Ah yes, never a dull moment in Italian politics, that’s for sure. Last Thursday night Italy saw the fall of the Prodi government. Nothing terribly unusual in that because I think in the last 60 years or so there have been some 60 governments (61 now I think. Or is it 62?).
But what happened in the Italian senate was not only appalling but I must say, also typically “Italian”: pure chaos. When the president of the senate came out with the final tally which thus drove the nail into Prodi’s coffin, one senator (who was a former hoodlum in his youth!), a fellow by the name of Gramazio, uncorked a bottle of spumante while a colleague below him, whipped out, presumably out of his pocket, slices of mortadella (or Bologna ham as it’s also known in North America)! The mortadella was in clear reference to Prodi himself whose round face is often compared to the delicious ham.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The same senator who gulped down the mortadella began yelling repeatedly to an opponent senator: “You’re a piece of shit”! This was naturally picked up immediately by the foreign press. More was to come though: another senator spat at his opponent (who suddenly fell over ill) and showed him the classic hand gesture in Italian of someone who’s wife has screwed around on him (the gesture is the same that Americans in Texas use at football games—the Texas longhorns--or that deaf-mute people use to say “I love you”. The gesture in Italian means instead that you’re a “cornuto”! The senate cornuto gesture brings back memories of what happened many years ago in Rome when George and Barbara Bush came on an official visit when Sr. was US president. Barbara had gone to a Roman orphanage. She looked at the kids and said, “Do any of you speak English”? No was the reply from the kids. Barbara then asked, “Well, do any of you speak Spanish”? Again no was the answer. All of a sudden, Barbara showed all the kids the “cornuto” sign, saying: “Well, do you all know what this means? It means “I love you” in deaf-mute language”! her entourage from the embassy were naturally aghast when she showed the kids the “cornuto” sign! That night, the two were invited to the presidential palace in Rome for the official dinner. For the life of him, George Sr. couldn’t quite understand why along the presidential route Italians were showing him the “cornuto” gesture!).
All this, coupled with the atrocious and exceptionally embarrassing situation of the garbage problem in Naples which has been going on for the last 14 years (together also with the recent resignation of Italy’s justice minister over a classic case of Italian-style nepotism), helped (unfortunately) once again to put Italy on the same map as some Third World countries…
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
New Year’s in Prague!
We thought we’d do something slightly different for New Year’s Eve this year so we decided to travel to Prague.
We chose a night train from Udine, a rather long journey I must say but at an affordable price: 120 euros return. We left at 11 pm on Saturday night and arrived in Prague at noon the following day (the return instead was at 5 pm with arrival in Udine at 6 am). We went just for four days. Luckily, we took a couchette and there were only four of us. I kept thinking during the trip to Prague and as we rode through parts of Austria of more than 60 years ago and how thousands of people, with not much choice in the matter, were hauled in cattle wagons to concentration camps (including my uncle). That must have been simply atrocious as the wagons were jam packed and with only a hole in the floor for washroom purposes. Our train this time was decidedly MUCH more comfortable!
I thought Prague was indeed a most elegant town, home to some rather interesting architecture as well as some well-known personalities who were actually born there and/or who lived there, such a former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and novelist Franz Kafka (he had lived in a small house in the city’s castle). Beethoven also lived there. The country has also given birth to film director Milos Forman and Juventus soccer player Pavel Nedved, not to mention the country’s former president and author, Vaclav Havel, who lived through Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” and was the Czech Republic’s president from 1993 until 2003 (the Rolling Stones played there just after the Berlin wall came down in 1989. Some thirteen years later they were again in Prague, and both times they had been greeted by a jubilant Havel).
The castle is quite nice as is the famous Charles bridge (albeit some of the statues would need some urgent cleaning!). And the beer? They say that Czechs are the world’s largest consumers of beer in the world. It is indeed mighty fine to drink a wide variety of the stuff. We noticed many Italians there, especially kids, who no doubt travelled to Prague for the great beer and the party atmosphere. The city itself doesn’t come across as being chaotic in nature, like Rome, probably because it has a smaller population and because it also has three functioning subway lines (like Munich’s subway, Prague’s subway trains are almost spotlessly clean, a far cry from Rome’s decrepit trains!). There was also a quasi-absence of scooters too which made walking around the town rather pleasant and relaxing. The eve countdown was spent near the Charles bridge.
