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Today I was supposed to go through some material I started gathering up for my graduate thesis, but then something happened.
A mix of events came together, and thoughts I had having for the last weeks, the last days, met a stable disposition in my mind this morning, forcing me to change my schedule and organize this post.
Lately I mentioned how Italy is going through an interesting and promising social phase, and meanwhile the whole world and it’s citizens are facing some interesting challenges, that I defined as real clash of civilizations in my last post.
The arising of new sensitivities that makes the period we are living a revolutionary one is the red lines that connects the Italian scenario, on which I want to concentrate today, and the global one.
Made Italy, we are finally making the Italians, we said. Last Saturday, in Rome, hundred of thousands of citizens went down the streets to tell the people in the palace that we are here, and we are coming. Hundred of thousands of citizen of every age, every part of Italy, that came not in buses organized by some party leader or some organization: they mostly all came with their own means, or by train. Spontaneously. I am young, I know, still I have never seen anything like this happen before. In this country, in Italy. The country where people don’t care, everybody turns around, the mafia still proliferates on a culture that often, to live with no problems, doesn’t see, doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak. Here, people form everywhere spontaneously met in Rome last Saturday, because they start to see that there is no choice but to raise the tone.
Together, like this, we have never done it before. Those who still govern us know this, and they are afraid. They know that their power relied substantially on the fact that Italians were always too divided to take action as a real organic entity; on that they thrived, for decades. I want to make clear that I do not simply refer to the government, to Berlusconi: this is something that will overturn the whole “ruling class” of this country. They are all going to go. It feels good to write that :)!
For these reasons, this soft regime we Italians today live in tried to do all he could to distract the attention from what was really happening: a huge, spontaneous gathering of people that was there to remind them who was the people, and who those who served the people. It is not that hard, when you have a country in which you pretty much have an oligarchy controlling the media, an embarrassing low penetration of the Internet on the territory compared to the rest of western Europe, and a population made for a great part by older people who still think they can still get “informed” by newspapers and news, and have no idea of what alternative sources of information are.
All they had to do, and what they did is allowing violent protesters to organize themselves, take part to the rally, give them chances to create some chaos, have them destroy Rome and let this one be, out of 951 cities in 82 countries in which manifestations were held, one of the only places where things turned violent, and definitely the worst case.
Why? Because by doing so they took away the spotlight from the people, and could even take advantage of the situation to point the finger towards people’s movements and, why not, advance some fascist-like proposals to limit freedom of gathering and demonstration. Nice.
This morning, while going through the news for breakfast, as usual, I came across some video reports of what happened last Saturday in Rome. The website is www.serviziopubblico.it , and it is the new independent initiative of one of Italy’s major old school journalists, Michele Santoro, who recently left, among bitter polemics, the RAI, the Italian public broadcast television, for reasons that can only be considered political. The videos that Santoro’s team offer are not something that you will see in TV news here; they clearly show how things went, from the beginning to the end. They show how only a small group of the protester were actually causing troubles, and how they were let free to do whatever they wanted long enough for the situation to collapse and transform an otherwise pacific demonstration into civil war. Also, not any less important, you see how the great majority of the people Saturday in Rome had nothing to do and wanted nothing to do with that violent phalanx. People wanted the police to intervene, to make the situation safe, to continue pacifically their rally. But the police did not intervene until it was too late. Maybe they were not put into the conditions of being able to do so. Citizens against citizens, workers against workers. Rome burns, and Nero plays the lyre.
These videos were just too good. But they were all in Italian. I spent the whole day adding the English subs, in order for them to be available to a wider public.
These are the 3 videos that I chose; for more refer to the original website, but with no subs, sorry!
They last around 12 minutes each.
5.07AM, I’m going to sleep. Tomorrow doesn’t look as a great day for my thesis either 😉 .
This is my contribution to our revolution. It is just a matter of time, we have already won.
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There are at least a couple reasons behind my publishing this particular post.
First, I believe that living in a country where reality and people’s perceptions are controlled by the media, but there is no variety of opinions or information to balance that because everything is pretty much under the control of the prime minister, it is important to share images of a moment like this that took place during Raiperunanotte.
