Where is Europe going? Piero Boitani’s letter to David Cameron (debate at the Man of Roma’s cafe). 2

Jean-Claude Juncker (left), now president of the European Commission (voted by the European Council and recently by the European Parliament) was fiercely opposed by David Cameron. Britain and Hungary were isolated. “Instead of building alliances in Europe – said Ed Milliband, leader of the British opposition – ” he’s burned them”

I warmly thank Professor Piero Boitani for letting me publish here the letter to the British PM David Cameron he has just sent to the London’s daily The Independent.

Piero Boitani – a medievalist, Dante scholar, steeped in ancient myth as well as modern literatures – is Professor of Comparative Literature at Sapienza, University of Rome, and is also teaching at the Universities of Notre Dame, Indiana, and of Italian Switzerland.

He is also – among the rest, the list IS mind-boggling – Fellow of the British Academy and Honorary Member of the Dante Society of America (together with Umberto Eco.)

Here is Piero Boitani’s voice, loud and clear.

[a ‘Roman from Rome with ancient traits’ voice, I’d say. Wonder if he’d agree, he is not a reader of this blog, he doesn’t need to; links below are MoR’s, not Professor Piero Boitani’s]

Blue-eyed, pensive, P. Boitani is an extrovert despite his deep knowledge. Goethe wrote that “the one who doesn’t understand 3000 years of history, lives in the dark, unaware, from day to day.” It is not the case of Piero Boitani, as one learns by reading his magnum opus, Il Grande Racconto delle Stelle [quote from here]

Dear PM,

I have followed the recent developments in your attitude to the EU with a growing sense of concern and irritation. Since the age of 10, I have been a strong anglophile. I have studied in England, have taught and published there. I visit it at least once a year. Quite frankly, I do not understand your opposition to Juncker, which has left Britain isolated in Europe with Orban’s Hungary (sic!).  Juncker is by no means the ideal President of the European Commission, but he is no worse than, say, Barroso. Was your opposition dictated by the fact that Junker is supposed to be a ´federalist´ and that he was indicated by the European Parliament rather than the governments? That is actually a more democratic method of indicating a new President than the old one of negotiations between national governments. Is Juncker against novelty or reforms of the EU? Well, governments can actually make Juncker do what they like, so if they want reforms he will pursue reforms.

In short, your opposition seems to me purely instrumental – dictated more by Mr Farage’s victory in the recent EU elections, i.e., by UK politics, than by the well-being of Britain. Unless at the back of it all be an unconfessed attempt at going with the presumed British feeling of annoyance with the EU. Threatening the other EU members with ‘The UK will leave the EU if Juncker is nominated’, or ‘Anti-European feelings in Britain will grow to the point that the 2017 referendum will turn out to be against Britain staying in the UK’, is quite inappropriate, and useless, blackmail.

Britain ought to examine herself very deeply on the matter of Europe. There is first and foremost a question of roots and culture. The cultural roots of Britain are European, from the 1st century AD to the present. Yes, there is also a different strain, wider and tied to the British expansion on the sea, and narrower because of its feeling of insularism and isolation from the Continent. But at the critical moments in history, Britain has always made a decidedly European choice, witness the Napoleonic wars and First and Second WW.

Secondly, there are political and economic reasons. Would the UK be better off outside the EU? Or, has Britain been worse off since it joined the then EEC? To say so would be a gross error. Has Britain been less ‘free’ since joining the EEC? You drive on the left and use miles, pounds, and pints. You have kept the pound sterling. You are out of Schengen. Is someone forcing you to eat taramasalata or sauerkraut? Or to learn ‘foreign’ languages? Or to surrender your navy to the Germans?

The European Economic Community. Courtesy of Britannica Kids. Source

What is there in ‘Europe’ that annoys the UK? Its bureaucratic structure? I admit it could be simplified and made more efficient, but you must yourself admit that a democratic administration for nearly thirty countries is not easy to achieve without a bureaucracy, and that the mandate of this bureaucracy is to uniform and unify, not keep the thousand tiny differences that exist within Europe. If you want free circulation of people and goods among those 30 countries, you will need laws – uniform laws all over – to protect that circulation. Didn´t the British Empire do exactly this, impose the same laws all over?

