Venice and Lombardy: Why is the Request for Independence Growing?
The following article was written before the recent referendum in Venice and Lombardy. It remains relevant as far as, everything happening in Europe those days is becoming, more a more, a manifestation of extreme social “egotism”, of generalized destruction of any form of solidarity and adherence to more general projects [...]
The following article was written before the recent referendum in Venice and Lombardy. It remains relevant as far as, everything happening in Europe those days is becoming, more a more, a manifestation of extreme social “egotism”, of generalized destruction of any form of solidarity and adherence to more general projects. This is especially true after the strategic defeat and capitulation of the European Left on the Greek question. “Everybody for himself” seems to dominate the continent. It is the historic triumph of the neoliberal Europe, but it reminds somehow the triumphs of the cancer on living organisms. Europe will hardly survive it.
On Sunday the 22th of October two Italian regions, Lombardy and Veneto, will vote to ‘express an opinion’ about their ‘autonomy’ from the central government.
This has nothing to do with the conflict between Catalonia and the central Spanish government in Madrid, because the two Italian referendums are compatible with the constitutional precepts, while Catalan independence clashes with the current Spanish Constitution. However, it is clear that – at least in terms of collective psychology – a “contagion effect” is growing, and probably the turnout in the two Italian regions will be higher than it would have been normally.
We will see the results when the polling stations will be closed on next Sunday evening (they will be open from 7 am to 11 pm). There are no political tensions because, as it has been said, everything is done according to the law. Obviously, there are different opinions about it, but the public debate seen in the press and on the local TV channels has remained within a civil exchange of ideas.
The Venetian Regional Law requires the poll will be valid if it is attended by the 50% plus one of those entitled. Yet in Lombardy, a valid quorum is not required. Nevertheless, in both cases, much importance will be given to the turnout. This will be the best criterion – among all the others – to show how much people living in those two regions are interested in an enlargement of autonomy.
It is quite sure that in both regions the people will choose “yes” for the autonomy, because the large majority of those who will go to vote represent those who really want it, while the dissenters – or those who are indifferent to the subject – will not waste their time going to the voting stations. This means, again, that the number of voters will determine the political outcome. This political outcome will be the starting point around which the next Italian government will have to negotiate with the two regions about the terms of the autonomy. And then, probably, we might have some tensions. We will see. The promoters of each election are those coming from the Northern League or emerging from the new separatist movement that is now over twenty years old. Veneto’s governor, Luca Zaia, has left behind the Northern League he came from and now he’s representing only himself and his followers. Yet, he is the real driving force behind this referendum and his undoubted popularity comes also from this political choice. He personally said that he expected “at least 80% of votes in favour”.
That means he wants a real plebiscite. If it goes this way, Rome will have much more problems to sort out in the coming years, then. Quite different is the case of Lombardy, where the main engine is Roberto Maroni, the governor in charge. He is still a member of the Northern League party, now more than ever. Yet Italy will vote for the new parliament next spring and the Northern League is supposed to be in a coalition with Berlusconi and several other right winged groups. In case of victory, they will all become part of the next government. Such a government will surely give much more attention to the needs of the whole country, so Lombard autonomy will be inevitably placed in the background. This, at the very least, will create rifts between the separatist and autonomist party members and the national party top officials.
The main reason for the two elections doesn’t really regard solidarity. It is rather one of the many expressions of public dissatisfaction towards the central government, perceived as a source of corruption and unfair distribution of national wealth. Many people in the north think that the wealth created locally must remain local rather than be “squandered” and shared with the regions that “contribute less”. They are mainly referring to the southern regions, but they are also referring to the slogan “Roma ladrona” (“Rome is a big thief”), which was popular when the Northern League movement started its way and that has been recently refreshed by the events of “Mafia Capitale”: a huge investigation that revealed a vast criminal network of corruptions and political-administrative misconduct.
It could be said that Northern Italy feels the same way as Northern Europe towards the Mediterranean Europe: a tendency that indicates a more or less marked lack of solidarity between all the European states, that are continuously facing the more and more frequent problems generated by the continent’s economic and political crisis. The European national egoisms are perfectly mirroring the regional ones.
There is an element of truth behind these ‘egoisms’, something that was vehemently emphasized during the election campaign. If you look, for example, at the central government spending on the infrastructures, you will see that from 2016 to 2020, ANAS will spend approximately 647 million euros for northern Italy out of the 23.4 billion euros of the national budget. In percentage, this is 3%, against 56% (13 billion) destined for the south. But if you look only at these percentages you will only open or reopen old polemics, never settled, between north, south, and center. It is well known that northern infrastructures are far better than those in the south and so rebalancing measures are really needed. These measures are also an integral part of the national solidarity politics of any state.
