Here’s another great by Alex Britti – go out and buy his music! Sadly, his own brilliantly original music video has been removed from YouTube, but here’s a version with another fave of mine, Neri Per Caso.
The assassination of Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician, provides food for thought. Fortuyn was “a politician who rejected multiculturalism, called for an end to immigration and excoriated Islam as a ‘backward culture’ for its intolerance of homosexuals, attitude to women and more” and “argue[d] fiercely that immigrants should integrate more wholeheartedly with the host nation.” (The Economist, May 9 and April 25, 2002). Fortuyn raised valid questions about immigration and cultural identity, questions that European countries urgently need to answer.
Due to low birthrates, there is a shortage of “native” European babies, and Europe faces a demographic decline which will lead to a disproportion between the number of people being paid state pensions, and the number of people in the workforce paying the taxes to pay those pensions. Europe needs an inflow of young people to fill the demographic gap, and to do the menial jobs that native Europeans consider beneath them. There is demand for labor, and it is supplied, both legally and il-, by economic migration from poorer countries.
Yet immigration worries many Europeans. The ugly side of these fears is expressed in support for extremists like Le Pen in France. Balanced thinkers like Fortuyn, however, deserve a hearing. He posed important questions about the mutual rights and obligations of immigrants and their new home countries.
The big question is integration: How much should immigrants be expected to adopt the values and mores of their new countries? The issues are thorny when people from more repressive cultures immigrate to liberal ones (and the Netherlands’ is one of the most liberal in the world!). Which practices can or should be defended on the grounds of culture and tradition?
Some obvious lines are drawn. Clitoridectomy (“female genital mutilation“) is illegal in European countries; some women have successfully bid for political asylum to avoid being sent back to countries where they would be forced to undergo it. But other cultural conundrums run the gamut from arranged marriage, to Muslim girls covering their heads in school.
There are even culture clashes between first- and second-generation immigrants, sadly illustrated by the case of Fadime Sahindal. She moved with her Kurdish family to Sweden when she was seven, and attended Swedish schools. So she grew up between cultures, a third-culture kid, neither wholly Swedish nor wholly Kurdish. Her parents nonetheless expected that she would behave as Kurdish girls traditionally do, e.g. submit to a marriage arranged by them, with a Kurdish man. She defied them by falling in love with a Swedish man, and was murdered by her own father for “dishonoring” her family. (More)
“European populations are aging, and cannot maintain their welfare states without massive immigration; immigration from Islamic countries threatens to change European values inalterably.” (Rod Dreher, National Review Online)
Pim Fortuyn had reason to fear such changes. He was flamboyantly gay – not a problem for most Dutch, but anathema to many conservative Muslims, even those living in Holland. His murder just before the elections may already have changed the Dutch political mindset: “Mr Balkenende [expected to be the next prime minister] repudiated the country’s multicultural approach to immigration and said newcomers should assimilate with Dutch culture.” (The Economist, May 16, 2002)
Jan 28, 2007 – Revisiting this article nearly five years later, it’s hard to say that much has changed for the better. The Netherlands is having an identity crisis, spurred on the one hand by a tradition of tolerance, on the other by events like the religiously-inspired murder of director Theo van Gogh.
Italy has had its own “honor” killing. Last summer a twenty-year-old woman of Pakistani descent, raised mostly in Italy, was murdered by her father and uncle for dishonoring the family by refusing an arranged marriage and living with an Italian man. Her relatives slit her throat and buried her in the garden.
A colleague told me of a friend of hers, a north African woman in her 30s who has been in Italy for many years and lives with her Italian boyfriend. But now that her family is coming to visit from the home country (yes, I am being deliberately vague), she is going through an elaborate ruse to hide the real facts of her life, for fear that her family would literally kill her were they to find out that she is living in sin. This woman must either submit to the will of her family (marry a Muslim man of their choosing) or live in subterfuge and danger forever. Or renounce her family, but it’s possible that this would not save her life, should the family consider itself dishonored by her behavior. How is an open, tolerant society like Italy’s supposed to deal with this? What can we do to help her and others like her?
I’d been reading more and more Italian blogs lately, especially since I met some Italian bloggers at a conference in Torino back in December. Luca had endeared himself to me by telling me, as soon as we met, that he had liked my piece on Bormio. And I’d gotten to know Lele Dainesi since he began doing PR consulting for TVBLOB (although, dazzled by the charms of my boss Lisa, he rather ignored me until I established my geek street cred by showing him my own site/blog).
