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Corruption in Italy: Church, politics and universities (1)Domenico Pacitti talks to Indro Montanelli Indro Montanelli was born in Fucecchio near Florence on 22 April 1909 and died in Milan on 22 July 2001. He was the most outstanding Italian journalist of the last century and one of Italy's most lucid historical commentators and fiercest social critics. His intellectual independence and dedication to truth and justice were a constant scourge to Italy's politicians, priests, academics and others who shamelessly adopted and continue to adopt corruption and hypocrisy as a way of life. JUST Response has chosen to pay tribute to this great man by publishing for the first time the transcript of a long interview on corruption in Italy by Domenico Pacitti on assignment for The Times Higher Education Supplement and The Guardian (London). The interview was conducted in the course of a full day spent at Indro Montanelli's home in Milan on 17 May 1997 and is published here in 3 parts. Grazie, Indro. Ricorderemo... PART 1 Domenico Pacitti: Italian universities have gained themselves a deservedly dreadful reputation. Could you say something about the adverse situation they find themselves in? Indro Montanelli: Our universities have always suffered from that malformation which is fundamental to Italian culture. It is an academic culture but one that came into being at the table of the prince’s palace and has remained so ever since. It made no difference whether the prince was lay or ecclesiastic. Pacitti: Can you explain why Italian culture came into being in this way and how it developed? Montanelli: This is an extremely complex subject but if you like I can give you what seem to me to be the fundamental strands. Italian culture came into being in this way because it had no audience. And it had no audience because of the Counter-Reformation. The Reformation, on the other hand, obliged the faithful to read the sacred scriptures on their own and to interpret them without invoking the pastor except to seek his occasional advice. This was how literacy spread in those countries. Therefore people in those countries knew how to read and write. So intellectuals in Britain, Holland and elsewhere had a market, a public market. But Italians had no such market. Illiteracy was widespread and the only audience, the only reader was the lord, assuming of course that he was able to read. And so Italian culture came into being destined for academia, because it was situated at the palace of the lord or prince and required the most absolute form of servility. We no longer have the prince but his place has been taken by the political party and economic power. Italian culture has never served the public. This is the really important point. University culture has been deeply affected by this. University culture in Italy is reserved for university people. This means that the teacher addresses other teachers, never the common herd because to move outside the academic fortalice is dangerous. It’s simply not the done thing. It’s discrediting. And so the language of our teachers is a mafia language, it’s a cosca clan language, because culture in Italy is a mafia cosca clan. If you need to say this, go ahead and say it. It’s the truth. And it is the truth for precise historical reasons. Pacitti: Italian university students are again demanding radical reforms. What advice can you give them? Montanelli: Well, students and Italians generally should forget the
idea of an Italian palingenesis from so-called rules. We have far too many
rules. Pacitti: I remember you once saying that while Italians produce rules, other countries produce men. Montanelli: I did say that. Certainly. I am told that in Britain there are altogether about six or seven thousand laws. In Italy there are more than two hundred thousand, which means a jungle. Pacitti: And why are there so many? Montanelli: Because – and this is another case of mafia – only the caste of lawyers can find their way through this labyrinth of laws and regulations. Since it’s lawyers who make the laws, because the political class is made up of lawyers, that’s where the proliferation comes from and there you have another mafia manifestation of Italian culture. Pacitti: So what advice could you give Italy's students? Right now there seems to be more optimism, or better, less pessimism in the air. Montanelli: Optimism? Pacitti: Well at Pisa, for example, students are once again talking about wanting to tackle the big questions. They want to be treated as paying customers and receive more adequate teaching. What’s different now is that Italian students are travelling abroad more than in the past on Socrates and Erasmus exchanges. They’re seeing other universities, other systems in Britain, Germany, France and so on. And when they return to Italy they ask why they should suffer third-rate universities. Some leaders of national student unions are saying it will only be a question of time before there’s a rebellion unless things change first. Montanelli: Look Domenico, the 1968 movement evidently failed because you can’t go around shooting people. But students did have a just cause – they were rebelling against a baronial system that does in fact exist. Now today students must rebel by using different methods. Pacitti: So what do you think they should do? Montanelli: Well I certainly don’t think they should start shooting. That simply gets them into trouble and detracts from their cause. There