At the same time, there are ‘border issues’ coming from the privileges that historically have been granted to the Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, two special administrative areas. Their status and their tax exemptions have made the conditions of neighbouring municipalities very different. These differences have not been sorted out by the state funds given to the municipalities adjacent to the special administrative regions. It should be remembered, for example, that just ten years ago all the Venetian provinces asked to be annexed to South Tyrol. Yet ten years ago, the general situation was much better than today. But all these polemics about wealth distribution are nothing more than a symptom of a widespread discontent and will be sorted only through the concept of a ‘country’ based on solidarity, opposed to the current concept based on competition.
Originally published on 2017-11-24
About the author: Giulietto Chiesa is one of the best known Italian journalists. He was Moscow correspondent for twenty years for “L’Unità” and “La Stampa”. He worked with all major Italian television channels, from the TG1 to TG3 and TG5 and is currently political analyst for major Russian television channels. He is the only Italian journalist to be repeatedly mentioned in the autobiography of Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he has repeatedly interviewed. He writes a blog for “Il Fatto Quotidiano”. His own blog is http://www.megachip.info/ .
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!
Donate to Support Us
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
It’s all over but the postmortems. Trump and Clinton are their parties’ presumptive nominees. Choice for voters in November amounts to death by hanging or firing squad. Democracy is pure fantasy. None whatever exists. Trump was the last GOP aspirant left standing after all others dropped out, an unlikely choice, a surprise winner, prevailing despite party bosses opposing him.Democrat power brokers chose Clinton before primary/caucus season began. The race was over before it started.Voters in November get to choose between a dirty business as usual billionaire racist, demagogue and a recklessly dangerous neocon racketeer, war criminal, Wall Street tool she ...
I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterward an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?”It was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times before and my answer is always the same: ...
“What Russia is sponsoring and doing [in Syria] is not counter-terrorism it is barbarism”Samantha Power, US Representative to the United NationsThe US representative to the United Nations, Ambassador ‘Ranting Sam’ Samantha Power, accused the Russian and Syrian governments of ‘barbarism’, claiming Moscow or Damascus had attacked an unarmed United Nations humanitarian convoy delivering aid to civilians in Aleppo. No evidence was presented. Rants and threats do not require facts or proof; they only require vehement emotional ejaculations and compliant mass propaganda organs.‘Barbarians’, to be clear, evoke images of leaders and groups, which abjure all civilized norms and laws. They only ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSaveSave
It is true that every story about the Balkan Peninsula begins with the ancient Illyrians.[1] Historians believe that these Indo-European people were one of the largest European populations to inhabit the western portion of the Balkans from the coasts of the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic Sea to the Alps about 1000 B.C. Their eastern neighbours were also Indo-European peoples – the Thracians. The demarcation line between their settlements and their cultural and political influence was the Morava river in present-day Serbia (in Latin Margus, located in the Roman province of Moesia Superior) and the Vardar river in present-day FYR ...
Documentary films about ex-Yugoslavia not seen on global corporate mass-media news. For instance:US documentary movie "RETLINES" with English subtitle from 1991 about Vatican smuggling Croat Nazi Ustashi to South America in 1945Ratlines were a system of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. Other destinations included the United States and perhaps Canada and the Middle East. There were two primary routes: the first went from Germany to Spain, then Argentina; the second from Germany ...
The Western-backed myth of a Greater SerbiaMuch space, time and efforts have been devoted in the recent history of West Balkans, and in particular in the latest political upheavals, about the alleged project of a Greater Serbia especially by the Western authors either academic scholars or journalists.[1] The issue must be, however, considered together with its counterparts from Croatia (a Greater Croatia) and Albania (a Greater Albania). There are two focal questions that arose here:Were all these projects serious and what was the origin of this maximalist concept of forming the national states in the otherwise ethnically mixed area?Whose exact ...
With a general election looming in the United Kingdom and Spain possibly following Greece’s revolt against austerity later this year, we need to think, not just who or what we are voting for, but why we should vote at all.People are suffering from a deficiency which is as unbalancing as a hormone or vitamin deficiency. What we are severely lacking in is democracy. Many of those pondering on the state of politics feel unhappy and somehow depleted. They haven’t yet realised it is democracy that’s lacking because they have believed what so many politicians have told them, over and over ...