Or is it that Britain does not want a supranational European state, something many (not all) Europeans want so that Europe may count more in a globalized world? But Britain already is out of that state. It has ‘opted out’ of so many things. But to think that it can stop the others from having a tighter union if they so wish, wouldn´t that be considered presumptuous in any human relationship?

Yet the British public is annoyed by Europe (you will of course understand that the rest of Europe might be slightly annoyed with Britain). I suggest that the British public serenely and rationally examine themselves about Europe and decide once and for all whether they want to stay in or quit. Should they decide to leave, they should realize that they will give up, together with what they consider the disadvantages of being in the EU, also the advantages.

“Britain’s prime minister David Cameron holds a news conference during European Union leaders summit in Brussels today after Jean-Claude Juncker was nominated for European Commission president by an overwhelming majority.” Source and caption: Irish Times

One no longer is a member of a family, or a club, if one decides to leave it. They shall have to pay duty on their wines from Europe and grow resigned to selling less whisky in Europe because we will have to pay more duty on it.  But at least they will stop having headaches about being or not being European, being or not being in the EU.

I confess that I feel upset when I have to show my passport upon entering Britain. I am particularly annoyed at having to change euros into sterling (something from which only banks profit) and having to buy plug adaptors for every electrical appliance I acquire either on the Continent or in Britain (something from which only the makers of such adaptors profit).

If Britain, at the end of such self-examination process, decides it wants to leave the EU, I shall be sad, but will face the situation serenely – and will give up my strong anglophilia without any further headache.

Piero Boitani
Rome

Recovering from the brink: a tale of the two-body problem

“Identity loss: One in seven men who lose their job will suffer six months’ depression”. Source (Daily Mail)

Does a woman’s success damage a male partner’s ego?
[You may also like this article by the Washington Post]

Tenure, She Wrote

Today’s Guest Post was contributed by Family First Research Professor.

Our story is familiar. My husband and I completed our postdocs and went on the job market together. We carefully identified universities with opportunities for us both, applied, and waited.

I had the good fortune to be recruited and choose between offers for assistant professorships at R1 universities. My husband didn’t get a single interview. I started on tenure track, while my husband applied for unemployment. The process triggered minor panic attacks for me. My husband became crippled by severe depression.

Over the past year, I have faced two challenges as a new assistant professor: building up my lab and supporting my husband’s recovery. Somehow, the latter makes the race to tenure seem like a piece of cake, or at least substantially less important.

As with any severe disease, depression upset all aspects of our lives. At the office, I…

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The gentle nature of friendship

Invocation, before a mind journey

To my belovéd Anglo Saxon friends,
And to Chaerie dearest Faerie,
Queene of the Greatest Isle, Américà.

O Goddess, Thou, so heauenly and so bright!

Shed pls thy faire beams into our feeble eyne,
And raise, our thoughts being humble and too vile,
The argument of our afflicted style.

M. P. L. M.

“Why we still like the Germans (and will always like them).” 2

Ulrich Beck:
“Europe’s crisis is mental”

Ulrich Beck (born 1944) professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich until 2009 now holds a professorship at Munich University and at the London School of Economics. Wikimedia (source)

 

Ulrich Beck, who coined the term risk society, is a professor of Sociology at Munich University and at the London School of Economics (read further.)

[full text of an article appeared (April 10, 2014) on the Roman daily La Repubblica. The said article is here paraphrased, translated and abridged by MoR]

Dante, Mozart
and the future of Europe

Dante & Mozart. According to Beck, Europe’s future restarts from them (many themes from our blog reverberate to this and other notions by Ulrich Beck. Source from the Cisl Scuola web site

Europe’s crisis is not economical, it is mental. It is a lack of imagination as for the good life beyond consumerism.

