One of the
nicest areas of Milano is the Naviglio Grande, which in the last few years has also
become one of the trendiest. In the late spring and summer the streets on either side of
the two canals fill up with late night habitués in search of a good drink and a bit of
cabaret.
Most of the buildings in the
neighborhood survived the Anglo-American bombing campaigns of the Second World War and
strolling past the flat barges in the twilight you can still get a feel for the way Milano
used to be. In a city, which at times seems nothing more than a gigantic parking lot here
you have water. There’s even the Darsena or what’s left of what was once
the largest inland port in Northern Italy.
In the 1500’s it was
much cheaper and quicker to ship goods to Genoa or Venice by water and Milano had one of
the largest canal systems in the country. Good roads were few and hard to find and trains,
in spite of Da Vinci’s intuition and designs, had yet to be invented. It was the
great artist himself who came up with the idea of the canals. He was working for the
city’s rulers, the Sforza. They were condottieri, or feared warriors
who’d been given the keys to the city and Leonardo did what he could to fortify the
town and render its infrastructure more efficient. In the center you can still see some of
the locks and the wooden gates that regulated the flow of water from one level to another.
For hundreds of years, in fact, the canals were very much a part of the city’s
identity. They’re described in Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi and in
countless other works in Italian and Milanese dialect. The dialect itself is a mirror of
the city’s history, being a mix of all the languages of the various foreign powers
that at one time or another ruled Milano. An example of this is "El tumbun de San
Marc", located near the Corriere della Sera. This strange Spanish, almost
Catalan sounding name has it’s origins in the period of the great European plague of
the fifteen hundreds. Milano, like many of other cities of that time, was hard hit by the
epidemic and thousands of people died. Camus even mentions the city in his book La
Peste. At one point the deaths were so numerous that they couldn’t burn the
bodies fast enough and many people took to disposing of them in the canals. Where the bar
stands today there was once a canal and "El tumbun" in Milanese means the
‘falling point’ or in this case the place where the dead were dumped into the
water.
After WWI Mussolini decided
to modernize Milano and ordered that the canals be covered and used as an adjunct to the
city’s sewer system. It was period of great public works and the ‘Amsterdam of
Lombardy’ all but disappeared. Since then engineers and architects, and occasionally
politicians, have talked about re-opening the canals, but nothing’s ever come of it.
A project of the sort would cost millions of Euros and while the Milanese are famous for
their ability to make money, like most people they could do without the taxes they’d
have to pay.
Of course, It would be nice
to have them back. It would give the city a whole different feel, but no one who lives
here seriously thinks that that could happen. Milano is a town that prides itself on its
efficiency and common sense, having a heart that beats fast for business and commerce.
It’s the fashion and financial center of the country and it’s no surprise that
Prime Minister Berlusconi and his government have their power base in the city. The
re-opening of the canals would be a radical change. The water would inevitably slow things
down and make it harder for people to use their cars. And less cars would mean less noise,
less pollution and inevitably cleaner air. Things which, in theory at least, just about
everyone is in favor of. But just because people are in favor of something doesn’t
mean that it’s going to happen.
Governments have their own
agendas, and often times what you or I want is not at the top of their lists. Most
Americans, for instance, are against the Bush administration unilaterally attacking Iraq
and creating a new protectorate on the banks of the Euphrates, but that isn’t going
to stop President Bush. Likewise, while a good 70% of Italians are against a war in Iraq,
with or without UN backing, the Italian government is supporting our Cowboy’s drive
to redesign the Middle East. Berlusconi is a businessman, first, last and always, and sees
eye to eye with Bush on a wide variety of issues. They’re both gamblers when you get
down to it, reckless drivers who trust their own instincts rather than the advice of their
more knowledgeable advisors. In the business world you’ve got to think big and take
risks. You have to have a vision and be willing to embrace it and follow through on your
plan of action. If you start to doubt what you’re doing or to think of the possible
consequences then you’ll never get anywhere. Someone will call your bluff and you
could end up losing everything.
Here in Italy Berlusconi must
be having his fair share of doubts and second thoughts. Everyday there’s some new
protest against the coming war with Iraq. First there were the three million people who
marched in Rome and now the train blockades. Italy plays host to a substantial number of
NATO and U.S. military bases. There are the American attack submarines, carrying nuclear
tipped cruise missles that dock in Sardegna. The string of Air Force bases that were used
in the bombing in Kosovo and the U.S. Army installations, in particular the one near Pisa,
Camp Darby. The Pentagon is moving a lot of its heavy equipment, such as tanks and armored
personnel carriers from its bases in Germany and Italy and shipping it to Iraq via the
port of Livorno.
The Berlusconi government
gave the Americans permission to use the state Railway system, the Ferrovie dello
Stato, to move it down to Camp Darby and then to Livorno. Unfortunately for the
richest man in Italy, anti-way activists connected with the No-Global movement found out
about these largely nocturnal military convoys and set up human blockades. Hundreds of
young people are now spending their nights lying across train tracks in an effort to slow
down the Bush/Berlusconi war drive. The government is threatening to arrest anybody
connected with the blockades but that doesn’t seem to have stopped the fervor of the
No-Globals. Indeed, the news has spread and now the dock workers in Livorno are saying
that they refuse to load any military cargo heading for Iraq.
In the end I’m sure that
the Pentagon will find some way to move its tanks. But the protests do not bode well for
the Berlusconi government or for the Bush administration. It’s true that they’ve
done more or less what they’ve wanted to do up to now, headless of the mounting
opposition. But if they aren’t careful, and they go too far, their electorate might
decide that it’s time to re-open the canals, so to speak. Silvio and George could
find themselves without a job, giving democracy a breath of fresh air and making the world
a safer place to live.
Copyright © 2003 John
Hemingway
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