Just a couple of days after my latest post, "the 12 commandments by grandpa Silvio"' I watched the Italian news like I usually do, and my reflections on that letter full of meaning written by my grandfather appears even more relevant. On October 15th, an Italian youth representation organized a legal and legitimate protest in Rome. They were raising their voices against corporate greed causing a severe lack of work opportunities for the new generation and the unacceptable instability of those few existing working positions. This is the Italian voice of the "indignant", a global movement that has embedded young generations in all the western world.
But hiding among them, among a group of educated and brave people, other less virtuous had planned to ruin that peaceful demonstration with the most sneaky crimes. An Italian wing of the yet infamous black blocs, covered their faces and, black-hooded, took up unacceptable acts of violence against pretty much everything that was on their way. With rods and handmade weapons, they attacked banks windows, ATMs. They set fire to a large amount of vehicles parked on the street and outrageously violated a sacred statue snatching it from a church and smashing it on the ground with extreme violence.
I was shocked. I couldn't understand the logic behind these incidents. What insane group of people could think that destruction and blood can lead to political change and better life conditions? I admire those, my peers, who have enough courage and hope to fight against the injustice of a spoiled business system and who protest legally showing their reasonable and moderate anger.
What I found in my grandpa's moral will is definitely something that those hooded cowards do not know. Our parents and grandparents probably had an easier life in a precise time of history when the western world was growing and opportunities were there, available for everybody. It's not their generation's fault if we don't have the same fortune today . There is an Italian common saying that has been modified interesting in a graffiti on a bridge of Rome. It says: "il futuro non è più quello di una volta", " future is no longer what it used to be". I like it and these incidents make me recall this sentence. It's cynic, but quite fitting.
Identifying myself to those Italians peacefully protesting in Rome, I don't want to sound pessimist as if this was a new reality that we can only face and live with it. Instead, I strongly believe that we, Italian young people, can still have exciting career aspirations if we use a little more creative imagination in inventing our future. Openness is the key word. Openness helps us identifying opportunities in new sectors. It gives us the mindset to learn from others, even when they're very different from what we were used to. Successful careers don't inevitably have to be the reflection of what our father and grandfather used to be. We surely need lawyers, but we don't need too many. Italy is the country with the highest number of lawyers in the world and many of them can't get a stable job. From my modest life experience, I realized that this new globalized world is very interested in what we, Italians, have to say. if not in the longterm, the experience of a period of time outside of our beautiful country, provides us with the opportunity to enlarge our prospectives and have a better understanding of how we can proactively contribute to our society back home. I have a dream. A dream that is attainable and realistic:
When Thomas and I will be tired to live far from our loved ones, I want to go back to Italy and start something that will, somehow, practically use what I have learned living overseas. Something that will have an added-value, that will give a channel to share what I understood from my experiences and will, eventually, ameliorate our Italian (too often limited) society. It may sounds an ambitious goal, but it's not. It's something realistic and feasible and I believe that the seed for change can be found in small projects.
Japanese "Gokiburi"