Claiming that Macedonians voluntarily chose to rename our country into “North Macedonia” and ethnicity into “North Macedonians” is like saying that Indigenous groups choose to be called “Redskins”. And when Western media attack Macedonians for denouncing the forced name change, it would be akin to them attacking Indigenous groups for denouncing anti-Indigenous terms.Welcome to The Surreal World: Macedonia.Yes, Macedonians get attacked for denouncing the derogatory terms used against us. Why? Because the United States says so. And they fund media and so-called “think tanks” to do the same. These same groups accuse Macedonians of the exact tactics that are being ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
For all the attention paid to the emergence of homegrown Islamist terrorists in Belgium, France and other European countries, one of the continent’s biggest radicalization problems is taking place on its fringes.Kosovo, the tiny Muslim-majority Balkan nation of just 1.8 million, has produced more foreign fighters per capita than any other Western nation since ISIS declared its now-defunct caliphate in 2014. Some 413 Kosovo citizens, including women and children, have joined that group and other Islamist extremist factions since the war in Syria began in 2012.As it attempts to join the European Union, Kosovo has been under pressure to stamp ...
The two most militarily powerful nations in the West, both free to project naval power and maritime domination anywhere in the world, get together to punish and overthrow regimes they find guilty of human rights abuses and political repression in the name of human rights and promoting democracy: What could possibly go wrong?It is of course NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s new call for NATO, which has already over the past decade exercised its nation-building and promotion of enlightened regime policies with such brilliant success in Ukraine, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan to spread its mantle of protection, enlightenment and peace over ...
Milo Djukanovic’s thirty-year-old authoritarian kleptocracy is killing Podgorica's Democratic efforts.Largely unnoticed in the wake of events in the Middle-East and the impeachment drama, another crisis is brewing in the Balkans. In Montenegro, thousands of people have been protesting a new law passed by the Montenegrin parliament and signed into effect by the country’s longtime strongman, Milo Djukanovic, which gives the government authority over properties that religious organizations in the country have been using for at least a century. Evidence of the problems the controversial new law creates can be seen in the widespread condemnation it has received from individuals such ...
The interviews with three snipers of Georgian nationality, conducted by the Italian journalist Gian Micalessin and aired last week as a breathtaking documentary on Milan-based Canale 5 (Matrix program), still have not paved its way to the international mainstream media. That is hardly surprising taking into account the bombshell evidence against the real perpetrators and organizers of the 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev, generally known as the “revolution of dignity“.The documentary features Alexander Revazishvili, Koba Nergadze and Zalogi Kvaratskhelia, Georgian military officers who were recruited to carry out a “special mission” in Kiev by Mamuka Mamulashvili, a close aid of ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
UN Third Committee Resolution L.23 IN, Legitimizes Stranglehold Economic Sanctions., Used as a Means to "Obliterate" North KoreaOn November 15, 2016 the United Nations Third Committee adopted the resolution: “Situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea".Among the co-sponsors of the Resolution were United States, United Kingdom, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, etc.Disassociating themselves from the resolution, which they denounced as invalid, were China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, and three other countries opposed to the biased character and double standards that typify “country-specific” resolutions. The so-sponsors of this resolution are themselves guilty of criminal human rights violations.The very ...
The U.S. Government certainly leads the world in invasions and coups.In recent years, it has invaded and occupied — either by military assault or by coup, but in either case followed by installing (or trying to install) a new regime there — a number of countries, especially Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen. U.S. propaganda says that its invasions and military occupations (and it denies its coups) are to benefit the people in the invaded and militarily occupied countries, or to bring them ‘democracy’, and are not done merely to benefit the people who control the U.S. Government (which itself is not a ...
Real Semites are the Palestinians. Current Zionists Israelis genetically are not the Semites.They are the real anti Semitic people. Please world stop those anti Semitic warmongers Israeli Zionists!Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSaveSaveSave
Antonio Zambrano-Montes, a 35-year-old Mexican national, was shot to death by police in Pasco, Washington last Tuesday as he was backing away from officers with his hands up. A video of the shooting clearly corroborates claims by Zambrano-Montes’s family that he was killed “execution-style.”Police claimed that Zambrano-Montes, who had lived in the city for ten years and worked as an orchard picker, may have been “armed with a rock” before he was shot multiple times. Protests erupted over the weekend, with more than a thousand demonstrating in Washington state on Saturday against the killing.The United States has invaded, bombed, and ...
Congratulations to the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, once known also as Kovno (in Yiddish Kóvne) on its selection as Europe’s “Capital of European Culture” in 2022, sharing the title with Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg.The city’s leaders now have a splendid opportunity to take the moral high road in dealing with a number of ghosts from the present and the past. To start with the present, will the city’s officials now act rapidly to avoid a public perception disaster by moving this year’s neo-Nazi parade away from the city center during the February 16th Independence Day celebrations? Previous years’ marches have on occasion glorified actual Kaunas Holocaust collaborators, causing deep pain to Survivors ...
On Sunday the 22th of October two Italian regions, Lombardy and Veneto, will vote to ‘express an opinion’ about their ‘autonomy’ from the central government.
