Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
“forced”—that is, to live in the outer suburbs)—are the dregs of society, their
lilting but disrespectful Roman speech the defining mark of their abjection. but
the latter are pragmatically the backbone of the Right's support among young
people, and their aggressive localism is strongly associated with the new media,
especially the internet, which has become a vehicle for the rapid reincarnation of
the Roman dialect as a language of dissidence and hostility to foreigners as well
as of the robust, salty humor for which Romans have long been justly famous. so
right-wing politics finds itself a perhaps too-willing hostage to forces to which it
must formally deny legitimacy.
italy's current paradox is indeed a national politics that depends on localist
politicians. it is not mere coincidence that some of the strongest advocates of ital-
ian unity in recent years have been leftist politicians (see especially Thomassen
2011). The rightward drift reinforces precisely the tendencies that these politicians
most fear: Roman “accommodation,” while often producing an outward display
of tolerance matched in some cases by a real commitment to cultural, religious,
and social diversity, can, by tripping the wires of Romans' open opportunism,
morph—at the extreme end of Roman right-wing politics—into a morose and
self-absorbed localism that thinks nothing of expressing open hatred for other-
ness, turning to “counter-enlightenment” thinkers such as evola and Nietzsche
in order to justify its muscular insularity.13 it should be apparent by now that
simply describing even a segment of Roman society as either racist or tolerant
does not advance our understanding of the current situation. both terms figure
in a rhetorical matrix that is a component of the present dynamic. such ambi-
guities are not new to Rome. whatever one thinks of the ongoing debates over
how far italians' fascism resisted the Nazis' racist campaign of extermination, for
example, even today there are black-shirted nostalgics who yearn for mussolini's
rule and yet who also insist on the Jewish contribution to modern Roman culture
and who love to relate tales of how their families sheltered Jews from the Nazis.
This does not imply wholesale acceptance, nor is it only a reflection of the
important symbolic role the Jewish community plays in Rome today. Rather, the
model had already been set by the Vatican, which appointed itself the protector of
the Jews while at the same time putting enormous pressure on the Roman Jews to
convert to Christianity. The Vatican needed the Jews to keep its finances running
profitably, especially as, for many centuries, the clergy could not openly practice
usury. Concentrating the Jews in a single space also meant assuming responsibil-
ity for them in some sense. but it did not mean treating them with kindness, or
even with the lofty tolerance of present-day political correctness. properly exam-
ined, it exposes the cynical underpinnings of the ostensibly benign practice of
“protection”—an attitude that, in this regard, seems not unlike the “friendship”
professed by mafiosi toward their victims or the “protection” (
pizzo
) offered to
car owners wishing to park in crowded spaces. politeness, service, protection,
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