It was a moment, finally, of freedom of speech and freedom of information. And we are not used to it anymore. It was a deep breath of fresh air. People could SAY what they THINK.
Second, I want people from outside, people who do not live in Italy, to be able to take a peek into our reality, into where we live.
It is important to understand, to share, to connect.
Normally the only chances that non-Italian speakers not living in the country would have to get an idea of where we live is by reading something on their newspapers or seeing something on tv; that is good, but it is still filtered by someone.
By subtitling this video (the most accurately possible) and sharing it with everyone who might be interested but normally does not have the language and other means to get this, well this is my shot out there to let you perceive reality the way we do.
Why is this show weird? Why is it worth to be shared?
Because in order for this show to happen the organizers almost had to break the law.
Because a public service, paid by taxpayers and that must be free to express its opinion, has been evicted from where it belongs and had to be hosted by a private satellite tv channel, Current TV (Al Gore, founder of Current commented: “Current tells the stories no one else is telling. That’s why we are proud to carry important information shows like Annozero – particularly at a time when other channels are not. Current Italia is committed to independence and truth-telling. We will continue to work with our audience and the Italian creative community on creating and producing the important stories of the day”.  Source here), and by the Internet.
Because in 2010 censorship does not need physical violence anymore. And dictatorships are no longer upheld like fascism or nazism were. They don’t need to be. We live in a soft dictatorship. People go out to buy clothes and to restaurant, but they cannot say freely what they think unless they want to lose everything.
What Daniele Luttazzi says in this short video I posted is nothing but satire. And he is good at it. You would think tv channels fight over him, to have him in their shows.
Nevertheless, this was his first live and broadcast performance in 8 years, ever since Berlusconi decided he was not to be seen on italians screen anymore, pronouncing his infamous editto bulgaro.
This is the reason why I post this. Because only knowing this and seeing the video first hand, understanding what he is saying, one can truly understand how desperate the situation in this country is.
This show was a show for all the morally exiliated Italians, who live their everyday lives pushing forward, and waiting for a chance to get back into control of their lives, of their country.
Enjoy.
P.s.- I am thinking of writing to the organizers of the show, explain my idea to them, and ask them if they are willing to subtitle in english the whole show and then put it all online for everybody to see it whenever they want. What do you guys thing?
I am going to try to explain my point of view over a very complex situation.
Our prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, Italian tycoon and professed self-made-man, is also the founder and owner of Mediaset, half of Italy’s nationally broadcasted antenna tv channels (there is satellite, Sky, but still not as widespread as in other countries).
Berlusconi always used his channels as a way to convey political messages, as it is technically (I don’t agree, but I won’t get it this right now) in it’s right. Public tv, RAI, paid by Italian taxpayers was to be the other half of the tv offer, guaranteeing pluralism and freedom of information and speech.
To make a long story short, many people among whom myself, claim and believe that ever since Berlusconi became prime minister (therefore gaining power over public RAI), he tried restlessly to shut up the last few voices that dared “opposing” him, simply doing their job as journalists and telling stories as they were.
His first successfull attempt was the Editto Bulgaro. Now, with the occasion of the coming regional elections in Italy, he tried the trick again, and even got caught on wiretapping.
One of his first and main targets, Michele Santoro, that used to regularly host the show Annozero (particularly disliked by our prime minister) was forced to shut the show down to respect the par condicio period before the elections, together with all the rest of the political talkshow.
Many saw this as another attempt to shut the “dissidents” up.
The satellite tv channel Current decided to host a special night, Rai per una notte (Rai for one night), to give a chance to these journalists to keep on doing their job.
It’s tonight at 9pm, Italian time. It can also be watched in streaming over the internet here.
P.s.- I will later embedd the code to watch it from here as well, as soon as they make it available.
P.p.s.- I wrote this post right before class, managing to arrive late for it. In the middle of it I got a mail on my phone pointing out this article of The Economist from yesterday. So this is actually an update.
More points of view are always welcome. If you find something and send it to me I’ll share it.
