Ahimè mia bella Italia... dove sei? Ahimè, dov' è'l bel viso? (Alas my lovely Italy... where are you? Alas, where is the beautiful face) Where's is my lovely Italy? I can't see her much anymore. The land of Dante and Michelangelo, Leonardo and Galileo has become the land of corruption and cynicism- a mafia state! A republic founded on the principle of work- others work and we profit! A republic founded on a lie! How will I tell my children about Italy? What should I tell them about? The glories of the past? The museum we live in and that have to pay to see our own cultural heritage! How can someone makes us pay to see what is our own? But we must be proud and arrogant all the same- afterall we have Verdi and Puccini... and what would the world be without them? So when you are sitting in your dingy flat wherever struggling to make ends meet- switch on your radio or your stereo and console yourself that Caruso will make everything better. Yes, we are so lucky to live in our giant museum controlled by this mafia state, secret and not so secret lapdogs of Washington. But then we are taught we must love and admire America for saving us in the War. We were saved yes, perhaps, but by whom? By the same state that did more to institutionalise the mafia than any Bourbon king or Pope. But then again it took us until the 1990's to even admit that such a thing as mafia even existed! Ahimè mia bella Italia... dove sei? When I switch on the television I have a choice- I can watch the Italian state propaganda that even uses the national anthem to sell shoes and socks or I can switch over and watch the coroporation that is controlled by Mr Berlusconi. A man who insults and patronises people and describes those who vote for the left as "bollocks" (coglioni) in our wonderfully democratic state! We constantly hear people tell me how we are so fortunate to live in the most beautfiul country in the world, we have the best food, we have the greatest artistic heritage on the planet.... I think about these people and what they say and then I think of the slums of Naples and the cities of the south, I think of the families that have to live on less than a 1000 euroes a month I think of the people who cannot afford prosciutto di Parma, to visit Gran Sasso, to go to Capri or taste la dolce vita. I think also about the extra-communitari who risk their lives to get here, often to work illegally or be exploited- picking tomatoes for a pathetic wage, So the next time I taste a delicious sugo I taste the flavours of exploitation. Ahimè mia bella Italia...dove sei? So this is the Bel Paese- where communities collapse because of earthquakes and mud-slides because someone forgot to use the correct sand in the cement or that building settlements in dry river beds beneath illegally deforested mountains was not a good idea. But this is Italy, and no one is to blame.... no one is ever to blame, no one will be held to account! Ahimè mia bella Italia... dove sei? What must I think about the Bel Paese when most students at high-school have never heard of Marconi, Manzetti and Meucci? We know our football though- our greatest sport, our teams that win the World Cup, our teams at home condemned for match rigging and corruption. Our hypocrisy that everyone cheats accept when it is us, because we are Italians e gli italiani sono furbi. Ahimè mia bella Italia... dove sei? In 1991 the Rifondazione Communista had over 100,000 members- now it is less than 40,000. The capitalists gloat that the Italian proletariat does not exist anymore and use undemocratic votes and referendums to prove their points and ever more erode the rights of workers and pensioners. The Bel Paese where the best thing a graduate can hope for is often a temporary contratto a progetto- the minimum and nothing else. Where they send out alarms that our population is declining and that the immigrants must come to fill the jobs we don't want to do anymore! Is it that really? Or is that they exploit people from far away by paying miserable wages that we would disdain. Where is our Malatesta now? While the left disintegrate before our eyes and fight amongst themselves- retreating belligerently in the face of the capitalist onslaught on our nation- we are indifferent because noi facciamo i cazzi nostri - as long as me and mine are okay, who cares? Ahimè mia bella Italia... dove sei? Il Bel Paese where immigrants are met with racism and prejudice when only a century ago and less our own people were forced by starvation and poverty to go all over the world in the hope of a better life. This Italy where the Pope, head of one of the richest states in the world can patronise us by declaring that money is not important, only the word of God...Perhaps we could pay our taxes with saint cards then? In our country where the only thing they haven't taxed yet is the air we breathe. Ahimè mia bell Italia...dove sei? Napoli, Naples- ancient city of art and music, Napoli a city where law and order have become impossible, where corruption is rife and the old saying "See Naples and Die" has become almost a slogan. Napoli a city where people are frightened to speak out and authors and journalists have to go into hiding for speaking out. Where people can dump radioactive waste in illegal dumps for backhanders and pay-offs and poison the people- but no one is ever to blame. Ahimè mia bella Italia.... dove sei? Italy land of law and government, land of Latin and Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and his wisdom. Now our heads of state truly honour their Roman past by being the Little Caesars they really adore. Ah, the glories of Rome we are taught in school, a Rome that oppressed, conquered and enslaved and kept her plebs happy with bread and cicuses, now we have pizza and football much the same- plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