Most critics of Europe are caught in nostalgic nationalism. French intellectual Alain Finkielkraut, for example, argues that Europe was created against the Nations.”

Such criticism – Beck observes– is based on a national illusion and presupposes a national horizon as for Europe’s present and future.

To these critics, Beck retorts:

“Open up your eyes! Europe and the whole world is going through a big transition.”

He then brings forth two paradoxical examples:

All British media are full of accusations against the EU. Eurosceptic Britain is nonetheless shaken by a wave of European public opinion unknown before.

China, as a result of its investment policy & economical dependence, has long been an informal member of the euro-zone. Should the Euro fail, China would get a hard blow.

Cosmopolitanism vs
citizens of the world

It is clear that advancing cosmopolitanism does not produce citizens of the world. On the contrary, the need for boundaries gets stronger as the world gets more cosmopolitan.

“Out of Euro, out of EU!”

Thus French Marine Le Pen‘ s extreme right-wing NF has won in France.

Putin, on the other hand, has collected the ‘need of boundaries of the Russians’ with his motto:

“Where there are Russians, there is Russia.”

However, such aggressive Russian nationalism – Beck continues – proves that one cannot project the past of the nations onto the future of Europe without destroying the future of Europe itself.

ψ

Ulrich Beck: “What if Putin’s ethno-nationalism were a salutary shock for Europe plagued by national selfishness?”
Alain Finkielkraut: “We Europeans are traumatized by Hitler!”
Ulrich Beck: “Yet, Hitler despised the Nation and desired to replace it with the Race. So it seems we want the nations to atone for Hitler’s folly. Due to their Holocaust trauma, should the Germans therefore erase nationalism entirely?
No, but we have a common premise here:

The catastrophe of the Holocaust, of Hitler and Nazi Germany (with the Nuremberg trials).

Such tragedy has helped us develop the notion of crimes against humanity. Hence a new dimension saw its birth, European law, which relativizes national law. At the same time a new world-wide scope of humanity was born : the ‘never again’ ethics.

Then Beck adds two arguments:

The world and us need more than ever a “European vision” for coping with the ills of globalization (climate change, poverty, inequality, 1% vs 99% etc. in the US, war, violence). The idea is that the mobilizing force of a forewarned disaster can found a European identity.

Also …. [to be continued]

Previous installment:

“Why we still like the Germans (and will always like them).” 1

Calcagni’s Memoirs. Agnese Calcagni and the Blue Sisters (15)

Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo, Rome. Click for attribution and to enlarge

15th excerpt from the memoirs of Carlo Calcagni – original Italian text -, a true Roman born almost one and a half century ago. Read all excerpts posted so far in English or in Carlo’s original Italian text.

Here Agnese, my grandmother, is mentioned for the first time.

ψ

For my sisters, despite their being quite pretty, no suitor was around [one sister, Elvira, was already a nun, MoR.]

All right for Maria who was extremely young but Agnese had already passed the right age and no one showed up so it could represent a little bit of a worry.

Not being a fool Agnese was thinking about organizing her life not around a wedding far to come, but around a job that would both interest and occupy her in a worthy manner.

She became a nurse at the Blue Sisters’, in Santo Stefano Rotondo [see the Basilica above and below.]

She proved very good, attentive and intelligent. Prof. Margarucci was enthusiastic about her, and so were the patients; much less the English nuns on account of her very frank and independent behaviour.

After several small frictions here we are with a decisive, conclusive one.

A Drop of Cognac

S. Stefano Rotondo. External view. Click for attribution and to enlarge

One night she was on call and had a patient seriously ill whom we knew and who at one point asked for a cordial, for something – since he felt like fainting. Custom of the house was that the stewardess shut everything during the night so that no one could take anything out of the pantry.

My sister races to the pantry and finds the stewardess, a nun, who, like every good English, is calmly sipping at her tea. She asks her for a drop of cognac for her patient but the nun, on the strength of her charge, does not even reply.

