Is the writer accurately telling us the "Emperor has no Clothes", Or
he is he a "Chicken Little", or is the truth somewhere in between??
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Thanks to Bob Masullo
OF MISHAPS AND BUCK-PASSING
By Beppe Severgnini
Corriere della Sera
What happened in Molise, where 26 children died after an earthquake crushed their school, is not just terrible. It is embarrassing and worrying. It's embarrassing because everyone is passing the buck.
In a country where everyone seems to be in charge, no one is in charge when it comes time to take responsibility. And it is worrying because it reveals the shortcomings of the country: Today it's a school, tomorrow, who knows?
These are shortcomings that we hide as we congratulate ourselves for everything else - something Italians are particularly good at. The Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung writes: "The world is imitating the Italian way of living." Like puppies, we lap it up.
Sure, it's true that Italians live well. No one eats, drinks or dresses quite like we do. But when a roof falls on our children's heads, how relevant is it that you're well-dressed?
Keep in mind, this is not defeatism; it's common sense. No one can touch the way we dress, eat or drink, so let's worry about the rest.
Let's start worrying about a country whose infrastructure is getting old quickly. Have you seen the Iraqi trains riding on our railways next to the Eurostars? Have you seen what condition the stations are in? While the Italian way of life makes such a splash in the world, Alitalia is closing one route after another: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Beijing.
Once upon a time we didn't even want to fix these problems. Now I'm afraid it's too late to fix them if we did. The necessary money - and it is a lot of money - is not available. It has gone into pensions, illusions and black holes. Take a little tour of the South and see the hundreds of public construction projects that have been abandoned. You think this happens in France and Germany? No, it certainly does not happen. If it did, the people responsible for them would be in jail.
The depressing image I have of Italy is that of a country that ate up its provisions and now winter has arrived.
Some might ask, how has the rest of the West managed to pay for its future - schools, hospitals, industries? Simple. They accepted suffering and change. In the 1970s, the United States invested in technology. In the '80s, Great Britain decided to sacrifice its obsolete industrial system, while in Spain they created modern cities. In the '90s, Germany tore down a wall and rebuilt a country.
Not us. Our answer to the vision of "a rebuilt Barcelona" was the famous "Milano da bere", or "Milan in a glass." Now Spain has modern cities, and our glass is half empty.
The real shame is that no one talks about this anymore. We're tired of examining our consciences. In order to change, we have to have the courage to draw the only possible conclusion from the tragedy in Molise: that Italy needs to be renewed, and in a hurry.
But we won't. Actually, we won't even admit that there is a problem. As the pre-World War II prime minister Francesco Severio Nitti said many years ago, speaking about the future of Italy, "The road is not easy. The air is cloudy with 150 years of lies."
Now those years have multiplied, yet the air is still the same.
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Italy Daily -November 9, 2002
http://www.italydaily.concento.it/canali/main_italydaily.jhtml