The week after we hung out together in Torino, Lele, Luca, and many other Italian bloggers were at LeWeb3 in Paris (to my intense jealousy – I wanted to meet social networking researcher/goddess danah boyd – but my big boss wouldn’t pay for me to go). Amidst the controversy over how that conference was run, Lele amused himself by posting a Flickr photostream of “the women of LeWeb3.”
^ Lele
So, in answer to the question “Why are women so under-represented at tech conferences?”, I commented that it might be because we hadn’t been invited, and that, fond as I am of Lele, initiatives like his LeWeb photos make us uncomfortable: “We like to feel appreciated for our brains before our tette.”
Lele jokingly replied that he simply loves beautiful women and, if they have brains as well as breasts, so much the better.
(I was irritated by a similar posting of photos of The Babes of CES – really, guys, you can stop asking yourselves why women don’t come to tech conferences. As I commented on Thomas Hawk’s blog, it’s probably because we’re tired of trying to have conversations with your bald spots.)
^ Diego Bianchi aka Zoro
Another commenter pointed out that I didn’t need an invitation to come to a barCamp: anyone is welcome to attend and to speak. Then I received email from Amanda, a British woman (married to an Italian) living in Rome and working in tech (Excite), wanting to know if I was coming to barCamp, as she would like to meet me. Turns out she works with Diego, whom I knew from vlogEurope, who would also be at barCamp, along with others I knew, or wanted to meet.
So I bought a train ticket on Thursday (100 euros – ouch!) and arrived Friday evening at Rome’s Stazione Termini. From there I would take the metro to the end of the line, near the home of our friends Serena and Sandro. As I looked around me in the metro station, I reflected that, the further south you go in Italy, the more good-looking the men. Not that they’re ugly up where we live, but I’m often astonished at the sheer beauty of Roman men (I admit to prejudice: my husband was born in Rome, though that doesn’t make him a Roman). But no one’s allowed to take photos in the metro, so I couldn’t document the ones who particularly caught my attention that evening. (What you see on this page are men who attended barCamp.)
Serena picked me up at the metro station and brought me home to have dinner (and lots of wine) with the family. Sandro went over my Italian slang pages, making additions and corrections; eventually I want to get him on video demonstrating and explaining Roman slang. (I do have some video from that evening, finally edited and posted.)
Saturday morning Serena dropped me at the bus stop to begin an hour-long odyssey across Rome. The day was beautiful and the ride fun; I had to change bus lines once and ask directions several times (I was delighted at the friendliness and helpfulness of the Romans). I found my way to the Linux Club in via Libetta by around 9:45, for an event that was scheduled to start at 10.
This being Rome, we actually got started around 11:30, with the first speakers starting to talk while some of us were still registering for our badges and t-shirts. I stood in line with Amanda and Antonio (above), a winsome Sicilian philosopher who works for a company that makes adver-games (cool!).
barCamps are informal, and this one utterly chaotic: I had a hard time figuring out what was going on where and when, so I didn’t make it to any of the talks I thought I’d like to hear. But the ones I did end up listening to were interesting, and designed to provoke conversation rather than dispense wisdom in only one direction. Me being me, I got more than a few words in edgewise.
^ Federica Fabbiani, Andrea Cuius, Mystery Woman 2, Mystery Man J
During one such intervento, I pointed out that the Italian blogging community ignores the many foreigners blogging in and about Italy, whose perspective is different and potentially useful. Some people pitched in enthusiastically that they had recently discovered some of these blogs, and in the hallway afterwards several told me that they’d specifically discovered mine (thanks to a recent link from Lele), and enjoyed it – always good to hear!
When I wasn’t listening to “formal” presentations, there were plenty of other interesting conversations going on. Elisabetta, whom I met at vlogEurope, had come down from Milan to conduct live online interviews during dolMedia‘s coverage of the barCamp. She interviewed me about my 25 years online (a topic I had considered speaking on, but there were too many speakers already) and about TVBLOB.
I realized that Robin Good, whose blog I’ve been reading for years, was present – and the photo on his site does not nearly do him justice (nor does mine, unfortunately). I had not been able to locate his talk on Come pagare l’affitto con il sito (“how to pay the rent with your site”), but he was happy to give me individual advice. He, too, had followed Lele’s link to my site recently, so had some truly useful things to say. (I’m now mulling over what I’ll actually carry out.)
Robin is Italian, but writes his site in at least three languages (English, Italian, and Spanish, that I know of – and he may be adding more), and does a nice job of explaining all sorts of high tech stuff even to non-techies – I recommend it if you’re interested in understanding what we nerds are up to.