Then Agnese, with an authoritarian voice, asks her for the keys and after several refusals manages to get them, to take what she had to take and to get back to her patient.

All hell breaks loose. The nun writes up the minutes and the next morning my sister is called by the Direction for a dressing-down.

“In disregard of any regulation … she had dared to insist, better, to force the stewardess to open the cupboard …”

My sister at this point can no longer resist. She takes off her cap and veil and calmly lays them on the table in front of prof. Margarucci, saying:

“We cannot get along with these English nuns’ methods. If a patient, entrusted to me during night-time, needs some help I open all cupboards, I even smash everything, but I seek a way of helping those who are suffering and perhaps dying.”

Margarucci tried to settle things but, while thanking him very much, my sister was unshakable:

“If not this time it will certainly happen another time. It’s a question of mentality.”

Thus ended her first attempt at finding an occupation, a job.

Countess Campello & Beppe Tamanti

Beppe Tamanti was from Montalcino, Siena (Tuscany). Click for credits and to enlarge

Another opportunity soon arose in the same sphere of activity. Countess Guglielmina Campello, lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena, was looking for a young lady, good, capable and of civilised condition, who could take care of the direction of a new clinic that the Queen was creating for children predisposed to tuberculosis. The Countess turned to Agnese, who went and returned to her several times to discuss and see, before making up her mind.

During such circumstances the extraordinary fact of her engagement to Beppe Tamanti took place. Beppe Tamanti was one from the Chorus Misticus [a catholic private group of young men, MoR], but had never come to our house and knew Agnese only for having seen her a few times in passing. Agnese had never been mentioned in our talks.

One morning Beppe appears in my office on Lungotevere Raffaello Sanzio …

Original text in Italian

Related posts:

The continuation of Agnese’s episode:
Calcagni’s Memoirs. A sudden Twist in Agnese’s Life (16)

An excerpt where Elvira, the eldest sister and nun, shows a temperament similar to Agnese’s:
Elvira, the Eldest Sister, Makes Someone Behave (5)

Contemporary ‘Romans’? World’s Folks May Tread On US, We’ll Survive

November 11, 1940. With Operation “Judgment” in WW2 half of the Italian fleet at Taranto was sunk by a raid of British torpedo planes from a carrier. The image shows the Italian Conte di Cavour, a great ship, sunk. Click for credits and further infos

This post is about the Italian peculiar case of ‘survival through cynicism’ (Italians & WWII.)

The next post will be about ‘survival through quality’ in times of economic globalization. A bit of a survival kit for any folk.

ψ

The following playful exchanges occurred at a London café where Richardus, the café owner, was present together with Chaerie (California,) Paul Costopoulos (Quebec, Canada) and others we’ll omit since their comments were outside the chosen theme.

The spirit world
(and the silly male)

Richardus (Britannia): “A breathless bolt, a high-pitched arrow of sound pierces the night and cleaves my skull.”

Man of Roma (Roma): “At times we don’t sleep well, do we. Very similar we are, Britannia.”

Britannia: “We are. But also we have to keep watch for wild animals and itinerant males.”

Roma: “Yes we have. That is why I bought a real Roman gladius. By the way, a new chapter of the ‘last Roman soldier in Britannia’ soap has just been posted.”

Paul Costopoulos (his blog): “The primal scream can be such a relief… it does disturb, fleetingly, our bed companion.”

Cheri (her blog): “Have you tried opening your window at night to let the night sounds into the room?
Those in the spirit world might come in, deep in the dark of sleepless night, and rest with you.”

Britannia: “I shall listen for the sounds of the Klamath River.”

Roma: “I am eager to read about your spirits’ world Cherie … We all are at a phase of our life where we need that … I envy your power of communication with Mother Nature. Here we live just the life of the city people (see image below) surrounded by the world of man rather than by the spirits’ world. [although …]”

Via dei Serpenti, with the Colosseum at the end. Photo by MoR. Given to the people!

[Then something happened. Cheri said she would visit me in Roma. Richard pulled out a Norman helmet. The silly male in me hence made me exclaim:]

Roma: “Richardus, what’s that helmet for? I’ve got my gladius, don’t forget!”

Roma: “And I know our apple of discord c’est Chaerie.

Elle vaut la peine de se battre. Mais soyez prudent. Les Italiens ne sont pas des lâches (cowards), ils sont indifférents, which is another thing entirely.

And Chaerie, elle vaut absolument la paine de ne pas être indifférents 😉 id est, she deserves absolute non indifference.

Hey, where’s my darn gladius?

*He falls while looking for it and breaks his left leg*

Chaerie. Apple of discord?

Cheri: “Good jokes, Roma. I get it…Remember, I have been having lunch with a lusty Italian for years. Ahhh….I miss Joe so much.

Roma: “Joe a lusty Italian? Ah ah ah ah. Now ‘I’ get it. You so intelligent, beautiful and hyperborean. He, Sicilian and all. Not surprising. Not at all surprising. Cannot blame him though. May he rest in peace, Cherie.”

Britannia:

Roma: Richardus, that lento played by the Quartetto Italiano: is that supposed to mean a requiem to my hopes about Cheri because you’ll kill me in battle?

Wrong move, man. I’ll explain why.

Battle of the
Mediterranean. Reloaded

The beautiful Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) was sunk by the British Royal navy in the Mediterranean. Ok, the famous WW2 ‘battle of the Mediterranean’ – we lacked radar, proper fleet air arm (and fuel.) OK. OK.

BUT, only a few years after that defeat two Mediterranean people, my sister and my bro-in-law, got married.

Look into their eyes, Homo Britannicus. Do they look defeated?

They do not.

What the hell. Are they morally superior?

They are not.

It’s …

It’s just they don’t give a damn, Richardus. Italians don’t give a damn.

[I call Italians ‘Romans’ in the title: nothing more appropriate …]

Methinks a foolish chant is taking shape …
[may readers pardon me]

Like a warm-fleshed woman
lying languidly on the Mediterranean,
Here’s Italy, motionless, statue-like.
World folks may tread on her body,

(Oh yes! she utters)

from the German barbarians,
from Hitler TBBM
(The Big Big Maniac)
to the Allied Forces.

(Oh yeah yeah! she moans)

Partenope (1905) by Arnarlo de Lisio (1869-1949), a painter from Molise

Although, in her sluttish nature,
she will not disappear, Britannia.
She will stay. And survive.
And will continue to be beautiful,
rising eternally up from her ashes.

“Why this folk is like that”
Mario TBM (the big moron) will exclaim.

MOR: “Oh Mario, I’m so surprised,
you should know better. ”

In any case they’re like that because they are:

THEDONTGIVEADAMNERS

[by now the London customers shake their heads in disapproval and turn to their drinks]

And an old post,
That Pride Which Is Actually Blindness,
explains why we are all like Joe,
why we are all Sicilians (which is good.)

While, this other post,
why we’re all like Mario too a bit
(less good 😦 )

[*Mario the deceiver rejoicing in silence (though biting his nails)*]

ψ

Britannia: “That lento, requiem or not, is gentle fulfillment for all, dear Giovanni. Let us relish it.”

Roma: “Of course, dear Richard, of course. Gentle fulfillment. Thank you for these two words.

A la prochaine, really, amico mio …”

Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria etc. Arab Spring Revolutions seen from Rome (2)

Refugees from North Africa are flooding Lampedusa, Sicily

[read the previous chapter]

Libya, a Critical Situation

“Thousands of people, mainly from Tunisia, but also from Libya and Egypt, have arrived on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa in recent weeks” (BBC).

“Since January Italy is facing an exceptional flux of immigrants, with over 22,000 landings mainly from Tunisia… from Eritrea and Somalia via Libya on the island of Lampedusa.” (Le Monde)

Lampedusa, between Sicily and Tunisia

The situation in Libya is more critical. According to Le Monde anti-Gaddafi rebels have no military experience, despite arms and support arriving from Egypt and Nato intervention. The port city of Misrata in north-western Libya (130 mi to the east of Tripoli, see image below) seems now to be the hub of the crisis.

