The Identity Problem in Italy

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Aeternitas

I've yet to hear Sicilians claiming Germanicness.

A bit entangled, but it is possible if you have ever heard of a Greek claiming Germanicness, since Sicilians are a Siculo-Helleno-Romance people (or something along those lines).

You Germans don't trick me. I know that there is a German conspiracy to conquer first Europe and then the world by making people believe that they are Germanics, and sending German assimilators disguised as tourists. Very clever, but it won't work with me. Spain will be the last stand against subliminal Germanization.

Mynydd vill never vear sandals mit socks! Nein!

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

I recommend this book to those curious about the "Italian question"

To me, the poverty problem in the south is found in history. Breha is right, in the south we didn't have a lot of the priviliges that the northerners had. We were left with the byzantines who had the mentality of keeping southern Italy no matter what. When the Normans came some people felt it was the answer to the problems. After constant raid after raid, everytime a foreign power came in, it was chaos all over again. Hence why the mafia was founded, a power source that would stay there even after the Normans or the Bourbons or whoever was in power at the moment left.
There was no constant stability. Things kept getting re-administred by the new individuals in power.
But, for those who complain that no advances have been made in the south, I have some changes to bring to light:
-the farming investments for Puglia have made Puglia the number one provider of Pasta for all of Europe and other parts of the world.
-farmings investment in Calabria has turned the province into of the top citrus providers for Europe.
-tourist investment in the amalfi coast has made it a hot tourist
destination. Before, not many people would have wanted to visit.
-the GDP has improved to the point that its almost at the European union median
The south won't change as long as the black hand is in charge. The black market also really ends up making the situation bad since a lot of the times the municipalities do not gain money from this trades,hence,lose tax money.This article might be useful for those who are curious to read about
the income of Europeans.
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/pls...2006-EN-AP.PDF

I don't understand why you say that our minicipality age rights were privileges.

We had to wage a bloody war against the german emperor to win our liberties: the emperor fought with the usual medieval cruelty (during a siege captive lombards were tied as human shields on the emperor's siege machines ...)

Our emperor was not different from yours, you were also part of the german sacred roman empire.

Everything we have according to so many southern italian opinion makers is called a privilege.

That is wrong, all we have has been obtained by sacrifice and discipline, qualities that the modern decadence is destroying among new generations.


The great middle age armor industry of Milan, Mantua and Brescia was not born out of a privilege granted by a capricious emperor.

I do not know exactly what went wrong with the South, I guess it was the constant presence of a commonly accepted mediterranean social construct: the principle that individual rights depend from the tribe's boss will.

This can be found still today in the arab world, where anything depend from the will of the Rais, the supreme leader who is the top of a social pyramid that distributes posts and wealth according to the merits each individual has towards the rais.

This social construct is still the bane of Southern Italy, it demoralizes the best ones, who cannot compete with the rais' subjects in fair terms (you don't engage in any businness without the rais' benevolence and without having established a fair share of taxes to pay to him: and his benevolence needs your humiliation to a good extent).


So the system becomes inherently corrupted , every right is obtained by this loyalty and not by the rules of the national law: mediocres advance since they do not care for being humbled by the rais, having no qualities to oppose to him.

Conversely, any aspect of the civil life that is not in the interest of the rais to regulate is left without rule: even if the state rule exists it is void in territories where only the mob rules effectively.


So common people are exempted from common law, leaving space to the most savage instincts of the part of the populace that could restrain itself only by the effect of the state law: in an unregulated society only part of the populace, the one with good moral standards, behaves correctly without coercion.

This leads to a basically anarchoid society where only a perverted set of rules is enforced, the rules of the mafia.

Local politicians, all of them monuments of hypocrisy, navigate into such sea of illegality to obtain votes and power: the dole out posts and other benefits to their supporters, again according to the rais model, secretly basing their power on common interest with the mafiosi, often being rumored to be themselves the real bosses.

They usually put up a sanctimonious facade of honesty, some even manage to pass for mafia fighters (often they just belong to a losing mafioso faction, as it happened for the famous "anti-mafia major Orlando of Palermo, actually the son of a mafioso notable).


The few judges and politicians that sincerely attack this state of things either are singled out and destroyed psychologically by a general mobbing, or end up butchered in some way (Falcone and Borsellino, serious judges, a few politicians, policemen and ordinary brave citizens, often cited in official discourse, practically forgotten and labeled as quixotic idealists).

This state of things hasn't changed so far, when a mafia boss is captured with usually much media rumor it happens just because he is burnt out, he is unuseful for the system, too full of blood to be tolerated by italian public opinion.

A new one has already emerged for sure.

Such is the state of things, and they will never change if not for extraordinary circumstances.

[Breydel]

Originally Posted by Breha

My text was clear, if you cannot grab its meanings there is nothing I can do for it.