I spent a lot of the day talking with Amanda, who’s trying to set up a Girl Geeks Dinner in Italy – we need to find a woman who works at a high level in IT in Italy to be our inspirational speaker. I also talked a lot with Diego, about everything possible, and lots of other people. By the end of the day I was exhausted from talking.
Around 8:30 pm, 40 of us moved a few blocks down to a restaurant for a group dinner. Pastarito is part of a chain in Italy, almost American in its approach and menu styling. It wouldn’t have been my first choice for a meal, but it was nearby and could seat 40 people, so probably the best we could do in the circumstances. The food was okay, though nowhere near the level of the dinner I organized for vlogEurope (said she modestly).
^ waiter who looks like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, Fabrizio Ulisse
The dinner in any case was mostly about (more) conversation, though we were all running out of steam by the time we broke up at 11 pm. Diego dropped me and Luca at a metro stop, but the Roman metro closes for (ongoing) repairs every night at 9, and we couldn’t figure out where to catch the substitute bus. So we walked to a taxi stand, and finally found a taxi. Which cost a LOT less, for the distance, than it would have in Milan. I collapsed at Serena and Sandro’s around midnight.
^ Andrea Beggi, Mystery Man X, Pino (who shared an excellent dish of mussels at dinner)
Many thanks to Fabio Masetti (above) who organized it all, very well.
As for Les Boys: if all tech conferences were stocked with this many good-looking men, more women would probably go to them! (Sorry my photos aren’t so great – I really must get a better camera.)
I’ll leave it to the public to decide who is il piu’ figo (the hottest). If you’ve got better photos you’d like me to post or can provide links to (and names for – thanks to Luca for those already fixed), please do! Some photos I’ve already found are Luca’s.
The vast majority of Italians live in villages, towns, and cities – very few have ever experienced the American “norm” of living in a single-family dwelling surrounded by its own plot of land. The ancient Romans invented the apartment building, an urban space-saving solution which has remained popular throughout Italian history and across the country.
This means that almost everybody in Italy lives very close to somebody else. In these circumstances, you had better learn to love thy neighbor as thyself – or at the very least to get along with him – because you’ve got him practically in your lap.
The impact of this proximity is somewhat reduced by the fact that Italian apartment buildings are far more solidly built (of steel, concrete, and brick) than American ones (wood frames and plywood). I have experienced apartment living in both countries, and can tell you that sound doesn’t travel nearly as easily through Italian walls as American ones.
On the other hand, Italian homes are not sealed up and air-conditioned/heated all year as many American ones are. Whenever it’s warm enough (and sometimes even when it’s not), windows are wide open, and the only thing protecting you from your neighbors is distance – not nearly enough distance.
The first thing you notice is that Italians are LOUD. Which can be fun. During our early years in Milan, we – and everyone else in Italy – were watching a World Cup football game on a hot summer night, with our windows flung wide. Our living/dining room opened onto the courtyard of our building complex, along with dozens of our neighbors’. When Italy scored, the entire city erupted in cheers, echoing so loudly around the walls that it felt as if we were in a stadium. This gave us a pleasurable sense of being part of a community while sitting home on our own sofa.
You can hear the neighbors’ family arguments (and they can hear yours). You can smell what they’re having for dinner. Many Italians’ chief objection to having immigrants next door is that “their food smells funny”. Personally, I was very happy when a bunch of Sri Lankans moved in below us – their cooking smelled heavenly to me, and I wished they would invite us over. Except once a week or so when they had some exceptionally fishy fish.
There are laws of buon vicinato (good neighborship), including the times at which you must be quiet so people can sleep (including an afternoon nap period), and where you can hang your laundry (facing the interior courtyard – it can’t be visible from the street: we don’t want the place to look trashy).
Italians are accustomed to all this, and by and large it works well. Neighbors greet each other in the halls, chat in the elevators, and generally manage to get along.
But sometimes they don’t. For weeks now, the Italian media has been obsessed with a crime that took place in Erba, a mid-sized town between Como and Lecco. A young woman, her mother, and her two-year-old son were murdered in their apartment, along with a neighbor whose husband was also left for dead with his throat slashed, but survived after being pulled from the apartment, which had been set afire in an attempt to destroy the evidence.
Suspicion first fell on the young woman’s Tunisian husband, who had just been released from a minor jail sentence (drug-related), but it quickly became clear that he had a cast-iron alibi: he was in Tunisia.
