Optimism, hope, is one of the factors that, in my opinion, kept Italy’s economy together during the last years.
Lately I’ve spent a much yearned week of holiday in Italy. I wasn’t entirely prepared for what I’ve encountered there after more than one year away.
I’ve never been a big fan of Berlusconi, and that’s putting it mildly. And I knew, as well as anybody else, that Italy’s economy was stumbling toward an inevitable demise. However, I was expecting a change for the better, I was expecting this gust of fresh wind in politics to sweep away single-handedly the remains of a decadent past. I was wrong.
Not because of our politician’s decisions but because of the people’s attitude. It seems we have spent so much time pulling through our days without never really trusting a hope in the growth and solidity of our economic system that we’ve forgotten how it used to work. What entrepreneurs used to be.
Nevertheless youngsters, students, graduates, I remember, used to be optimistic, buoyant and full of hopes and dreams for their future. That was Italy how I left it.
I happened to talk with many friends and acquaintances during my vacation and they all appeared to be somewhat dejected, dispirited. The optimism was gone.
Nowadays, it seems to me, all they do is try to escape the brutish reality of this year of our lord 2006 (an expression that I couldn’t wait to use for I dearly enjoy its mere hubbub). Their hopes were apparently crushed under the so much deemed collapse.
As it were, I also happened to talk with some ex colleagues and businessman, they were all confident. This was, in all its feebleness, an encouraging sign for they are closer to the business world than all of my school friends. Their words were, however, betraying their true feelings. They were, in fact, not talking about investing in new ventures, but of believing in the long term investment. Really long, a lifetime, or two.
A pity, during this year abroad, and for many months before, I’ve been a mute onlooker on this brains-flee which has been repeating itself for countless years now.
An apparently inexorable and uncontrollable process.
Without substantial reforms our (Italy’s) economic system is roaring toward its quietus.
Unfortunately, it appears that no progress is possible unless the disposition of the people changes.
The easiest example I can give you is this: What is the inland revenue in most Anglo-Saxon countries, considers every italian a tax evader. And every italian considers the government a robber.
Don’t get me wrong, I love life in Italy, I have an english friend who’s currently living in Italy and is married to an Italian, and I cannot contradict his thought: The quality of life in Italy is superior to most of its english-speaking allies.
I am, in fact, a big fan of Jigme Singye Wangchuck. Who said that gross national happiness is more important that gross nation product. Very true indeed, but this doesn’t seem to be longer valid according to the basic values of the new westerner culture. A hard balance to hit, almost impossible. Keep our current lifestyle without sacrificing anything in the rites of economy.
This is nothing but general babbling, flapping my mouth for the sake of it. Nevertheless I’ve never found an holiday less pleasant. The disheartened faces were disconsolate and the hopelessness/helplessness in people’s eyes was impossible not to notice, and often unbearable for me.
I’m certainly not planning to move back any time soon, not now that I’ve built my life in another country. But I’ll go on pulling, as a mule, my little cart towards the carrot of hope. confident that some day, all these brains that I’ve seen make a break for it will go back to Italy and bury this grandpas of politics under a big laugh and an hoard of inventiveness.
Stefano,
Calm as a dog on the M1
