Rome. Stepmother or Alma Mater?

Italian version

A few observations on Rome by the Italian sociologist Franco Ferrarotti regarding the period starting from the Italian unification, when Rome became Italy’s capital in 1870, until today.

They appeared in two interviews published in Milan’s Corriere della Sera and Rome’s Messaggero, between 2005 and 2006, at a time when the Paris banlieu had exploded with riots.

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1. Ferrarotti (Corriere della Sera, April 2, 2006) observed that Rome always found it difficult to be loved by Italians, for her double role of capital of Italy and of the Vatican state. Italians always felt Rome as too universal, Ferrarotti argues. Rome, in short, gli starebbe larga, was / is too large to them.

According to Ferrarotti, only provincial aesthetes like Fellini and Pasolini really loved Rome. Ferrarotti published 40 years ago Roma da capitale a periferia (Bari, Laterza 1970), a book that depicted a suburban anti-Rome totally different from the celebrated historical centre.

Today, thanks to years of good administration – Ferrarotti observes – Roman suburbs have evolved. Suburbia, together with historical Rome, have merged into a real capital. A celebrity like “Michele Placido is now on stage in Tor Bella Monaca, a very peripheral borgata (eg a working class suburb).”

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According to Ferrarotti there are no potentially explosive suburbs in Rome such as those in Paris since immigration is recent here. In 15 years, perhaps, Roman immigrants’ children and grand-children will protest for their rights.

Rome as a capital, Ferrarotti believes, is more Mediterranean than European, due to both her nature and her mediation capabilities. However she is also a religious capital, like Mecca or Jerusalem, which makes Rome something way beyond Europe (observation quoted in our first post, a sort of introduction to this blog).

The problem has always been that of urban planning management, although the old alliance among real estate business, finance and political power seems broken today thanks to increasing democracy. There is a tendency towards polycentrism, which is good since the city is allowed to breathe.

In short, Rome is not matrigna (stepmother) anymore, as Ferrarotti had called her in 1991.

“Today Rome has become alma mater (Latin for nourishing mother) even though she is also at times lupa (she-wolf) with her children.” Places once bleak like Quarticciolo or Alessandrino are now urban areas. “Instead of a progressively rotting suburbia we have had a process of social auto-promotion: unlike other large cities no favelas have developed here.”

2. Now the november 2005 article appeared in Rome’s daily Il Messaggero.

Professor Ferrarotti, do you think Prodi is right? Will Italian suburbs be on fire as it happened in France?
“No, Italian suburbs have nothing in common with the Parisian banlieue.”

What is the difference?
“A third generation of immigrants – children and grand-children of the old pieds-noirs – inhabits the Parisian banlieue and feels that they are rightful French citizens. In schools though francocentrism is dominant while Maghrebine culture and roots are ignored, which alienates these youngsters from society. First-generation immigrants had shown gratitude to France that had hosted them. The second and third generation, on the other hand, observe how their fathers are threatened by ostracism, which turns the old gratitude into hate. It is a tragedy and no parallel can be drawn between the French and the Italian situation”.

Italian suburbs are then the best of possible worlds?
“I wrote a book in 1970, Roma da Capitale a periferia (“Rome from Capital to Suburbia”). Today I would rather speak of Rome’s transformation from suburbia into a real capital. Slums have disappeared. In Alessandrina, a borgata, 50 percent of the students are non-EU. They don’t have problems. It’s their teachers who have problems, instead.”

Why, Professor?
Because these non-EU kids’ parents earn more than the Italian teachers themselves, who, despite their being badly paid, must increase their efforts when facing a multiethnic audience. Therefore they lose their motivation. Were I a politician I would rather worry for possible protests by underpaid teachers and young unemployed graduates. These, not the immigrants, are the new poverty-stricken people in Italy, which could give rise to explosive protests”

No imminent immigrants danger, then.
“No. Problems could perhaps arise from CPTs (Centres of temporary permanence) created by the Turco Napolitano bill (num. 40, 1998). If CPTs became like concentration camps, yes, there could be some danger. But as of now the situation in Italy doesn’t seem that difficult. Nothing comparable to the suburbs in Paris, Frankfurt or London.”

An excessive alarm, that from Prodi ...
Yes, a bit apocalyptic, to me. Nevertheless, his statements imply some insight. Prodi invites us to think about a process of citizenship and integration of non-EU people in our country. I find this right, necessary. If a true immigrants-integration process is set out in our country the mine is deactivated before it can explode.”