A lot of history in the city/country as the poor Czechs not only lived under the brutal regime of the Nazis from 1939 to 1945 but again went through the communist regime years later (this year by the way, in August, marks the 40th anniversary of when Warsaw Pact armies marched into Prague under Alexander Dubcek’s reign. More than 100 Czechs were killed, including Jan Palach, who in 1969 lit himself on fire in a sign of protest). Perhaps the most difficult period was under the head of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich, affectionately called the “Butcher of Prague”! He had been the protector of Prague for only 8 months until he was assassinated in downtown Prague by Czech partisans. When news of his death reached Hitler, the Furher apparently unleashed hell upon Czechoslovakia!
For a (strange) lover of concentration camps, Prague had also been a treat for me as about 80 kms north of Prague lies the concentration camp of Terezin (the name is in honour of the former empress Maria Teresa. Its German name is Theresienstadt). It’s an old fortress which had been actually designed by an Italian architect in the 18th century as a fortification during the Prussian period. The Nazis then established their concentration camp there (it would become the Gestapo’s Prague prison).
Prisoners from Poland, the USSR, Germany and Yugoslavia were incarcerated there, as were Jewish prisoners who were treated rather brutally. Over 10,000 victims died there, many were cremated in the crematorium in the town of Terezin, located a few hundred metres from the fortress (there’s also a ghetto museum there which contains the crematoriums). Some 15,000 children went through that camp with only about 130 who survived. The saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” which is so famous the world over and which is seen always hanging over the entrance to Auschwitz is also present at Terezin (see picture). The phrase was imported to other camps such as Terezin from Dachau. There’s also a gallows pole and a firing range next to it where up to 600 shot. The prison cells could contain up to 60 prisoners at a time, in obvious appalling sanitary conditions.
Poetic justice: as in the case of Auschwitz’s commander, Rudolf Hoss (who had worked for 6 years at Dachau and who had been handpicked by Himmler to run Auschwitz), Terezin’s commander, Heinrich Jockel, who had commanded the brutal SS wardens there, was tried and executed at the very same place he had run—Terezin. Another “illustrious” prisoner at Terezin was a fellow by the name of Gavrilo Princip. Princip was the main protagonist of the Saravejo assassination of Francesco Fernando d’Este (his death had basically sparked WWI!). He was imprisoned and died at Terezin in 1918 (his cell is still there with a commemorative plaque from the Yugoslav government recalling his “heroic” act). This was my 7th concentration camp visit after Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, the Risiera of San Sabba in Trieste and Auschwitz-Birkenau (some of these camps I’ve so far seen twice).
From the picture I took of the map of concentration camps in Europe, if you look below and left of Berlin and north of Buchenwald, you’ll see a town called Halberstadt. That’s where my young uncle Mario, an Italian partisan, had died in the POW camp there. The day that I’ll go to Berlin I’ll probably pay a visit there too (after Bergen-Belsen and the other adjacent camps). You can also see below and on the right the camp of Terezin (all pics by M. Rimati).
We chose a night train from Udine, a rather long journey I must say but at an affordable price: 120 euros return. We left at 11 pm on Saturday night and arrived in Prague at noon the following day (the return instead was at 5 pm with arrival in Udine at 6 am). We went just for four days. Luckily, we took a couchette and there were only four of us. I kept thinking during the trip to Prague and as we rode through parts of Austria of more than 60 years ago and how thousands of people, with not much choice in the matter, were hauled in cattle wagons to concentration camps (including my uncle). That must have been simply atrocious as the wagons were jam packed and with only a hole in the floor for washroom purposes. Our train this time was decidedly MUCH more comfortable!