are many methods of communicating one’s disaffection and disdain to one’s professors. Pacitti: But just look at the sort of mess students find themselves faced with – poor teaching by professors who have been recommended on the basis of criteria other than merit, incompetence, rigged public exams, favouritism, absenteeism, plagiarism of academic publications including the illegal appropriation of students’ theses, corruption – the list is endless. Certainly they haven’t actually done anything yet but at least they’ve started seriously talking about it. You say they shouldn’t resort to violence and I understand that. But what exactly should they do? Montanelli: Again I would insist that they don’t use violence. Otherwise they lose out to their adversaries. In ‘68 I found myself having to defend the professors, which irritated me, but I had to do it. Pacitti: Mightn’t the Italian national press be an important weapon here? As far as I can see they’ve hardly dedicated a page to this. Scandals seem to be short-lived – they last a day or two and that’s it. The way it looks to me is that the Italian national press is controlled by relatively few people. Some news simply never gets out. Montanelli: No, it’s not really like that. If you really want to do something then you can. Very often Italian servility is not the boss’s fault but rather the servant’s fault. Pacitti: So there is this servility? Montanelli: Yes, in Italy there certainly is. Pacitti: Is there anything positive you could say about Italy? Montanelli: I have nothing positive whatsoever to say about Italy. Pacitti: Do you think things can change for the better? Montanelli: I’ve now lost all hope. In this country I’ve already seen too many transformations that ended up transforming nothing. I am the age I am, so I saw fascism – I saw it all. When we were very young – I was just 12 – we grew up with the conviction, which later turned out to be illusory, that we could do something worthwhile and that we could even make something worthwhile out of fascism. Slowly but surely we all became outcasts, because fascism came into being as totalitarianism and became a parody of totalitarianism. It wasn’t even a serious undertaking. It became serious for other reasons when Italy went to war, but it was really a farce. It got called totalitarianism, but it was totalitarianism Italian-style and therefore something negotiable. Everything was negotiable. Then, when we lost all hope in this regime, we went back to democracy. We were still very young even then and we saw this democracy transform itself into a partitocracy, that is to say into a mafia system. You see, Italy always predominates over everything it does in the name of myths and sacred things and then it corrupts them. It corrupts them and renders them parodies. You give Italy Jesus Christ and you get the Roman Catholic Church. I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear here. I mean, there’s nothing you can give Italy that doesn’t at once become a parody of what you give it. And so this means that there’s something in our blood. Pacitti: What you say is both very clear and very interesting. Let me raise the issue of Italian anathema to moralising. I was recently on a thesis commission at Pisa and a candidate had presented a dissertation on the US novelist Norman Mailer. When I made the point that book seemed to me to be more journalism than literature, I was criticised by Italian colleagues on the commission for "moralising", that is to say for expressing my independent critical opinion – or, if you like, for touching an untouchable. Now in Britain where I was born, brought up and educated expressing one's independent critical opinions, especially if reasoned, is something positive and moral philosophy is a perfectly respectable subject with a distinguished tradition. Not only can we moralise – we must. It is natural and right to do so. How do you see this? Montanelli: In Italy there has never been any serious attempt to develop a moral conscience in people. Italians dumped their conscience on the heap at the time of the Counter-Reformation. Conscience was the confessor who absolved you. Very convenient, isn’t it? Pacitti: Yes, there’s quite a collection of axioms whose function seems to be to preserve the status quo, discourage people from challenging convention and prevent counter-arguments from ever getting off the ground: “We’re all sinners”; “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”; “Don’t be a moralist”, and so on. Montanelli: Yes, it’s true. The Church is responsible for this. Pacitti: Some of our readers might be wondering how it is that a country with the Vatican at its centre can have this sort of problem. Montanelli: Well the Church never has conscience problems because it is the Church itself that resolves the matter. The Italian sinner certainly doesn’t have any remorse, because once he has confessed his sins he is at peace with himself again. That’s the way it is. But this doesn’t apply to everyone. Italy too has its exceptions. Pacitti: And this obviously doesn’t just apply to practising Catholics. Montanelli: Of course it doesn't. The Catholic upbringing means that it also affects non-practising Catholics, including those who don’t believe at all. It’s an old sedimentation. Pacitti: Going back to universities, what about those who want to know how to go about destroying the rot so as to build something new? Montanelli: Well as regards the path they should follow, what happens is that at a