Gaddafi is ready to conquer it and there are rumours of tortures suffered by the unfortunate who in Misrata fell into the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces. BBC mentions use of “human shields in the war-torn town.”

Libyan uprising main cities. Via Wikipedia. Click to enlarge

According to one of Gaddafi’s 5 beautiful Ukrainan nurses, El Rais’s health is that of an iron-man 🙄

Is the Ukrainian nurse’s evaluation accurate? Well, a desert raider like him might get extra boost from ‘fight’. Berlusconi is similar but he is not a desert man

France who first led to the intervention now fears that “we are likely to get bogged down in Misrata” (as French foreign Minister Alain Juppé’s put it). France also fears too many immigrants are coming from Italy. Italy protests France is against the Schengen agreement and says Europe should help to contain the human flood.

More British war planes seem ready to begin ground attacks (instead of just no-fly-zone checks.)

Gaddafi has sent a message to Obama yesterday. Today H. Clinton dismissed it saying he must resign and go into exile. Anti-Gaddafi rebels complain that bureaucracy is causing “Nato to take too long to respond to calls for air strikes” (BBC ) [not to mention the fact that Nato has killed quite a few anti-Gaddafi protesters by mistake!]

Berlusconi and Sarkozi will meet in Rome on April 26th. By the way Italy has finally recognised Libya’s rebel National Council.

Berlusconi was hesitant given his personal ties with Gaddafi. Now that all is more or less in the hands of Nato he looks happier.

Moscow, Berlin and Turkish Ankara seek a role as mediators. Ankara has sent Ambassador Omur Soledin to Libya.

ψ

These the recent facts. Allow me some (Roman) rambling now.

Lost in their Opiate Dream

Women of Algiers by Eugène Delacroix, 1834, the Louvre, Paris. Click for a wider view of this great but a tad decadent painting (this is just a detail) and for credits

Aren’t the French and the British lost in an opiate dream that they can still play a world role ‘of their own’? I am for a EU tighter unification, it is clear, and any prima donna or Trojan horse trying to dismantle such process from within really rails me.

The Britons are famous in their efforts to obstruct any real unification of ‘the continent’ – from Napoleon’s (was it good?) and Hitler’s (it was good) until today.

And the French? Are they pro EU only when they can play a grandeur role in it?

[Gosh, when at times they pronounce this word (France) I cannot but think of De Gaulle (my father imitated le Général not without fidelity and humour) who used to say he had ‘une certaine idée de la Fraaaance‘.]

Of course I can understand their opiate dream, their greatness belonging to only 4-6 generations ago, a short span of time. But aren’t their imperial souvenirs damaging this region, Europe, the richest of the planet (not for long) but the weakest politically?  With the huge challenges ahead of us (ie Bric) is it intelligent? Is it forward-thinking?

[See a presumptuous post of mine on EU Trojan Horses]

Braudel observed:
“Sicile-Afrique? Fondamentale”

Italy, the eternal loose woman, is reclining herself on the middle of the Mediterranean.

Fernand Braudel:

“L’Italie, avec la Sicile et la Tunisie coupent la Mediterranée en deux … Est et Ouest. La liaison Sicile Afrique est fondamentale”.

This centrality favoured the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean.

Carthage (today’s Tunis) had the same central position in the Med though reversed (from South northwards). Rome though won (but … read here)

Italy and Tunisia cut the Mediterranean in two. Wikimedia. Click to enlarge

Among the European nations Italy is perhaps the most popular in North Africa and the whole Med area (some grudge left in Libya, of course.)

We eat the same food, they sing our songs (and us theirs but we’re not aware of it,) they watch since the 1950s our now horrible TV, they get consoled and excited by our III-World South which they can understand.