Last week the survivor was finally in condition to speak and provide information leading to the arrest of the downstairs neighbors, who eventually collapsed under interrogation and admitted to the premeditated massacre. The two families had been quarrelling for years over the noisiness of the murdered family: loud quarrels between the Tunisian husband and his Italian wife, the child crying, etc.
The young woman’s parents also lived in the building, so it wasn’t strange that her mother was present when the neighbors came up armed with knives and a crowbar, ready to kill – they were happy to dispatch the mother as well, whom they considered an impicciona (interfering busybody).
That the other neighbors got involved was almost accidental: they had heard the screaming, thought it was the usual family feud below, and decided to wait til it blew over to take their dog for a walk. When the wife finally went out with the dog, she found the apartment in flames, saw the horror inside, and ran screaming for her husband. The murderers then tried, only half successfully, to remove them as witnesses.
This kind of large-scale slaughter would scarcely raise an eyebrow in the US, but in Italy it’s big news. And I’m glad of that – I don’t want to live in a country that takes such violence for granted. The Italian public is really upset, apparently because it’s the neighbors. Had it been the Tunisian husband, they would have shrugged it off: What can you expect from these Muslim immigrants? But – my god! – the (Italian) neighbors! What is this world coming to?
It’s nice that Italians in general trust their neighbors enough to be so shocked at this betrayal. In many parts of the US, being murdered by one’s neighbors would be no particular surprise.
A newspaper headline January 13th read: “Massacre in Erba: The Couple Had Already Tried to Kill Them”. (I did not bother to read the details.)
Americans may be the most-photographed people in the world. Many American families, especially those who have children, sit for a formal photographic portrait every year, documenting the stages of their lives as the children are born and grow. (For holiday portraits, some families even dress in matching clothing, which may be taking things a little too far…)
Most American schools publish yearbooks which include an individual portrait of every child, every year, and parents are expected to buy packages of their kids’ yearbook photos to share with friends and family. When I was in school, you had to get the package that included lots of little copies of your picture, to give out as tokens of friendship.
Every occasion in an American child’s life may be marked with a formal portrait: graduation (there are graduation ceremonies for kindergarten!), sports teams, school events and trips, religious rites, proms, etc. It’s quite common in American homes to see walls entirely covered in family portraits and commemorative photos.
Part of the reason, I think, is that many American extended families are geographically dispersed and don’t see each other frequently, so it’s nice to have photos to send to family members and friends far away – I certainly enjoy the Christmas card family photos that I receive. Doting grandparents hang photos of their grandchildren, and insist on giving guests the full tour of the family, which I find very sweet (and informative).
In the Italian homes I’ve visited, I haven’t seen evidence of such a strong tradition of family portraits (nor have I heard of any offer of relatively cheap portrait packages such as you find in the US). But why would there be? In Italy, extended family members tend to live in the same town, same neighborhood, and possibly under the same roof! They see each other all the time – no need for reminders. If anything, they’ll have a few silver-framed foto ricordi (photo memories) from special vacations, and probably a wedding picture, on view somewhere in the house. (Weddings in Italy are photographed and videoed as much as anywhere else – a topic for another article.)
When you do see family portraits in Italy, they may be paintings. After all, many of the paintings in museums today were originally created as someone’s family portrait, and, in Italy, families go back a very long way: some fine paintings have simply never left the possession of the original family. The Titian portrait of a cardinal that I once saw at the home of a classmate of my daughter Ross was there because the cardinal was an ancient, distant relative of the family.
My husband’s family is neither wealthy nor noble, but we nonetheless have some paintings to remember them by. These are hung in the most “formal” area of our house, while – in deference to my American sensibilities – photos of friends and family run up the walls along the stairs to Ross’ room on the top floor. My aunt Rosie had a wall in her house covered in several generations of family photos; I liked being part of that, and, when she died, I brought back some of those pictures to add to our own picture wall.
I haven’t had an American-style studio portrait done since I was in college. We photos of Ross done a few times, but Enrico, Ross, and I have never yet had occasion to sit for a family portrait together.
I usually feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, and am not convinced that the average studio photographer could accomplish a shot of me that I would like. So I was intrigued by the photos my dad and his wife Ruth had done at a photo studio near their home in Milton Keynes (UK). The results were terrific, and very different from the usual stiffly-posed studio portraits I’ve seen. And they had so much fun doing it that Ruth gave gift packages, first to her sister and brother-in-law, then to me and Ross during our recent visit.
photo at top: Ross ready for an evening out. Over her shoulder you can see one of the portraits we had done when she was small.