Echoes from the Mediterranean. Part 2

The French historian Fernand Braudel writes:

“Civilizations are not mortal. They survive transformations and catastrophes and when necessary rise up again from their ashes (…). Islam probably sprang from desert Arabia, crossed by caravans and with a long past behind, but it is above all a territory acquired by the conquest of Arabic horsemen and camel-drivers even too easily: Syria, Egypt, Iran, northern Africa. Islam is primarily a heir of the Near East, a whole series of cultures, economies and ancient sciences. Its heart lies in the narrow space that goes from Mecca to Cairo, Damask and Baghdad. (…)”

“A civilization is in fact not only a religion – however a religion may be at the centre of any cultural system. It is an art of living as well, i.e. the reproduction of thousands of behaviours. In ‘The Arabian Nights’ saluting a king means ‘kissing before him the earth amid his hands’. Well, it is a gesture already customary at the court of the Parthian king Khosrau (531-579 AD) – Braudel continues – and it is the same gesture that in 1500 and 1600 (and later) European ambassadors in Istanbul, in Ispahan or in Delhi tried to elude finding it extremely humiliating for themselves and for the princes they represented. [The ancient Greek Historian] Herodotus, [490-425 BC] was upset by some [Ancient] Egyptian manners: ‘In the middle of the road, as a salutation, they prostrate the one in front of the other, lowering their hands down to their knees.’ “

“Think about the traditional costumes of the Moslems whose evolution will be very slow [see picture above]. It is already recognizable – Braudel argues – in the dress of the ancient Babylonians, described by the same Herodotus [more than] twenty-five centuries ago: ‘The Babylonians first of all wear a flax tunic down to their feet (which we would today call gandura, notes E. F. Gautier), and on top of it another wool tunic (which we would call djellaba); then they wear a short white mantle (we would say: a short white burnus); and they cover their heads with a mitre (a fez, today, or tarbush).’ And we could continue talking of the houses (pre-Islamic), and of food and superstitions: the hand of Fatima, … it already adorned the Carthaginian funeral steles (see figure below).”

“Islam is evidently tied to the compact historical ground of the Near East.” (…) In short – Braudel concludes – any study of our present ways of thinking necessarily has to look at the endless past of the civilizations.”

(La Mediterranée, by Fernard Braudel, Flammarion 1985. Translation by Man of Roma. Square bracket text is by MoR)

(The end )

Italian version

Echoes from the Mediterranean. Part 1

A few days ago, when listening to Diana Haddad, an Arabic Lebanese pop singer, something echoed in my mind.

Before the war (started in 1974) Lebanon was called the Switzerland of the Middle-East. In the 50s Beirut was one of the financial capitals of the planet and the intellectual capital of the Arab world. It offered, among the rest, highest financial skills to the Saudi Arabians and a very convenient interface for Western firms towards the Arabs, rich in oil.

It also offered an Arabian Nights highly refined dolce vita attracting all kinds of VIPs, Hollywood and international actors, tycoons plus the most splendid ladies of the epoch. Beirut was a synonym of luxury, of all pleasures combined and of intelligent cosmopolitism. Three languages were (and are) there spoken: Arab, French and English.

Some dear Italian friends of mine studied in Beirut in their youth and are in fact fluent in these 3 languages. When we were children we heard all these magic tales from our parents and looked amazed at pictures in gossip magazines.

To the history-addicted all this flourishing is not surprising. Lebanon IS the land of the Phoenicians, highly refined merchants since Antiquity and ancestors of mighty Carthage.

Now that Beirut’s glamour is gone – the city has been partially rebuilt but its premier role seems to have moved to London, Dubai, Cyprus etc. – this place is still highly civilised though, since civilisations are not mortal I believe, and, just as an example, Lebanese pop music (and culture) is probably the most successful among today’s Arabic youth, being seen as ‘modern’ but of course a bit frowned upon by the traditionalists.

Here a song by the delighful Diana Haddad for you to listen.

Northern Mediterranean youth cannot but feel how similar these people are to us, and yet portions of this music and other details we feel are diverse. One can say that this diversity is provided by Islam. Yes but, I am asking myself, is Islam really so alien?

Well, yes and no. One moment we feel it is the Mediterranean (hence not so different from Southern Europe,) another moment it is Persia, Arabia, Baghdad, Pakistan, Northern India, Indonesia, West and East Asia in short, both very different from Europe.

This diversity is though exciting. Why should it scare us?

As we promised in an earlier post and its notes, this writing is the first of a series dedicated to Islam, seen as exotic and yet somewhat close to our Roman heart. We are not here to judge but to learn (and possibly communicate.)

Once more we’ll ask French historian Fernand Braudel for inspiration and guidance. See you at our next post then.

Italian version

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For the same theme though in a wider picture:

Mare Nostrum, Patriarchy, Omertà. 1
The Southern Shores of the Mediterranean

Man of Roma

Italian translation

I am a man of Rome, Italy. Some of my ancestors, many centuries ago, were already citizens of Rome. So I guess I am a real Roman, or sort of, since some barbaric blood must unquestionably flow in my veins, Germanic probably and Gallic from the Alpine region.

My mother tongue is Italian, not very different from the Latin spoken by the common people at the times of the late Roman Empire.

The reason I am attempting to communicate in this Northern language – which I do not master entirely and which, though a bit chilly to my heart, I find not entirely deprived of charm – is that variety excites me like a drug and I am tired of talking mostly to my countrymen, this lingua franca, English, allowing me hopefully a wider exchange of ideas.

Why this blog

One reason, I have said, is wider communication.

But what can a Roman of today say to the world? Such a big statement (if there weren’t the Web to make it not entirely such.)

I think it is a great privilege to be born and to be raised here, such a special place, to the extent that something must have penetrated, something distinctive and worthy of being transmitted – in order to be able, in our turn, to receive.

I hope for comments from Western and non-Western people, since Rome and the Romans have a mediation nature that comes from the Mediterranean.

Rome in some way is more Mediterranean than European.

However, as she was already universal during the ancient Roman days, she has continued to be universal as a religious centre, like Mecca or Jerusalem, which makes Rome something way beyond Europe (*).

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Religion will not be a central topic here (there excepting ancient religions, of course) since, greatly respecting all faiths I personally have none, being an agnostic.

I like to think that I am similar to those Romans of the past who counted mostly on knowledge and reason (the followers of Epicure, Ἐπίκουρος – one among many possible ancient examples.)

Three Reasons for Uniqueness

Ages have passed since this great city was the capital of the known world, this role now being played by New York, London or Shanghai, perhaps.

Rome is though unique in the first place because “among all the greatest cities of the ancient world – Nineveh, Babylon, Alexandria, Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Antiochia – she is the only one that has continued to exist without any interruption, never reduced to a semi-abandoned village but rather finding herself often in the middle of world events and, equally often, paying for that a price (**).”

Secondly, and more importantly, Rome is the city of the soul (as Byron, Goethe and Victor Hugo put it,) of our authentic Western soul, since Europe and the West were shaped here and these roots are sacred – to me surely, and I think and hope to most of us.

These roots we have to rediscover in order to better open up to others in a new spirit of humanitas and conciliation (two chief components of the everlasting Roman mind.)

We all here in the West must encourage a totally new attitude which may enable us to better face both our present crisis of values and the radical changes looming ahead which might cause our swift decline.

Lastly, Rome, the eternal city, is unique because she is also one of the most beautiful cities in the world, if not the most beautiful.

Beyond her imperial testimonies, her stupendous urban spaces and squares, even small piazzas and alleys radiate that “sacred aura” which comes from the millennia and to which ever increasing multitudes from every land come to pay their tribute.

The capital of our beloved and civilised French cousins, Lutetia Parisiorum (it’s how the Romans called Paris, after the Parisii, a tribe of the Gallic Senones,) was not but a village until the year 1000 AD. “1700 years younger than Rome! It shows, one can feel it (***).”

Fragments Sent in a Bottle

Scattered fragments of this special identity inserted in a bottle and sent across the Web: this shall be the activity of this blog.

The conveyor of the message is not so important in relation to the greatness of the source and to one ingredient this conveyor might, willingly or unwillingly, possess: he perhaps being like a fossil from a distant past which is dead though, astoundingly enough, alive yet in so many Italians.

Let us admit it. In some central and especially southern areas of this country, minds and habits survive that may puzzle foreigners, historical remnants whose disadvantages towards modernity appear evident. Are they only disadvantages?

All Things Considered

This and other topics will be discussed here by a 60-year-old Roman (2014: 66) whose knowledge can be located at a medium level, with interfaces towards the upper and the lower layers of knowledge.

He will try his best to transmit something useful to others (and to himself) having been an ancient-history & literature educator for 16 years, then converted to Systems Engineering & Training for the last 14 years.

He hopes this blog will allow him to brush up humanities back, which is daunting at his age (not to mention the crazy idea of blogging in English, Italian and bits of other languages.)

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If not profundity of knowledge, he might though have an advantage (still to be proved) over many foreign commentators even born in one of the ex-provinces of the ancient Roman Empire.

The plus of being a witness from right here.

The advantage of being a Man of Roma.