Tunisia in the last 100 years always looked at Sicily (and Italy) as a beloved guiding light and its greatest inspiring model (“les Italiens pour nous sont comme des dieux”, “Italians are like gods to us”, a Tunisian manager once told me. You may like this post.

This role of Italy – its Mediterranean centrality over the millennia and our today’s persisting cultural and economical influence – is responsible in my view for a certain succession of events:

Berlusconi –> Ben Ali –> Mubarak …. then the rest of the Arab Spring.

A theory of mine perhaps. So let’s now test it.

All North Africa is exploding. Arab protesters in Paris. Click for credits and to enlarge

Arab 2011 Revolution.
Are all MED BIG MEN resonating?

1) Berlusconi began to wobble …

… and while the entire world was cheerfully chatting about it (lots of fun stuff) the Tunisians were watching closely...

[Some mysterious harmony vibrating in the Mediterranean …]

They couldn’t but notice this North MED(iterranean) BIG MAN about to fall, and they know he being not terribly different from many other modern-day MED BIG MEN all over coastal Mediterranean.

[A darn tradition of ours. Let us mention: a majority of tyrants in Greek city states, Alexander and the Hellenistic monarchs; the Roman well balanced republic later superseded by Julius Caesar, Augustus & other emperors; Louis XIV le Roi Soleil; Napoleon; Napoleon III; Mussolini il duce; Hitler son of romanized Austria-Germany;  Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria; Francisco Franco, the Caudillo; Salazar his neighbour; De Gaulle le général; Italian Umberto Bossi il celodurista (I got it hard!) and Silvio Berlusconi il Cavaliere]

Of course our PM is not Bel Ali, Gaddafi or Mubarak. Italy is democratic.

But Italy (unique in the West) has this patriarchal-paternal figure (Papi his girls called him) whose de facto powers go beyond democracy. Berlusconi can influence voters being the richest tycoon and media owner in our country – as if President Clinton and Murdoch were the same person!

Now our PM has though less constitutional power than Clinton and our usually sage President of Republic counts too in our charter. Magistrates are independent and tough, and people are not stupid. Which all is saving our ass from media fascism I hope.

So Berlusconi is something Tunisians could understand. Ben Ali controlled almost all Tunisian media via his family (I worked for a Tunisian Internet company owned by Ben Ali’s daughter or wife, I forgot.)

ψ

2) … so Tunisia blew up. Also plagued by unemployment etc. Tunisia rebels against Ben Ali’s well-organized fascism. I am witness to black-clad secret police guys’ total ubiquity. Mediterranean resonating empathy I’ll repeat.

After Berlusconi wobbles Tunisia begins to blow. Click for credits and to enlarge

A small country Tunisia, one might say. Ok, but Tunisia’s rebellion infected Egypt.

Now THIS changed things entirely.

The Land of Pharaohs Wakes Up

Egyptian protests. March of the Millions: Tahrir Square. Click for a great night view

2) Egypt gets infected. The Arab world and beyond is following.

Well, given its ancientness & importance when Egypt sneezes a whole piece of the planet may catch pneumonia. Egypt is the most respected Arab state of all, beyond a doubt.

Digression. According to the Indian-British Indologist A. L. Basham – A Cultural History of India, Oxford 1975 p. XXI- “there are four main cradles of civilizations [on this planet]: 1.China. 2. The Indian subcontinent [probably the most influential in the very long run imo, MoR]. 3. The ‘Fertile Crescent‘ [ie Egypt, Eastern Canaan-Syria-Phoenicia, Mesopotamia ie Iraq, MoR]. 4. The Mediterranean, especially Greece and Italy.”

THIS was perhaps Cleopatra – found on the Esqulinus hill, one of the 7 h. Well …

[I’m starting – some scholars are starting – to suspect a North-Europe Hyperborean cradle too. Read here if you dare 🙂 …]

Egypt is at the head of num 3 region (even though Iraq invented writing.) The Greeks totally recognized Egyptian and other Eastern influences.