I thought Prague was indeed a most elegant town, home to some rather interesting architecture as well as some well-known personalities who were actually born there and/or who lived there, such a former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and novelist Franz Kafka (he had lived in a small house in the city’s castle). Beethoven also lived there. The country has also given birth to film director Milos Forman and Juventus soccer player Pavel Nedved, not to mention the country’s former president and author, Vaclav Havel, who lived through Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” and was the Czech Republic’s president from 1993 until 2003 (the Rolling Stones played there just after the Berlin wall came down in 1989. Some thirteen years later they were again in Prague, and both times they had been greeted by a jubilant Havel).
The castle is quite nice as is the famous Charles bridge (albeit some of the statues would need some urgent cleaning!). And the beer? They say that Czechs are the world’s largest consumers of beer in the world. It is indeed mighty fine to drink a wide variety of the stuff. We noticed many Italians there, especially kids, who no doubt travelled to Prague for the great beer and the party atmosphere. The city itself doesn’t come across as being chaotic in nature, like Rome, probably because it has a smaller population and because it also has three functioning subway lines (like Munich’s subway, Prague’s subway trains are almost spotlessly clean, a far cry from Rome’s decrepit trains!). There was also a quasi-absence of scooters too which made walking around the town rather pleasant and relaxing. The eve countdown was spent near the Charles bridge.
A lot of history in the city/country as the poor Czechs not only lived under the brutal regime of the Nazis from 1939 to 1945 but again went through the communist regime years later (this year by the way, in August, marks the 40th anniversary of when Warsaw Pact armies marched into Prague under Alexander Dubcek’s reign. More than 100 Czechs were killed, including Jan Palach, who in 1969 lit himself on fire in a sign of protest). Perhaps the most difficult period was under the head of the Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich, affectionately called the “Butcher of Prague”! He had been the protector of Prague for only 8 months until he was assassinated in downtown Prague by Czech partisans. When news of his death reached Hitler, the Furher apparently unleashed hell upon Czechoslovakia!
For a (strange) lover of concentration camps, Prague had also been a treat for me as about 80 kms north of Prague lies the concentration camp of Terezin (the name is in honour of the former empress Maria Teresa. Its German name is Theresienstadt). It’s an old fortress which had been actually designed by an Italian architect in the 18th century as a fortification during the Prussian period. The Nazis then established their concentration camp there (it would become the Gestapo’s Prague prison).
Prisoners from Poland, the USSR, Germany and Yugoslavia were incarcerated there, as were Jewish prisoners who were treated rather brutally. Over 10,000 victims died there, many were cremated in the crematorium in the town of Terezin, located a few hundred metres from the fortress (there’s also a ghetto museum there which contains the crematoriums). Some 15,000 children went through that camp with only about 130 who survived. The saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” which is so famous the world over and which is seen always hanging over the entrance to Auschwitz is also present at Terezin (see picture). The phrase was imported to other camps such as Terezin from Dachau. There’s also a gallows pole and a firing range next to it where up to 600 shot. The prison cells could contain up to 60 prisoners at a time, in obvious appalling sanitary conditions.
Poetic justice: as in the case of Auschwitz’s commander, Rudolf Hoss (who had worked for 6 years at Dachau and who had been handpicked by Himmler to run Auschwitz), Terezin’s commander, Heinrich Jockel, who had commanded the brutal SS wardens there, was tried and executed at the very same place he had run—Terezin. Another “illustrious” prisoner at Terezin was a fellow by the name of Gavrilo Princip. Princip was the main protagonist of the Saravejo assassination of Francesco Fernando d’Este (his death had basically sparked WWI!). He was imprisoned and died at Terezin in 1918 (his cell is still there with a commemorative plaque from the Yugoslav government recalling his “heroic” act). This was my 7th concentration camp visit after Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, the Risiera of San Sabba in Trieste and Auschwitz-Birkenau (some of these camps I’ve so far seen twice).
From the picture I took of the map of concentration camps in Europe, if you look below and left of Berlin and north of Buchenwald, you’ll see a town called Halberstadt. That’s where my young uncle Mario, an Italian partisan, had died in the POW camp there. The day that I’ll go to Berlin I’ll probably pay a visit there too (after Bergen-Belsen and the other adjacent camps). You can also see below and on the right the camp of Terezin (all pics by M. Rimati).
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