Recent Italian News Roundup

August 16, 2008 · Filed Under Italian news · Comment 

Well, I’m back here in Milan after my short and not particularly holiday like trip down to Genova. Anyway, I’ll resist boring you with the details and recount some much more interesting items which have been mentioned in the Italian news.

Soldiers on the Streets

Despite the fact that Italy, with the exception of a few ‘hotspots’, has a crime rate which is pretty low, Italy’s political masters decided that it would be something of a wheeze to whack machine gun toting troops in full battle dress onto Italy’s streets to maintain law and order.

This move, which has been much hyped by the TV media here, has not proved popular with one and all. Indeed, La Famiglia Cristiana - The Cristian Family - a magazine run by a Roman Catholic publishing group - likened the presence of the military on the streets of Italy as being akin to something you would expect in Angola, not Italy.

That such a criticism should have come from this particular source came as something of a surprise to my Italian other half and and Italian friend of hers too. The reason for their surprise is that La Famiglia Cristiana is more often than not a staunch supporter of Italy’s right-wing leaning governments. This widely respected publication even questioned whether the presence of troops on the streets hailed a return to fascism.

This reaction and comment has caused a little embarrassment for the Berlusconi government, who have hotly denied any connection between soldiers and the return of one of Italy’s darkest eras. The Vatican has distanced itself from La Famiglia Cristiana’s assertions, by the way.

Funnily enough, I have only seen soldiers at Milan’s central railway station, and they were neither machine gun toting nor in full battle dress. Down in Genova I did not even see one single soldier, machine gun toting or otherwise.

Media hype, methinks. Still, the reaction of La Famiglia Cristiana was curious.

More Italians are working not Shirking

Talking of the army, another of Belusconi’s chaps has been waging a form of war against what are known as ‘fannulloni‘ here. The term ‘fannulloni’ is given to those Italians who go to work, but don’t, or sometimes do, and fiddle, so to speak. Read on if you find the definition of ‘fannulloni’ confusing. Read more

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Italy - From Bad, to Much Worse

June 14, 2008 · Filed Under Italian news · Comment 

It’s been an eventful but tragic week in Italy, but it looks as though things here are going to go from bad to worse, much worse.

Work Related Deaths

Quite a number of people have, alas, lost their lives at work this week. First, there was an incident in Sicily which led to the death of six workers. Then, near Milan, two illegal immigrant Egyptian building workers died when the scaffolding they were on collapsed under them, causing them to fall around 20 metres. Finally, two other unfortunate individuals died in work related accidents in Sardinia and Sicily.

Technically, it is safer to go on a tour of duty in Iraq then it is to work in Italy. Italy’s politicians are humming and aahing as usual, but have not decided what, if anything, to do about this poor state of affairs.

Corruption a Go Go

Berlusconi is pushing through his anti-phone tapping measures, and in doing so, will make Italy an even easier place in which to pursue corrupt practices.

The new anti-phone tapping legislation is very much old school Berlusconi, in that the new law is really designed to keep all his friends immune from just about any form of prosecution based on accusations of corruption. Italian law enforcement agencies, and the magistrates whom Berlusco detests, will now find it just about impossible to gather enough evidence to bring people to justice.

Even Less to be Spent on Road Accident Prevention

The changes to the ICI property tax, meaning that less income will be generated local authorities, will lead to even less being spent on preventative road safety measures in Italy, which already suffers from some of the highest fatal road accident levels in Europe.

Apparently, Switzerland spends 25 Euros per capita on road safety, France 23 Euros, Belgium 10 Euros, and the UK 5 Euros per head.

Italy, on the other hand spends around 1 Euro per head, which will fall to 70 Eurocents, after the revisions to the ICI system are implemented.

Naples

The out of control refuse mismanagement situation down in Naples continues to smoulder away. And the unhappy state of affairs really is starting to trash the reputation of the ‘Made in Italy’ brand.

The reawakening of Fascism?

Last, but by no means least, in a fun move by Italy’s intelligentsia, the government has decided to use to the Italian army to enforce law and order at street level.

Around 2,500 troops in full battle dress (possibly a slight exaggeration…), are to be used to patrol the streets of Italy’s major towns and cities in order to combat increasing levels of crime.

The expression ‘martial law’ springs to mind.

Gordon Bennet, if this is what a strong government in Italy gets up to, bring back the lesser of two evils, good old weak unstable Italian government. I nearly fell over when I read about this.

Talk about extreme overreaction.

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Too Young Too Good 2

June 11, 2008 · Filed Under Culture · 1 Comment 

A short while back in April, I wrote a post about a 23 year old Italian graduate, Too Young, Too Good, who was feeling too young to be so well qualified. Well, I received some feedback about the post the other day.

The comment was that the person I wrote about was too good for Italy. Odd, I thought, I did not remember writing this, at least not in so many words. However, I suppose that by ‘reading between the lines’ such a conclusion could have been reached.

To set the record straight, I don’t think that she is too able for Italy. What I do think, on the other hand, is that Italy is not always too good at recognising its ‘in-house’ talent. This is partly down to the prominence of the ‘it’s not what you know, but who you know’ system which exists here. And it is also down to the fear that certain interviewers here sometimes display when confronted by a candidate who they suspect may be so good as to do said interviewer out of his or her own job.

Of course, I’ve got no proof of this assertion, but for the fact that certain potentially good job candidates don’t seem to manage to get that job. It also appears that non-Italian organisations tend to be more objective when considering individuals for posts than perhaps some Italian enterprises are.

I should add, that the young lady mentioned in my previous post, did in fact manage to find an internship, despite not knowing anyone. She also, possibly, managed to avoid making her interviewer feel too threatened, luckily for her.

Over on my ex-master student Savio’s Orecchiette alla Milanese blog (in Italian), there is a post, Le multinazionali: “Questi italiani bamboccioni poco intraprendenti” about the frustration of multinational companies who find young Italians both lacking in initiative and not having much of a work ethic. A comment on this post has been left by a disillusioned young Italian who, it would appear, has done all the right things, and is just the opposite of the Italian youngsters to whom the post refers, but this individual still cannot find the right job. One Sandro thinks that his problem is quite simply that his family does not know the right people. In Italy, where relationships matter, this can indeed be a snag.

On the assumption that there are not other issues which affect his ability to find a job, such as poor interview technique or bouts of arrogance, my advice to Sandro would be to confine his job hunting efforts to non-Italian companies. Or even to companies outside of Italy.

Strange how a country which loves to boast about its ‘Made in Italy’ brand seems to be reluctant to foster the talents of young people who have been, so to speak, ‘Made in Italy’.

Oh, by the way, Savio is not doing too badly. Indeed, he managed to find a position with Yahoo Italy. Well done Savio! Yahoo obviously realises that there are some pretty darn good people in Italy, and, so far, it has managed to remain free of nepotism and cronyism.

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