I was born where the rain still brings the smell of the ebonyIn a never-ending land with the sun always shiningIt's been said I'm as pretty as a black pearlWhen the African moon is high and my eyes are to the heavens.I was sold when I was 16, I kissed my mother and never looked backThen I got lost in the city with all its people and its bright lightsSoon I learned that my hopes and dreams, they were all just illusionsAnd for me to survive I would have to leave my country.EbonyJack O's bar, Parade hotel, for me aloneEbonyI spent all I had on the journey and my papersWith the hundred migrants lost by the time we reached PalermoI took farm on a hill, I picked oranges and lemonsAnd I worked till late at night for a bed and little moneyEbonyIt's a long long nightIt's a long long timeIt's a long long roadEbonyWith non hope left one day I want off to BolognaThere I met a friend who helped me find my fortuneSo I changed the way I looked, I changed my way of beingAnd now everybody knows, black girl costs little moneyEbonyJack O's bar, Parade hotel, for me aloneEbony...Ebony...It's a long long nightIt's a long long timeIt's a long long roadEbonyIf you come to Bologna, please remember my storyOn the boulevard at night where my dreams have turned to teardropsEbony...
Who caused the crisis have to pay for it
The Bourses crash, the economic recession, are not out of the blue, but the dreadful result of years
of economic politics in favour of the market without rules and of the most unjust globalization.
In this year – Oecd data say it for Italy – the rich have become more and more rich, while the
workers, the young precarious and the retired people more and more poor.
Now, when the crisis happens, they are talking to go back to State intervention in the economy and
about the need for rules, but in the meanwhile, they use money only to save banks and bankers, and
cut money for education, health, retirement systems and for unemployment subsidies and “cassa
integrazione”.
In Bologna station too a bomb exploded in August 2, 1980, making 81 deaths. From this moment, the city in which I was born is hurt for this shock. All people living in Bologna remember this moment. I was 4 years old only, but I remember very well the panic sensation that I felt when I heard this news.
In Bologna train station there is a monument in order to remember. Is a break in the wall,covered by a glass, in the point where the bomb exploded. At the base, you can read the sentence: “to the victims of the fascist terrorism”. Also, the clock at the platform 1 is always fixed at 10:25AM -the time of explosion.
Fascists, communists: these political labels covered -improperly- any type of horrible crimes. They was simply terrorists. But I want that you reflect about a thing : They was Italian terrorists, against Italian innocent victims. This is not the same thing of Bin Laden for U.S.
About this I have a question: Where they got explosives??? who helped them?? inquiries of investigation agencies have not completely lighted this, today. But maybe the times are changing. If we do not reach the truth, we cannot move forward this country.I and many others like me love our Italy and we are friends of America - especially of the new America.Maybe someone can help us to find the truth and wake up ???
Another line of division besides the one geographical (north-south) regards the political history. Fascists against communists, this is a war never ended. Everyday, in the bars and in friend groups, political discussions are focused on this.
The country have to move forward, but its history is everyday present and keep it back. This happens because the Italy's population is very aged in her majority, but also because the consequences of political events of 1960's and 1970's are still operating in our society. These years, have been positive about economics and culture, but negative about politics and national security.
From the death of Enrico Mattei, CEO of ENI, the major Italian petroleum company, in 1962, crashed with his airplane in Bescapè, a village near to Milan (this has been a sabotage, as verified by an inquiry in 90's !!!), to the kidnapping and murdering of Aldo Moro, President of the major Italian political party, the Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana) in 1978 by the Red brigades (Brigate Rosse, a revolutionary left-wing organization), and also during some years later, they have been a lot of events like these: some bombs exploded in places, trains and train stations, murders of politicians, policemen and investigators, judges, university professors, a metalworker in Italsider factory; an airplane putted down by a missile (near to Sicily in 1980) etc. All these crimes had a political justification or cause.
It was a situation similar to the one that we can see in Pakistan at the present time, under some important profiles. Some people that made (or planned) these events have been never recognized by the law and so now they are in liberty- even if they are guilty.
Italy never has been a nation, really.
The birth of the State in October 1860, happened for an adventure of thousand militants, headed by Garibaldi. They left from Quarto, a village near Genoa in Northern Italy kingdom, and they arrived to the south of the peninsula, throwing down the kingdom of Naples (Regno delle due Sicilie), a State already completely in decadence.
After this expedition, the northern army occupied the south of the country from 1860 to 1866: has been a bloody war. Commandants destroyed entirely some villages, and killed thousands of men, women and children. Against regular army was groups of rebels, called “briganti” in Italian language, that have organized guerrilla actions and sabotages. Their basis was on Appennini mountains, and from there they came down in villages and cities attacking military units.
Today these divisions are still dramatically presents, in economics (The south of Italy is much underdeveloped one regarding the north) and, consequently, in culture manifestations. Songs celebrating southern rebels of 1860's are played by young people, for example southern students that emigrates in northern cities for to frequent universities.
Much important, these far events are the basis of a kind of anarchic diffused ideology, that can be condensed in a sentence: “against the State”.
Is needed to highlight an aspect: this sentiment is not only against the State as a bureaucratic centralized administration (like also in USA it is), but, more properly, a sense of do not be part of the community, of the nation. In this vision the family, or the clan (enlarged family) has the place of nation, and of any other kind of community. Moving to the extreme this point of view, to have a family can justify any kind of action. You can be a robber or a killer: if you act not for yourself only, but for to advantage your family or your friends you are on the right side, in any case. Here are the roots of the Italian mafia and corruption.
