A lonely man's life

Since I finished my work in the area of intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe I took a break from reading too much about the latest public discussions. But as I am preparing to start writing a serious book about this, I reentered little by little my too familiar environment.

My week-end lecture was the thematic diary of the Romanian intellectual - Adrian Marino, whose posthum memories - at his request - confirmed both from the point of view of the content and of the reception the dramatic situation of the intellectual debate.

Adrian Marino was among the few Romanians published abroad during communism, with studies and books in the area of comparative literature. Avant-la-lettre he was among the very few cases of freelancer researcher, being - after the period spent in the communist prisons - disconnected of the official layer of the culture communist bureaucrats.

With a lot of sadness, he is describing his alienation in a world hungry to win benefits and prestige - the international intellectual stage - the marginal condition of the intellectual belonging to a minor culture - predominantly focused on the production of journalism and poetry - and fighting with the hunger for acquiring a pseudo-intellectual status in the world of reversed values during communism. A situation continued in post-communism. Not the quality of work prevails but the laudatio to the VIP of the time, hence the over production of works without real value. Those political compromises are the red line of the Romanian culture, from the supporters of the right wing during the inter-war period to the communist ideologues and their post-communist re conversions.

From the point of view of the reception of this book, the debate was focused on persons and not on the situation of the Romanian intellectuals. Another missed opportunity for coming to terms with the past and for starting the discussion about the European values and reliable concepts of a different intellectual atmosphere.

Many some of his descriptions are too severe and personal, based on personal interactions and subjective reasons. What I appreciated in his book is the risk of assuming his opinions, even it was transmitted when he was no more present. In a way, probably he predicted the reactions and chose to better be the big absent of the media shows.

Italy Cracks Down on Sexual Violence and Illegal Immigration

Sabina Castelfranco
Rome
Voice of America
February 20

Silvio Berlusconi

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government on Friday approved tougher measures to crack down on sexual violence and illegal immigration.

The Prime Minister issued an emergency decree at a cabinet meeting Friday in response to a series of rapes blamed mostly on foreigners.

The rapes in the last weeks have shocked Italy. Two Romanians were arrested for the rape of a 14-year-old girl on Valentine's Day.

The newly approved government package, which must be approved by Parliament, increases jail sentences for rape, gives free legal counsel to victims of sexual violence and makes stalking a crime.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said mayors have also been allowed to organize patrols of unarmed citizens so that they can point out to police forces where there are risks for urban security or situations of social degradation.

The government says the aim of such patrols, which have drawn criticism from the center-left opposition, is to boost security on city streets.

The opposition says the government is promoting vigilante justice but Maroni Friday defended the measure, saying that setting up organized groups of volunteers would avoid the creation of "do-it-yourself" patrols seeking to take matters into their own hands.

The decree also allows authorities to detain immigrants for six months, up from two months, while they work to identify them, process asylum requests and expel those not entitled to stay.

Romania's foreign minister Cristian Diaconescu said, meanwhile, that his country does not want citizens suspected of committing crimes in Italy to be repatriated.

The minister said Romania would like to overcome this abnormal situation through dialogue and cooperation with its Italian partners in the near future.

Diaconescu is expected to travel to Italy on Monday, where he plans to discuss the issue with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Some one million Romanians are estimated to live and work in Italy.

Immigration issues and racism on Facebook. Concerns in Italy

The on-line environment and the social networks are the favorite and cheapest way to share fast and cost-free your ideas and thoughts. The principle of the freedom of speech is an advantage able to wave on various occasions. Including when you use it for expressing your hate, and even the incitement to kill.

In Italy the anti-immigration campaign is continuing, two days before the discussion of the security package by the Council of Ministers. The package was drafted by the Minister of Interior, Roberto Maroni, representing the anti-immigration Northern League. He also announced its intention to call for a G8 reunion, this May, dedicated to countering the illegal immigration. Also this Friday, the Senate is expected to discuss an anti-rape decree, issued by the same minister, aiming to prevent and counter those crimes. Last Saturday, the Italian media covered the case of a 14 year old girl, raped by a man of Romanian origin.

The Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, rejected recently one of the key of the security package, the creation of volutarily militia units, working alongside the police force in the operations of identification of people considered a security problem. In the last two years, such units operated at informal level in various towns in Italy and were involved in various actions against the Roma people and immigrants, including the arson attack on the Roma settlement from Milan, in 2007. Between November 2005 and June 2007 the so-called “Black Panda Gang” made up of private citizens and members of the police force, were guilty of many cases of beatings, violence and kidnapping carried out against illegal immigrants.

