rome and Torino were organised; information blasted around the streets and websites; and the media did their bit of confusion. Three completely unconnected events taking place within a week of each other were all mixed into one: 1) the pacifist manifestation in Vicenza; 2) the arrest of 15 extreme-left terrorists; 3) the death of a police officer in the hands of Sicilian football-hooligans. The simple conclusion from all this would be that pacifism is almost as bad as terrorism, or that there will certainly be someone of this opinion ruining the whole thing. This scared a considerable amount of people off attending.
This was the reason why our small company arrived as late as 5 o'clock. We had spent the day relaxing, checking on the news and hesitating whether the whole din was worth it or not. Well, all in all it was much like your usual student day party where all kinds of leftsy* people come out to the fresh air - hippies, woollies (est: kampsikud), tree-huggers, punks, students, young political/ pacifist/ intellectual idealists and all others. (I do believe that only this kind of societal labelling will pass on the impression of it.) It was as peaceful an event as anyone could hope for and we saw nor heard of anything violent. That said, in my humble opinion the manifestation was rather an assurance of emotion than a political voice - coming out on the streets only after all the decisions had been made was never going to make a practical difference, though obviously it was worth something to show how 150 000 people feel about the base at Dal Molin.
But it was fun. In addition to providing a good picture of all kinds of political activists in the area, the event demonstrated some true playfulness. For example, in the photo on the left the sign reads: "BAXI SI ma co la lèngoa. no militari!" It's a play on words: baxi [read: ba:zi] in venetian dialect sounds similar to basi, (military) bases; but means baci, kisses. So - "OK to the bases/kisses, but only with the tongue! no soldiers!" My flatmates are illustrating how it goes.----------
*leftsy - anyone not voting to the political right. In generalised stereotyped terms anyone who: doesn't devote their lives to earning money, and/or thinks about third countries, and/or wears colourful scarves, and/or relaxes, and/or doesn't mind reading Marx, and/or gives out communist leaflets, and/or is pro-choice, etc etc etc. This division is something new to me, as my life in Estonia has been blissfully apolitical (being certain that politics will corrupt any good ideas in no time and that in the end they're all the same and so on). By these Italian standards I'd categorise to the left -- all the more strange as I usually don't even know who to vote for, and regard the blue-eyed Italian communists as people who should reform their offensive flag and take a field trip to the nearest Eastern-European country.
8 comments:
Carissima compagna!
We would like to dispute some of Your opinions.
1) though the psychological warfare was flaring high before-hand in newspapers and premier was warning anyone who would care about the possible violence, people still managed to gather in far bigger numbers than expected. Instead of planned 80 000 it was more or less 150 000. And even that number is not certain as people were joining the manifestation all day long (You included).
2) Instead of a bunch of youngsters going out for a fun, the kilometers long corteo, consisted of local Vicentini, trade unions like CGIL & FIOM (backbone of Italian society), some high brass from governing Rifondazione & Communisti Italiani among with the rank and file, citizen movements from all over North Italy (NoTAV, NoMOSE), alternative youth movements (various Centri Sociali), Human Right movements (Emergency, Partito Umanista), more citizen movements from the centre and even from moderate right. Hardly possible to discard this "as rather an assurance of emotion than a political voice"
Altogether, even if blue-eyed and offensive italians are able to pull off with lots of funny slogans, it is not as much party as serious politics. Just because violated rights raise inevitably emotions, one can't discard the whole event as emotional or useless.
Piazza has always played important part in Italy (unlike in Estonia), even if current situation didn't allow better changes, same problems proved too much for the Government, which fell shortly after Vicenza.
And, hey, don't take our comment too harshly. C U in Bologna in Saturday
Thanks! I was hoping for your input as those who actually attended the manifestation, unlike myself (slipping in when everything was already over, heh).
Of course it was a serious thing and you're right, it has made a difference. But it could have made much more impact if held before the politicians sat down. At this quite late point of the affairs the manifestation was going to get a point across, but not change the already made decision.
:) If you read the footnote again, you'll find that the blue-eyed ones I've meant were specifically the young Italian communists. I'm sure that you two of all people will understand what I mean by "offensive". Having people walking around the streets in 'CCCP' T-shirts or waving the sickle-and-mallet flag without paying any attention to what has been done under that very same flag in the last 90 years - it does personally offend me quite a lot.