[But some scholars in-between 1800s-1900s  – mainly German but not only – wanted ALL colonizing West’s knowledge to be derived from an abstract ‘pure’ Greece in order to justify the exploitation of the lower-races. Winckelmann (1717 – 1768) earlier and Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) bear a foundational responsibility among the rest for this gloomy error]

Pythagoras (Πυθαγόρας) who spread a scientific-religious cult all over South Italy – which will affect Plato, ALL West science & the core of Christianity – travelled long years in Egypt, in the Middle East and Mesopotamia perhaps too: he was permeated by African and Eastern wisdom! Herodotus (Ἡρόδοτος) surely spent years in Egypt. Just 2 examples, the former being the greatest of them as for the future of Western culture.

Btw, the story of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Gaius Octavius and Cleopatra – do you remember it? (see above how sexy might have been Κλεοπάτρα, the last Pharaoh of Egypt; read this post)

Now all is getting dangerous  – but also promising let’s hope for humankind.

ψ

So let us laugh a bit. Berlusconi-owned newspapers barked against France who dared enter Mare Nostrum ie the Med:

“Beyond the Alps they should remember once in a while that in their history they don’t just have Napoleon, they also have General Cambronne!” (ineffable Georgio Mulé)

Filippo Ceccarelli’s comment on the Roman daily Repubblica:

“Imagine which weight will be given, in that place of sheer humility that is Paris, to this saucy invitation from George Mulé.”

A wild laugh, that gave me a half hour of oblivion.

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This whole Arab thing is dangerous but I am fascinated that many of these countries are more ancient than Italy or Greece.

It is important to understand that Syria, Egypt etc. are not only Arabic: they are much more (and earlier) than that (read 1, 2 – delighful Diana Haddad! – and especially 3)

The more ancient a country – pls be patient – the greater its reverberations in large parts of the world.

Hadn’t Islamic revolution started in Iran, former ancient (non Arabic) Persia at the head of a thousands-year-old Empire, great model for Alexander and later Rome?

Which also explains why Fascism, invented by the Italians – a complete and rich State theory & practice – was so influential in the world despite Italy’s negligible economical importance at that time.

Which applies even more to today’s Egypt. A whole piece of the world is now boiling because of the land of the Pharaohs.

ψ

As French Fernand Braudel loved to say – “civilizations are not mortal.”

Related posts:

Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria etc. Arab Spring Revolutions seen from Rome (1)

The Southern Shores of the Mediterranean

Mare Nostrum, Patriarchy, Omertà. 1

Mare Nostrum, Patriarchy, Omertà. 2

Permanences. Rome and Carthage

Love Words from Egypt

Echoes from the Mediterranean. Part 1

Echoes from the Mediterranean. Part 2

Folks of the Mediterranean Sea

New Manius Papirius Lentulus’ Chapter Posted over at ‘Misce Stultitiam Consiliis’

Two ancient Roman women. A Latin (left) and a Romano-Celtic (right). A work by the Victorian painter A. Tadema, 1893. Click for a magnificent view of it

A new Manius’ chapter has just been posted over at Misce Stultitiam Consiliis, MoR’s new blog.

[Of course the MoR will remain my main home it goes without saying]

It’s been a tour de force. I’ll here summarize Manius’ plot as it unfolds so far as soon as possible. And I will reply to comments here at the MoR.

[Update: comments have been replied to, but, as for Manius’ plot, I don’t know people, after all that is happening in North Africa and Libya, which certainly concerns Roma (a main theme here at this blog.)

Man of Roma, Christmas 2008

 

Plus I have another post in mind on Giulio Andreotti, Aldo Moro, Banda della Magliana, Berlusconi, after dear Zeus is watching’ post and the debate around it: very intriguing idea this blogger had, it suffice to watch the trailer below I owe to Zeus.

Who, by the way, being watching, we better ALL behave folks 😉

We will see (which I say when I usually do nothing.)

Time now to hit the sack. Good night.]