Among the provisions of the package it is also the requirement for doctors to denounce to the police their patients, if they detain information they are illegal immigrants. According to Vivere Italia, Sveva Belviso, in charge with the social policies at the Mayory of Rome, created a Facebook group where the members are encouraged to offer information about the illegal Roma camps. Out of the 352 members - as for yesterday - 14 of them already reported such situations.

Also on Facebook, a couple of groups - whose age range of the members is mostly between 20-40 - are preaching various actions against the immigrants, mainly Romanians (rom+rum, Quelli che odiano i romeni, Piacere di conoscerti??? /ironisation of the logo a recent public affairs campaign of Romania in Italy etc.) - but also Chineses, Albanians, Tunisians. You could find there: anti-immigration posters; calls for expelling of all Romanians or even for coordinate action to aggress and kill them; solidarity with the victims of rape, violence and murder; call for individuals to do justice "by themselves, as long as the Italian justice is inefficient"; expulsion of Chinese immigrants. On the other side, the Romanian and anti-racism groups are almost absent, groups as "Against fingerprinting of the Roma community" or "Stop Discrimination against Romanians" aren't active for one, respectively almost two years.

The anti-immigration discourse is a constant of the last years in the Italian politics. As a leader of the opposition, in November 2007, the current prime-minister, Silvio Berlusconi, urged Italy to close its borders to Romanian workers and a conservative ally, from the Northern League called for an expulsion of tens of thousands of immigrants, after a wave of alleged crimes by foreigners.

The targets of the "citizen justice" are not only Romanians - after the rape of the 14 year girl, in the North of Sardinia, ten Italians entered and attacked in their house two men and one woman of Romanian origin - but other immigrants as well. On February 4, the Italian president called for a stop to xenophobia and racist violences, after an Indian man was beaten and set on fire near Rome. Navtej Singh Sidhua, a 35 year-old homeless working in constructions, was attacked while sleeping rough at a train station at the seaside town of Nettuno near Rome. Police have arrested two adults and a minor, who have confessed pouring petrol on him and setting him on fire. The reason: according to the Police sources quoted by ANSA news agency, the group wanted to "cap off" a night on the town, fuelled by drugs and alcohol, by doing something "sensational, to experience an intense emotion". In late October, a Chinese immigrant was beaten up by teenagers, while waiting for a bus in Rome and a young student from Ghana was beaten by Parma traffic police who mistook him for a drug posher.

According to statistics covering more than ten years, the assumption of a possible increase of the level of crime under the effect of the recent immigration waves is not covered by the reality.

Knowledge gap

One of the main problems affecting post-communist literary life in Central and Eastern Europe is the scarcity of financial resources. Before, the only value took into account in supporting the publication of a book was the conformity with the one-party ideology. After, the writers needed to face the "market opportunity" as well as the low state budget for the edition houses. The book become a business in itself, as the interest of the public - aparently high during communism for intellectual activities, but also because not any other sources of open information allowed - shifted towards a "softer" agenda, as set by the media or the daily problems, including the puzzled reality of the post-communist world.

For the writers belonging to the ethnic minorities, the gap between them and the writers of the "majorities" increased. Hungarians writers in Romania, for example, are writting in Hungarian, go to book-fairs in Hungary and are considered as part of the Hungarian literature. The possibility to reach the larger audience in Romania is almost impossible, mostly in the area where is no knowledge of Hungarian. The cost of the translations seem to high. The Romanian writers don't have direct access to the works of their colleagues and the interest in the literary, cultural reviews is quite low. All the inquiries made by now among Romanian and Hungarian writers are showing an important gap in the reciprocal knowledge. In fact, the Romanian public is most familiar with works of Esterházy, or Konrád György than of János Székely or Domokos Szilágyi, both of them well known in Hungary, but not yet translated into Romanian.

About identity, in Central and Eastern Europe

This blog is an academic diary of my Ph.D. paper, dealing with minority issues in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly the relation between Romanian and Hungarian intellectuals in post-communist Romania. It is aimed to discuss concepts and ideas, methodology or simple facts related to the way in which minorities and majorities are interacting on a daily or crisis-situation basis.

Communism ended-up as a ruling system in the countries from the region, peacefully or in a violent way, and the past was integrated in different percentages in the post-communist experiences. The change of mentalities is by far the most difficult and it will take at least two generations (approximatively 60 years) to get rid of intellectual habits and to reshape basic ideas from the common living, civic involvement and establishment of a healthy political and economic life. Again, the changes could be different, from the point of view of the historical heritages and the opportunities offered for the creation of new elites - economic, political, intellectual. And this process is regarding both the minorities and the majorities from the countries they are living in.