As for myself, I'm likely twice your age and I can assure you that I have grown a bit over the years, I will gladly accept behavioral advice from people 80 years old and over that age, not less, really.

thats very wise, you should move to a webfora for seniors then, at least that is i hope you aren't implying to be just here to teach us all

but again if you reduce whatever social concept you have in mind in a way you demonstrate then physical age isn't your problem and you still have some growing up to do

[Strengthandhonour]

I think you misunderstood my statement Breha.
I never intended to claim that the people of the north got things as easily as you took it. I know you had to fight hard and defend against the emperor, I don't deny it. But unlike in the north, we never got a lot of the freedoms that were acquired in the north. Yes, the German rule was kind of sketchy but it is important to remember that Frederick considered himself a Sicilian and was very bnevolent to the people. To this day the royal family remains here and consider themselves Italians.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Breha

Such is the state of things, and they will never change if not for extraordinary circumstances.

If I'm correct, Mussolini almost managed to finish off the mafia. But the Americans encumbered it all over again.

Anyway, about the rest of the post, I would like to comment on it but it is late to re-read it and then analyze the bits and pieces.

There are parts that I've found harsh, in particular the comparison with the rais system in Arabia. That was unnecessary in my opinion. Besides, the establishment of the mafia system is one of its own kind, which deserves an analysis apart.

Other parts, I have found them interesting as they provide a clue to things that people often ignore. In particular: "So the system becomes inherently corrupted , every right is obtained by this loyalty and not by the rules of the national law: mediocres advance since they do not care for being humbled by the rais, having no qualities to oppose to him."

This is a piece that I would like to analyze in two ways. One, on its own with reference to Sicily, and two, comparing it with other systems that have existed outside Sicily and outside Italy.

[Breydel]

@ Breha, by this i want to say i don't have the intention to start a fight with you, so perhaps we can drop it

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

If I'm correct, Mussolini almost managed to finish off the mafia. But the Americans encumbered it all over again.

Anyway, about the rest of the post, I would like to comment on it but it is late to re-read it and then analyze the bits and pieces.

There are parts that I've found harsh, in particular the comparison with the rais system in Arabia. That was unnecessary in my opinion. Besides, the establishment of the mafia system is one of its own kind, which deserves an analysis apart.

Other parts, I have found them interesting as they provide a clue to things that people often ignore. In particular: "So the system becomes inherently corrupted , every right is obtained by this loyalty and not by the rules of the national law: mediocres advance since they do not care for being humbled by the rais, having no qualities to oppose to him."

This is a piece that I would like to analyze in two ways. One, on its own with reference to Sicily, and two, comparing it with other systems that have existed outside Sicily and outside Italy.

It is not harsh. Actually some sicilian authors attribute the mafia phenomenon to the dispersion into the country of the arab army raised by the "illuminated" king Friederick: a man who didn't refrain from hiring moslem soldiers (this happened not because of some sort of benevolence, it happened because he was fighting the papal power, and moslem soldiers were insensitive to papal diktats and excommunication ...).

There is a similarity between the "uomo di rispetto" system and the arab idea of the strongman who leads a clan or a tribe, think of the late Saddm Hussein or the evergreen Khadafi: if you don't belong to their tribe you are just a subject to be squeezed, their will is the only one that count.

Such "uomini di rispetto" (men who have to be respected) and their troops are the only ones to be considered true men: the rest of the male populace is made of "no men", people who are considered just as providers of work and gods, while their will is uninfluent in the social context.

They do not deserve respect, in Sicily they are called "quaquaraqua", blabbers.

this is a social construct that is not european, in Europe the gap between the elites and the working classes was often wide, but the contempt of the southern ruling classes for the lowest ones is really strong, I myself have experienced it in person.


There are other contexts in the world where such things happen, even communism has been compared by Bukovski to the mafia system.

So the idea of an arab origin of the mafia was primarily introduced by sicilian historians, it could explain why Sicily and the other mafia ridden regions in pre-roman times hosted a normal european civilization with so many outstanding peaks in areas colonized by greeks, while things got wrong right after the ousting of the arabs and the end of the norman kings dominance.

As ever, the presence of an islamic dominance in an european land leaves some moral rot: albanians got morally ruined by the turks, Bosnia was also oppressed and transformed into a backward state.

Greece was able to put up a silent resistance but it is still today just a shadow of the country that gave the world philosophy and science.

[Kernunnos]

As of Mussolini, he sent a real sheriff to redress things (prefetto Mori): even Mori at a certain point was to be "fired" the sweet way, he was made a senator and left his post of super judge who dealt with mafiosi by personally shooting the ones who refused surrender.

It is true however that at the point of the allied landing in 1943, most of the "uomini di rispetto" were into internal exile (confino di polizia): immediately the liberating authorities reinstated them in power as majors et similia.

But the core of the mafioso power had not been touched by Mussolini, sicilian ruling classes were only nominally fascist and soon found themselves back into the arms either of the americans or of the old british friends.