Lauren’s Beans

They’ve been protesting outside my window for the last year. You probably have heard very little about it, but the United States wants to expand the army base in Vicenza. They want to expand onto the old unused airport here so that they can fly in and out of Vicenza itself. Once the expansion is done the base will be a grand total of 1 full mile square instead of half of one. You probably haven’t heard, but I have. About once a month or so I run into a group of people banging pots, most often right outside my apartment, wearing protest flags and sometimes yelling. So I am well aware that there is a section of the population of Vicenza that doesn’t want the base to be expanded and ignoring their opinion the government that they voted in to say no to the US army said yes anyway. Now there is alot of confusion, one of the women at church told me that they were protesting because they thought that America would keep nuclear weapons in Vicenza if they enlarged the base and so everyone was scared because if they got bombed and there were nuclear bombs here then it would be bad or a friend of ours who is sympathetic took us by the base to show us that it was right to protest because the base would be gynormous if it was expanded (4 city blocks instead of 2 on the outskirts of town! Really….they don’t have any idea how big bases can get). So yeah a lot of confusion, but there really are good reasons for the protest. In a lot of ways I sympathise. A government that doesn’t do what you think is important and to me the vastly more troublesome problem of an incredibly corrupt government should be protested against. But everytime I see them banging pots I can’t help thinking that there must be something more useful they could be doing with their time. Most of the protests happen at or around community functions like park dinners or concerts. The protest today happened around a food and culture celebration planned by the city, so instead of freely going and tasting good cheese and wine the rest of the city stays home to avoid the protesters and gets angrier and angrier because of the annoyance. Not more sympathetic. I have what Matt calls a fairly anglo saxon mindset of this kind of thing. If what I’m doing doesn’t have the benefit of being effective I don’t want to do it. To me you protest by calling your senator and representative so much that they can’t work because they’re phone lines are blocked or you go sit in their office or in government offices, if you protest you protest in front of where the officials responsible will see you and have to deal with you or where you will get the most media coverage. Not where you will be the most irritating to your neighbors. I always want to yell at them <I CAN’T HELP YOU! I CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! WHY ARE YOU PROTESTING HERE?> The other day rather than the normal pot bangers there was a group of people that were collecting signatures for what they called V-Day or approxiamately in Italian F—- you government day. It seemed ridiculous because they were cheerily singing on guitar a song that went <F— you, F—- you, F—- you oh government> in a rather Simon and Garfunkely manner. I asked later that day what was going on and found out it was anything but, ridiculous. The signatures were for passing a law to change the current regulations of parliment that effectively protect any and all corrupt politicians from any sort of prosecution during or after office, to limit the amount of time prime ministers can stay in office (Berlusconi had an 8 year consecutive term and is now trying to get his position back and the current Prime Minister Prodi was prime minister before Berlusconi as well as after him and it can go on like that forever currently) and it was also in favour of free speech (Italy is said to be one of the only western nations that effectively does not have free speech… the form prime minister, Berlusconi again, owns most of the TV channels that aren’t run by the government and you have to get permission from the government to publish as much as a mass mailing, if you don’t have the permit already good luck getting one). Apparently in Italy if enough of the population signs something like this the populace itself can purpose a new law or reform that must be brought before the parliment. Now this kind of protest I could get into! Reasoned and a chance of being effective! This was as far as I can tell an exception to the rule though. Most of the time the Italians seem really rather pessimistic about what really can change or happen about their ability to make a difference. They seem to make up for this pessimism however in a throughly whole hearted belief that they need to make their opinion known. So they seem to protest for protestings sake not to change things. It’s like if they yell enough then they can’t be held responsible and can say < well you know I was against that when that happened> not because they really want or believe they can change things. A good for instance for me is that they spend alot of time and energy making their opinion known about the death penalty or racism in the United States something they can do little or nothing about in reality and do very little to recitfy inequalities or problems in their own system or in their own cities. It’s like the having of the opinion saves them not what they do about it. This does have it’s advantages as a country. You can have very heated debate and still never come to violence. You can disagree incredibly strongly with your neighbor but relish the arguement amicalbly along with the coffee you drink every morning together. Really on an interpersonal level it is very handy. Even though they don’t like your opinions or your government or your religion they can still be your friend and talk to you. Its refreshing at that level, debate is possible and there are no real forbidden subjects at the dinner table and no hard feelings really even if the arguement gets bad and loud. On a governmental level it doesn’t work very well though. It means you almost never get down to business.