PeK
14-02-2007, 09:14
ecco come ci vedono all'estero
ROME, Feb. 13 — The shrugged shoulder is real, a daily reminder here that part of Italy’s charm rests in the fact that it does not much care for rules. Italians can be downright poetic about it, this inclination to dodge taxes, to cut lines, to erect entire neighborhoods without permits or simply to run red lights, while smoking or talking on the phone.
“We undervalue the law of cause and effect,” said Lisa Tumino, who runs a bed-and-breakfast here near the Vatican. “We overvalue the law of the universe.”
This nugget was mined with a single, simple question: Why were Ms. Tumino, in her beat-up white Nissan, and two dozen other Roman drivers parked on Via delle Fornaci on a recent rainy day when parking there clogged traffic, made the roads more dangerous and was, in fact, illegal?
Boiled down, she was saying: No sterile, one-size-fits-all rule book applies here. Italians prefer a more individual justice for their reality and the long history that shaped it. In this case, ancient streets do not allow for adequate parking.
But every now and again, Italians wake up to the unpleasant reality that whatever the reasons, however lightly it can be explained, breaking the rules is also part of Italy’s malaise. Two weeks ago, a 38-year-old policeman with two children was killed during a riot at a soccer stadium in Sicily — two years after a law mandating antihooliganism measures was passed and widely ignored.
Of 31 stadiums surveyed after the killing, only six were found to comply with the law.
In this case, a life was lost (though some skeptics noted that compliance might not have saved that life, because the riot happened outside the stadium). But in this and scores of other ways, contempt for rules ends up to be not so charming.
Beppe Grillo, the Italian political satirist, keeps a running list on his Web site of members of the Italian Parliament or Italian representatives to the European Parliament, 25 in all, who have been convicted of crimes.
Just last week, an Italian newspaper reported the existence of a new little town outside Naples, of 50 structures and 435 apartments, for which not a single building permit had been issued. About 31,000 illegal structures reportedly went up in 2005 alone.
Just last year, Italy slid into the last place in Europe for direct investment from the United States, with an economy that has struggled for years. Business people complain about a complicated culture of rules — those broken, as well as those impossible to understand.
Paolo Catalfamo, now the managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, recalled the six years he spent managing an American investment fund here.
“The issue I spent most of my time on was trying to explain to my headquarters in San Francisco why the rules they received had to be interpreted,” he said. “They didn’t get the concept that rules don’t have one meaning only, that they have many meanings.”
Like most things in this nation, built on layers of the past, physical and mental, it is not always easy to explain. The standard answer encompasses Italy’s fragmented history, of often arbitrary regional rule by foreigners, local nobles and a church with claims of the blessing of God.
Some experts contend that the Roman Catholic Church holds no small responsibility: Sins can be forgiven. No single standard exists for salvation; each person’s life is weighed on its own. Relatives of the dead can pray for intervention from about 2,500 saints — a system perfectly calibrated for Italy’s individualistic ethos.
Faced with greedy and hostile authority over many chaotic centuries, it is argued, Italians fell back into the idea that only the family can be trusted. Everything outside the family and clan can be ignored, or tricked into submission.
“We are a people of saints, heroes, improvisers and artful fixers; above all, we are cunning,” a 1986 study on Italian values concluded, finding the nation’s mind-set little changed over time. “Our cunningness consists of believing that others will take advantage of us if we do not first take advantage of them.”
The state responded to its own weakness by imposing too many laws. Alexander Stille, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism who has written books about Italy, cited figures from several years ago showing that Italy had some 90,000 laws on the books, while France had 7,325 and Germany, 5,587. But Italy’s laws are poorly enforced. The country also has the slowest courts in Europe.
“The problem is with so many rules, it’s almost impossible to obey them all, and they are applied badly,” he said. “Italians are almost forced into illegality by a poorly functioning system.”
While the centrist politicians who ruled Italy since World War II were plenty corrupt, many experts say the antirules culture reached it apex in the political career of Silvio Berlusconi. Mr. Stille argues that Mr. Berlusconi, twice elected prime minister, created a political constituency of tax cheats and people with illegally built houses.
“If you ask me for 50 percent or more in taxes,” Mr. Berlusconi once said, “it’s unjust, and I feel morally justified, if I have the possibility, to evade them.”
And, dutifully, after each of his elections, in 1994 and 2000, he introduced amnesties for people with unpaid taxes and illegal houses.
In the last two weeks, in the anger over the death at the stadium, some Italians have asked whether anything can be done. The short answer, most experts say, is probably not.
The government of the new prime minister, Romano Prodi, is weak. And in Europe, national culture has proved resistant to change, frustrating backers of a tighter, more coherent European Union of 27 idiosyncratic states.
Still optimists hold out hope: Mr. Catalfamo, of the Chamber of Commerce, says that even if foreign investment is low, it is easier to do business in Italy now than it was 10 years ago. Others note that the nation’s political class is old and cannot hold on forever. Many argue that Italy’s young people are different from their parents.
“Young Italians are traveling more,” said Carlo Alberto Morosetti, 44, a business editor at one of Italy’s public television stations. “They surf the Web. They speak more languages.”