certain point they simply get sucked in. If they enter academia, they have to accept the rules. It is very dangerous for them to rebel. Pacitti: Do you have students or teachers in mind here? Montanelli: Students and young teachers. Pacitti: Let me press you again on this. What should they do to change things? If, for example, a young teacher who gets in despite being competent begins to go around reporting everyone for their misdeeds, do you think this would be a good thing? Or do you think that he simply shouldn’t go into academia in the first place? Montanelli: Young teachers should enter academia with a sacred pact to overturn the situation. But it certainly isn’t easy. Pacitti: Earlier this year Il Giornale reported Gianfranco Miglio, the constitutionalist and senator of the Northern League party, as literally advising serious-minded students to emigrate. He said that there was no point in telling them to stay on and fight the system since Italians notoriously lack true revolutionary spirit. Montanelli: Yes, this is true. Pacitti: Do you really think this is right? Wouldn’t it be more courageous of them to stay on and try to do something? Montanelli: Stay on and try – yes. But if I were to tell these boys to do this, I would be in bad faith because I do not believe in the possibility of success. But we must somehow encourage them. Pacitti: Well, could we say that it is not the system, the rules or the laws that need changing but rather the mentality? Montanelli: That’s the point – the mentality, the character, which are the most difficult things to change. Pacitti: At this point an ethical question arises. To what extent in principle is it right to try and change the character of a country’s entire population? I remember Bertrand Russell once talking about the feasibility of an international union of states. He said that some way would have to be found of combining cultural independence with political unity. Unfortunately he didn’t say how this should be carried out in cases like Italy where the culture in question is one in which mafia-style corruption is deeply rooted not only in the social culture but also in the major institutions. Montanelli: Yes, culture in Italy certainly has enormous responsibility for Italian corruption. That’s the source of the whole problem. Pacitti: I hope I’m not tiring you with all of these questions. Shall we go on or would you like to stop? Montanelli: No, not at all. Do let’s go on. Pacitti: Another university issue concerns the 1,500 or so foreign-language lecturers, or lettori, who teach at Italy’s universities. I’m not sure if you're familiar with the case. Montanelli: No. Tell me about it. Pacitti: Well, a new law was set up in 1980 to create mother-tongue language assistants. What actually happened in many cases was that they ended up doing all or nearly all of the language teaching and in some cases also literature teaching. It seems to have been the predictable result of incompetence, laziness and absenteeism among Italian professors. So the assistants found themselves de facto professors. Now according to European law, in such situations your labour rights and salary should be linked to the duties you actually perform. The European Court of Justice has so far decided in favour of the lecturers twice and so has the European parliament, but Italy is stubbornly refusing to step into line on this. Germany, insofar as it was involved in a similar case, put its house in order within a few months. Sweden has just done the same on another issue. Why won’t Italy obey the law? Montanelli: The difference is that Germany and Sweden are efficient countries. Pacitti: So should this too be put down to another case of negative Italian mentality? Montanelli: As I say, I don’t actually know the case, but from what you say there are evidently contrary interests and one can easily find a foothold in the jungle of Italian regulations. You can always find such a foothold in Italy. Pacitti: Yes, to justify just about anything. Is that right? Montanelli: Anything. What happens is not that they win the case but that they draw it out. The case goes on for years and years. Pacitti: Beyond this particular problem of foreign-language lecturers, now that we’re in Europe, it is now the European Court of Justice that is the highest court and no longer the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation or Constitutional Court. Do you think this could mark the beginning of a real change for Italy? Montanelli: Look. In line with Freudian reasoning, the great desire of Italians to enter Europe is the hope of becoming a European colony. So the idea is – bring your laws to Italy, tell me what they are and impose them on me. That’s what it’s all about. Nobody says this, but that’s the way it is. The reason is that we have long since lost all hope of being able to solve our own problems. We are incapable of making a true reform, absolutely incapable. So we hope a German legislator will come along with a regiment behind him and impose the reform by kicking it into us. END OF PART 1
Note: Part 1 of this interview, originally in Italian, was first published by JUST Response on 17 July 2003. A few quotations from this interview that were slightly adapted with Indro Montanelli's consent appeared in the following articles by Domenico Pacitti: Clan mentality rules in Italian universities (The Times Higher: 9 Jan 1998) and Renaissance man steps in (The Guardian: 3 Feb 1998).
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