It’s ironic that after this entire quarter using our Rome Borders class to effectively pulverize every precognition ever made about what defines an Italian, at the very last we are asked to rebuild those walls. So what is left to build a national identity around when heritage, language, philosophy, politics and pizza have all been nullified? The difficulty in defining this comes not from some insane complexity but rather from an extreme vagueness—one so ethereal it ends up supporting the communist claim that there is no logic or substance to the concept of nationality.
—just a note: I use specific examples of people here but am talking about the general feeling of Italy. Because, Julie, I have already had to to rewrite this assignment at least three times to came out anything but racist.,—
Fatheaded pride: it is the first and most important characteristic for Italy. Often it manifests as national pride akin to some forms of more zealous American patriotism, but it can have any focus. The people that come to mind first are mostly anti-immigration advocates, the figurehead of whom (for me) is the storekeeper who kicked me out of her shop upon asking about the riots. The group’s ranks are filled out by the faceless figures that fill the stories of the Charitas speaker, of our readings and especially of Razvy. Razvy is a very sweet Romanian boy who Teo befriended a few weeks ago and has been accompanying us on various extracurricular adventures. He has gained my complete trust (both in personal judgment and telling the truth) and told us about his own experiences with overt discrimination. So many of the people you can’t avoid calling Italian—the native born patriots—are included in this category that there’s no avoiding it in defining the land that nurtured them.
Of course, the pride doesn’t have to be in being Italian, nor so clearly negative as being based on racism. The pride many of the shopkeepers around Campo—I’m thinking specifically about the cheese shop over by Piazza Farnese and the butcher’s shop just below our apartments—express pride for their little shops and their occupation is another form of this. The key is that it is loud, dramatic and hyperbolic.
Related to pride, once I explain the long version, is the mental characteristic of acceptance. The idea here is that most Italians decide on a thought process and stick with it. They don’t worry about any possible lapses in logic along the way or, once they’re set in it, analyze any other angles. In one sense it is close-mindedness, but again there are also more benign examples. Italian national patriots embrace the many great feats of the ancients, as well as the famed men of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, all over the peninsula but ignore the fact that for most of its history Italy was a place of clashing city-states rather than a coherent nation. Likewise no one seems to be perturbed by the many contradictions visible from the street: It is a city dependant on immigrants which distrusts and even hates non-Italians. It has some of the richest and most famous history in the world yet has an inefficient and bureaucratic educational system. Its best artists glorified pagan mythology just as much as biblical stories, with catholic cardinals footing the bills. The most historic areas are the least Roman and the most Roman areas are outside the traditional city limits. Even the Italians who do see these paradoxes don’t act to correct them. If they did, Italy would not have the endearing quirkiness that results.
And finally there is a relaxed atmosphere to Italy—even in the bustling, bristling Naples—that accompanies the acceptance of the status quo. Because there is less drive to progress than in the States (seen in the fight over the Ara Pacis) there is no reason to waste more energy than necessary on unenjoyable tasks.
Really, the best way to summarize Italy is to compare it to Hawaii.
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