With unwitting masochism, Italians genuinely rather enjoy seeing their faults thrown back at them. It confirms their own deep-rooted feeling that gli altri Italiani are not quite up to the western world’s high standards of reliability. But no criticism is ever taken seriously enough to attempt remedial action.
In any case, foreigners seem to find the locals agreeable and entertaining, so it cannot be all bad.
Because of the massive emigration from Italy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, there are extensive Italian communities in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Australia. There are about 20 million Americans with Italian surnames. But Italo-Americans, Italo-Argentinians and so on are only likely to be regarded as ‘Italians’, rather than as Americans or Argentinians, if they are rich and successful. So Rudolph Giuliani, Frank Sinatra, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola and Sylvester Stallone are all considered to be Italian, and not American. Some famous Italians, who changed their names to achieve success in the New World, such as actress Anne Bancroft, born Anna Maria Italiano in New York in 1931, and crime novelist Ed McBain, born Salvatore Lombino in 1926 also in New York, have only been welcomed back into the fold on their decease.
“There are about 20 million Americans with Italian surnames.”
Being embraced so warmly can sometimes have its drawbacks – successful paternity suits are still being brought in the Naples courts against the Italo-Argentinian, Diego Maradona, years after he returned home to Argentina.
Italians love foreigners, especially rich foreigners. The Austrians, Swiss and especially Germans have always enjoyed Italy’s climate, culture, beaches and lifestyle. Italy is their playground. Ever since the days of the Roman Empire, Goths have been heading across the Alps to let off steam. The Italians have tolerated them for centuries and are quite happy to go on doing so, as long as the six million who now come to Italy every year spend lots of money and return north again.
The French are considered arrogant and disproportionately proud of themselves. They are seen to look down on their transalpine neighbours, which peeves the Italians no end. But the really unforgivable French sin is to have captured the world market with their inferior wine, which no sane Italian would buy.
The relationship between the English and the Italians is more complex and perhaps more an attraction of opposites. The English like the violent smells, noises, colours, passions and chaos of Italy, while the Italians are fascinated by the order and cosiness of the English.
“Italians know that everything works much better abroad. But they also know that foreigners are less well-off because they don’t live in a beautiful country with plentiful sunshine.”
Italians know that everything works much better abroad. But they also know that, in real terms, foreigners are less well-off than they are, because they don’t live in a beautiful country with plentiful sunshine, they dress badly, and they eat and drink badly, all of which perhaps explains why foreigners have always had their eye on Italy.
Being a curious people, the Italians are fascinated by foreigners and their barbaric ways of life. They love reading and hearing about other nations and going abroad on holiday as this serves to confirm what they already know, that they come from the best place in the world, certainly in terms of the important things in life like sunshine, drink, food and football. Deep down, the Italians believe that, although other countries might be more powerful and better organised than Italy, in reality the rest of the world behaves the same way they do and is just as corrupt as they are, only sometimes the others are smarter at not being caught.
Foreign immigration is a comparatively recent phenomenon in Italy. Traditionally, the word ‘immigrant’ has been used by Italians for Italians from other parts of Italy who have moved to their area. But since the late 1980s more and more people have made their homes in Italy, especially from Albania, Eastern Europe, Senegal, Nigeria, Latin America, Asia and the Maghreb countries.
“Deep down the Italians believe that the rest of the world behaves the same way they do and is just as corrupt, only sometmes the others are smarter at not being caught.”
It is estimated that at least three million entered the country in the last ten years, with the same number predicted to arrive in the next ten. A large number of them manage to find seasonal jobs in the countryside, picking tomatoes and grapes, others settle in the industrial cities in the
north of the country where they do the manual work that no longer attracts young Italians. Many Italian factory owners know that they would probably have to close down without the immigrants. These days most home helps and old age carers in Italy are foreigners, and some of the immigrant communities have achieved surprising economic success, starting up small businesses even in areas where the locals have traditionally ruled the roost: there are now Egyptian owned and run pizzerias and Chinese leather factories. The immigrants are also responsible for the rise in Italy’s population, despite the indigenous population’s declining birthrate.
“Many Italian factory owners know that they would probably have to close down without the immigrants.”
The Italian attitude towards the peoples of southern Europe and northern Africa is a mixture of solidarity and disdain. They like their colour and are fascinated by their strange habits, and they especially like the fact that the immigrants do work that they might otherwise have to do. They agree with the sentiment expressed in the Oscar-winning Italian film Mediterraneo, that all the people around this sea compose una faccia, una razza (one face, one race). Yet they resist being associated with poor immigrants, like the Albanians or North Africans who offer to clean the windows of their car at traffic lights, for fear that their glamorous image might get tarnished.
The Italians often simplify their internal differences by means of a straightforward North–South divide.
“Language variations can be so great that an Italian film made in the South of Italy, was actually dubbed for the North Italian market.”
The Northern Italian views the Southerner as a corrupt, half-Arab peasant who tolerates the mafia and lives off the income generated by the hard-working North. The Southern Italian views the Northerner as a semi-literate, half-Austrian or half-French unwashed peasant who, by accident of birth, dwells in the richest part of the country and lives off the income generated by the Southerners who work for him in his factories or on his land.
While both these pictures are exaggerated, enough Italians believe in them for the Northern League (a political party promoting a federalism that is not far from separatism) to be a serious force in Italian politics.
The difference in diet, habits and language between the two areas is sufficient to continually fuel these views. The Southern Italian diet is based on pasta and olive oil, whereas the Northern Italian one is based on maize, rice and butter. And the language variations can be so great that L’amore Molesto, an Italian film made in the South of Italy, was actually dubbed for the North Italian market.
There is a real danger of Northerners blaming everything they think is wrong in Italy, or that they don’t like in the Italian character, on Southerners. So, for example, they see the corruption that riddles Italian politics and government as a ‘southern disease’, carefully ignoring the fact that the heart of Italy’s greatest corruption and graft scandal, tangentopoli, was the great northern Italian city of Milan.