I like your style by the way ;)
Distinti saluti,
m.
According to Repubblica further developments in Vicenza: http://www.repubblica.it/2007/02/sezioni/cronaca/base-usa-vicenza-due/partono-i-lavori/partono-i-lavori.html . Can You tell us more about these matters? Any news, more local we are not able to approach?
Ciao cara!
Can you enter the link again with a html tag? The end disappears in the layout.
For local info you could check Il Giornale di Vicenza.
Well, I wouldn't put it this way that "you can't change already made decision". Because with saying "yes" to that base government already changed their decision they had before elections. So, this meeting was to remind decisionmakers what their electorate was promised and what they are wishing to get.
As of outcome, in addition to K&C: electorate will not forget what happened in Vicenza and afterwards. This will certainly have a reflect in next elections. And also, americans were open to make some changes in their plans after manifestation, so it had some certain impact as well.
I am not offended by sickle-and-mallet flag. This has been the sign on communists in Italy as well and I don't see any reason why Italian communists should change their sign because some other people in another country used this as a symbol of authoritarian state. In Italy, it refers to somewhat different kind of political view that it referred in 1970s Tallinn, for example.
I might feel offended of Stalin's picture in manifestation /which wasn't the case this time, but there has been at least in end of nighties/. Even if I feel that Italian stalinism was again somewhat different than in other Europe, but still, picture refers to a man who was responsible of great crimes - as a person, not as a communist and this should be known.
/Now I go to follow the links suggested :)/
I really appreciate the comments, thanks!
I've been wondering about one thing that Tatsutahime mentioned - that the voters will remember Vicenza on the next elections. As we have seen many times (also in the case of Res Publica in Estonia), as a party wins an election, often their popularity goes straight down in the following months. This is understandable, because the opposition who can say "we will clean this place up!" will inevitably inherit the political situation of the previous government and as the changes generally move slowly, the new one will soon be blamed for any problems apparent in the society. This can be due to the party itself or merely due to people's habit of blaming "the government" for various things. In general.
Now, I agree that Prodi's decision on the Vicenza issue was definitely not in accord with what the center-left had proclaimed itself to be. One could say that he chickened out of his pre-election political positions; or else that for political or economical reasons he didn't really have a choice. I don't know about this. But I do wonder - if the people lose their loyalty to the center-left, who will they have to vote for?
If people lose their loyality to centerleft then they simply don´t vote, as they have no choice - to show the center-left partie that if they want to do rightwing politics, then they should do it with rightwing votes, not with left ones. This should put leftist forces to think somewhat, even if one would think that Prodi will learn out of what happened in 1998-2001.
One more thing: one can´t compare Res Publica populist campaign with what leftist forces had last spring in Italy, because Res Publica simply promised "we make better politics", but L´Unione had really a program which reflected leftist thoughts in details, for example the diminuation of Afganistan mission, a start of cleanse of TV-landscape etc. Most of Italian voters /either left or right/ have basically quite clear general picture what they want their country to be (which is not the case of Estonia, unfortunately, that is why Estonian parties tend to promise "more money to everyone" and if people don´t get "more money in next three month then they will get disappointed).
Well, the voters can either choose to confide with the l'Unione coalition and vote more left, thus demanding more straight-forward politics; or give their votes to centre part of CdL. Latter being more formidable, as both Margherita and UdC, are essentially Christian-Democrat parties. Prodi seems to want to avoid both, with the plans of new emerging Democrat party and electoral reform. I'm afraid that the Democrat Party can take a big part of the centre and of the Parliament pie. Because centre have close to no political imperatives it will only improve further separation between Government & electorate. And if the electoral reform is turned against smaller parties, it will inevitably strengthen the same separation.
So far I can see the real fork in Italian politics: coalitions get their eloquency from the farther or more extreme wing parties, but continue to rule with the centre politics. But it still gives the chance for more political parties like Rifondazione (but also Lega and AN) gain some ground in the Government and possibility to break through with their own efforts. If smaller parties will be marginalised, so will be their electors. Which will be a pity, as Rifondazione has done really great job bringing more distant and alienated groups and citizen movements back into the "mainstream" politics.
Post a Comment