Plus, life here is very good — the food, the sea, an unhurried way of living, at a standard that may have slipped in recent years but remains remarkably high. The question, with so much so good, is whether there is any will to change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/world/europe/14italy.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
ROME, Feb. 13 — The shrugged shoulder is real, a daily reminder here that part of Italy’s charm rests in the fact that it does not much care for rules. Italians can be downright poetic about it, this inclination to dodge taxes, to cut lines, to erect entire neighborhoods without permits or simply to run red lights, while smoking or talking on the phone.
“We undervalue the law of cause and effect,” said Lisa Tumino, who runs a bed-and-breakfast here near the Vatican. “We overvalue the law of the universe.”
This nugget was mined with a single, simple question: Why were Ms. Tumino, in her beat-up white Nissan, and two dozen other Roman drivers parked on Via delle Fornaci on a recent rainy day when parking there clogged traffic, made the roads more dangerous and was, in fact, illegal?
Boiled down, she was saying: No sterile, one-size-fits-all rule book applies here. Italians prefer a more individual justice for their reality and the long history that shaped it. In this case, ancient streets do not allow for adequate parking.
But every now and again, Italians wake up to the unpleasant reality that whatever the reasons, however lightly it can be explained, breaking the rules is also part of Italy’s malaise. Two weeks ago, a 38-year-old policeman with two children was killed during a riot at a soccer stadium in Sicily — two years after a law mandating antihooliganism measures was passed and widely ignored.
Of 31 stadiums surveyed after the killing, only six were found to comply with the law.
In this case, a life was lost (though some skeptics noted that compliance might not have saved that life, because the riot happened outside the stadium). But in this and scores of other ways, contempt for rules ends up to be not so charming.
Beppe Grillo, the Italian political satirist, keeps a running list on his Web site of members of the Italian Parliament or Italian representatives to the European Parliament, 25 in all, who have been convicted of crimes.
Just last week, an Italian newspaper reported the existence of a new little town outside Naples, of 50 structures and 435 apartments, for which not a single building permit had been issued. About 31,000 illegal structures reportedly went up in 2005 alone.
Just last year, Italy slid into the last place in Europe for direct investment from the United States, with an economy that has struggled for years. Business people complain about a complicated culture of rules — those broken, as well as those impossible to understand.
Paolo Catalfamo, now the managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy, recalled the six years he spent managing an American investment fund here.
“The issue I spent most of my time on was trying to explain to my headquarters in San Francisco why the rules they received had to be interpreted,” he said. “They didn’t get the concept that rules don’t have one meaning only, that they have many meanings.”
Like most things in this nation, built on layers of the past, physical and mental, it is not always easy to explain. The standard answer encompasses Italy’s fragmented history, of often arbitrary regional rule by foreigners, local nobles and a church with claims of the blessing of God.
Some experts contend that the Roman Catholic Church holds no small responsibility: Sins can be forgiven. No single standard exists for salvation; each person’s life is weighed on its own. Relatives of the dead can pray for intervention from about 2,500 saints — a system perfectly calibrated for Italy’s individualistic ethos.
Faced with greedy and hostile authority over many chaotic centuries, it is argued, Italians fell back into the idea that only the family can be trusted. Everything outside the family and clan can be ignored, or tricked into submission.
“We are a people of saints, heroes, improvisers and artful fixers; above all, we are cunning,” a 1986 study on Italian values concluded, finding the nation’s mind-set little changed over time. “Our cunningness consists of believing that others will take advantage of us if we do not first take advantage of them.”
The state responded to its own weakness by imposing too many laws. Alexander Stille, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism who has written books about Italy, cited figures from several years ago showing that Italy had some 90,000 laws on the books, while France had 7,325 and Germany, 5,587. But Italy’s laws are poorly enforced. The country also has the slowest courts in Europe.
“The problem is with so many rules, it’s almost impossible to obey them all, and they are applied badly,” he said. “Italians are almost forced into illegality by a poorly functioning system.”
While the centrist politicians who ruled Italy since World War II were plenty corrupt, many experts say the antirules culture reached it apex in the political career of Silvio Berlusconi. Mr. Stille argues that Mr. Berlusconi, twice elected prime minister, created a political constituency of tax cheats and people with illegally built houses.
“If you ask me for 50 percent or more in taxes,” Mr. Berlusconi once said, “it’s unjust, and I feel morally justified, if I have the possibility, to evade them.”
And, dutifully, after each of his elections, in 1994 and 2000, he introduced amnesties for people with unpaid taxes and illegal houses.
In the last two weeks, in the anger over the death at the stadium, some Italians have asked whether anything can be done. The short answer, most experts say, is probably not.
The government of the new prime minister, Romano Prodi, is weak. And in Europe, national culture has proved resistant to change, frustrating backers of a tighter, more coherent European Union of 27 idiosyncratic states.
Still optimists hold out hope: Mr. Catalfamo, of the Chamber of Commerce, says that even if foreign investment is low, it is easier to do business in Italy now than it was 10 years ago. Others note that the nation’s political class is old and cannot hold on forever. Many argue that Italy’s young people are different from their parents.
“Young Italians are traveling more,” said Carlo Alberto Morosetti, 44, a business editor at one of Italy’s public television stations. “They surf the Web. They speak more languages.”
Plus, life here is very good — the food, the sea, an unhurried way of living, at a standard that may have slipped in recent years but remains remarkably high. The question, with so much so good, is whether there is any will to change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/world/europe/14italy.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin