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[personal profile] fpb
You may have heard about the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (which actually has nothing to do with the EU, although I have no doubt that its decision was welcomed by parliament and commission) to order the crucifixes to be removed from all Italian classrooms. What you will not have heard is the response to this decision. The country appears to have clenched itself like a fist, and the general feeling appears to be that if the eminent and learned judges want the image of the Crucified removed from our schools, they can bloody well do it themselves - and face the consequences.

Not a single voice has been raised in favour of this decision. Dozens, maybe hundreds of mayors have passed ordinanze (town laws) that required the placing of the Crucifix in every classroom. In red Tuscany, Italy's home of atheists of the left and right, mayors have been sending the Carabinieri around to check that every classroom had its little crucified Christ well on display. In Lecco, a city in Lombardy - the part of Italy where religious practice is lowest and social mores most like those of non-Christian countries like France - a high school teacher who tried to remove the image from his own classroom faced a classroom revolt; when he ordered the students out, and furiously threw the crucifix into his dustbin, one of his students saw him, reported him to the headmaster - and the headmaster inflicted ten days of unpaid leave on him and told him to count himself lucky he did not report him to the professional authorities.

I am not suprised. Indeed, what surprised me was my own fury at the news of the sentence. I have been in six different school buildings in my life in Italy - good schools, bad schools, state schools, church schools; in not a single one do I ever remember the Crucifix not being there. It also decorates every Italian courtroom, and most private homes. Contrary to what you might think, the country of Dolce&Gabbana, of Versace and of Rocco Siffredi is in no way overwhelmingly religious; but it is attached to certain symbols, and that symbol of a naked, suffering, unjustly condemned man in whom all that is good and worthy of worship and respect in the world is centred, is the most deeply buried in our soul of them all. It is not a large or overwhelming presence; it is ordinarily small and dark - made as it is of almost black wood and of bronze or pig iron - and barely noticed. Indeed, it is intended to be unobtrusive; the Italian feeling, if I can trust my own intuition, would be that large and impressive crucified Christs are for the altars of churches, and that to place them elsewhere would be, in a sense, like putting oneself forward - an act of bad taste, as much as arrogance. The very materials of which the ordinary, everyday crucifix is made are meant to fade into the bacground: not ivory or silver or gold, but dark wood and darker metal. It is just there in the background, so unnoticed that we do not think of it; that we blaspheme, cheat and fight in its presence; that we do not realize it is there - until.

Until some damned fanatic from Finland, who does not belong here, who has no idea of the country she has married in, who clearly rejects everything we live for, and who yet wants to be and remain Italian in spite of her abysmal and fanatical ignorance of what Italy is and of what we are - until this alien harpy pretends to take this symbol from us. Until she is stupid enough, ignorant enough, and fanatical enough, to want to poison with her intolerance the very country she has wished to join. And until, far from the country whose every judge (in the presence of the crucifix in his or her courtroom) has told her to get stuffed, she finally finds seven deracinated book-blinded idiots who take her argument seriously.

At which point, the moron and the morons find that their "battle" is only just begun. Because when it comes to symbols so fundamental to our lives, then the most eminent court has no more power than seven kiddies in a corner shop. Because at that point the country in Europe that has always been most pro-European, which has given up the most for Europe, in which Europe is regarded as a value in itself, simply chews this European edict and spits it in the face of those who claim to speak for Europe. Because, stupid judges and crazy Finn, we are far more Europe than you will ever be. "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship" (John 4.22). In Italy, even atheists and Communists respect the Crucifix, because it means so much about the condition and value of man. Because our relationship with our Lord is our own, and woe betide amyone who comes between us and our Lord.

EDITED IN: to confirm what I said, the well-known singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla, a Communist, an agnostic, and a homosexual to boot, has described the Court's sentence in four salty words: E' una grande stronzata. Which cannot be exactly translated, but it amounts to saying that it is the intellectual and moral equivalent of the contents of a toilet.

Fight the good fight

Date: 2009-11-24 09:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sanscouronne.livejournal.com
This is so infuriating. I am glad to see that the Italian people care about, and will fight for their religion, their culture, and their sovereignty.

This decision by the European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with human rights, and really nothing to do with Europe, at least not the idea of Europe to which the Italian people subscribed.
(deleted comment)

Re: Fight the good fight

Date: 2010-07-10 02:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
We have a little practice. After filling our jails with Mafia and Red Brigades murderers, what's one dumb court deceision?

Speaking seriously, though, I am worried that the government has chosen entirely the wrong path. Among Mr. Berlusconi's many faults there is an absolutely fatal one, which is that he is desperate to be liked. You can see it in international meetings, when he scuttles around smiling and trying to be agreeable to everyone; the result is that he is repeatedly used by colder and more calculating individuals such as Putin or Gheddafi. In this case, the proper path was to withdraw Italy from the Council of Europe (the mother institution of the Court of Human Rights, and a different organization from the European Union) and negotiate hard-facedly to demand a new version of the treaty that would explicitly exclude this sort of imposition. Instead he appealed - to the same court that passed the original rotten judgment. I'm afraid I am pessimistic about the result.

Date: 2009-11-24 10:03 pm (UTC)
ext_1059: (Ronald Reagan 1967)
From: [identity profile] shezan.livejournal.com
This is a FANTASTIC post and deserves to be reproduced EVERYWHERE.

Date: 2009-11-24 10:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] affablestranger.livejournal.com
I knew decisions like this were going to come down from on high once the European states handed over individual at-home authority to a central authority elsewhere. I have no idea how this will ultimately play out, but I am of course quite heartily on the side of the Italians. Alas, I am also cynical. The individual identities of most U.S. states has gone by the wayside over the years in favor of national sociocultural hegemony, and once that process begins there's not likely any good road back. I fear the same for Europe.

Date: 2009-11-25 12:19 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cleo-eurydike.livejournal.com
sorry, coming from a US state that tends to scream its culture in my ear everytime I step outside, what are you talking about?

Date: 2009-11-25 03:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ccr1138.livejournal.com
If you think the liberals aren't trying to homogenize the whole USA, where the federal government is uber alles and the rights reserved to the states by the constitution are moot, you aren't paying attention. Why else would the left be fighting so hard to deny states the right to regulate things like health care, education, abortion, gay marriage, etc.? None of these issues are within the purview of the federal government, but that doesn't stop the left from creating new bureaucracies and regulations to force states to toe the line. Did you know the new health-care bill contains a provision to punish states if they pass laws limiting trial lawyer compensation in medical malpractice? That is not only contrary to the spirit of reform which they preach, it is unconstitutional! Wake up and see what's happening in our country! It's being destroyed from the inside out by those who want to force their liberal views down the throats of the rest of us, despite the law and our vehement protests.

Already the kind of bat-shit insane thinking that has led to the crucifix situation in Italy is taking hold in the USA. Did you know the future teachers of Minnesota are being asked to refute the American dream and learn to apologize for America's success if they want a job (http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/70662162.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciaec8O7EyUsr)? That's but one small example of the kind of idiotic crap that passes for intellectual thought in our universities today.

Unless all of us, in every country, rise up and refute the insanity, we will be sucked under the rip-tide of political correctness, and everything we value in our cultures will be lost to the mediocrity of unbelief.

Date: 2009-11-25 03:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cleo-eurydike.livejournal.com
I'm sorry, I blanked on 'uber alles' (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Godwin%27s+Law). So, what are your thoughts on yaoi?

Date: 2009-11-25 03:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ccr1138.livejournal.com
Yaoi = a guilty pleasure.

:D

Date: 2009-11-25 03:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ccr1138.livejournal.com
BTW, the reference actually wasn't meant to invoke Godwin's Law, as I did not have Nazis in mind. I simply speak a bit of German.

sorry it took so long to respond

Date: 2010-07-10 04:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] affablestranger.livejournal.com
What's the problem with the state you live in (Texas?) to "scream its culture in your ear"? Why should it not have its own culture? It has a distinctly different history and makeup than the rest of the US states. The same for Hawaii, Alaska, Maine, Louisiana, and most of the rest. My question has always been "Why does there need to be a homogeneous national culture/identity?", and it's specifically for the US in that each individual state is (or was originally) a voluntary member state of a cooperative federal system. It's no different for the EU.

Back in ye olde days in the US, if you didn't like the state laws, the culture, the speech pattern, or the economy (or whatever else) of a state, you could pick up and move to another, and that other would more often than not be quite different, especially if you went to another region of the country. I recall when I warned some of my European friends about the potential dangers to their respective national cultures and identities I was told that I was a worry wart, that the EU was just there to make interstate travel and commerce easier, that nothing was going to be done that would infringe on any particular member state's culture. I replied that that was how we started over here and "look at us now." They believed the politicians. First mistake, IMHO.

I know I'm weird. I get told so all the time.

Date: 2010-07-10 02:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
To be fair, this is nothing compared with what the governments of France and Spain have done in the past. In France, the government authorities have systematically uprooted the nation's Church, and in Spain they are well on their way to do so. There is nothing about national rather than supra-national authority that guarantees that tradition will be respected; to the contrary, many national traditions run counter to universal Christianity.

Date: 2009-11-24 10:48 pm (UTC)
ext_1059: (Default)
From: [identity profile] shezan.livejournal.com
Have now linked to this at my own LJ.

Date: 2009-11-24 11:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mosinging1986.livejournal.com
Well, wow! This makes me want to cheer.

Thanks for reminding me that not everyone on the planet has gone insane!

Date: 2009-11-25 12:23 am (UTC)
cheyinka: A sketch of a Metroid (Default)
From: [personal profile] cheyinka
I love the way you've used words here - "not ivory or silver or gold", "we blaspheme, cheat and fight in its presence", just the way the whole thing builds up to "In Italy, even atheists and Communists respect the Crucifix."

I am also pleased to hear that the order hasn't been taken meekly or happily, not because I expected that it would, but because I really had no idea how it would be taken at all.

Date: 2009-11-25 12:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cleo-eurydike.livejournal.com
Linked here by [livejournal.com profile] shezan, this is a fantastic post. Having never even been to Italy - and not even being Christian - the idea of removing the cross is downright bizarre. My gut instinct is that it won't be enforced, but having heard mostly praise of the EU HR Court heretofore (and pity, not relief, for its lack of ability to enforce), this is an eye-opener.

Date: 2009-11-25 07:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
An European Court of Human Rights unaffiliated to any government is in the main a good thing, and I have no issue with it as an institution. I do object to their over-extension of their claim of competence - which is an ugly imitation of bad American precedent that has nothing to do with human rights - but one would not abolish the Supreme Court just because of Wade vs. Roe, or Ferguson vs. Plassey, or Dred Scott.

Date: 2009-11-25 02:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ccr1138.livejournal.com
Maddening! It seems the infidels are at every turn trying to revise history and destroy what has made western civilization great. I wish God would strike them all with a big bolt of lightning.

Date: 2009-11-25 05:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] guardians-song.livejournal.com
I wish God would strike them all with a big bolt of lightning.
They'd just blame it on global warming...

Date: 2009-11-25 06:08 pm (UTC)
ext_402500: (Default)
From: [identity profile] inverarity.livejournal.com
Hmm. I've been mulling over this comment and FPB's apparent acceptance of it. Would you care to clarify exactly whom you consider to be an "infidel" deserving of death?

Date: 2009-11-25 06:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
I did not want to answer this because I did not want to start a debate about selective mass murder. Those who think like this seem not to have a great deal of belief in the Four Last Things - Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. They take this world much too seriously, not realizing that, to a Christian, it is nothing more than an examination-room or test field for our real life to come.

Incidentally, why do you always ascribe the worst possible motives to me?

Date: 2009-11-25 07:04 pm (UTC)
ext_402500: (Default)
From: [identity profile] inverarity.livejournal.com
Incidentally, why do you always ascribe the worst possible motives to me?

I don't, actually. I disagree with you about almost everything, but I keep you on my flist because I do, in fact, believe that you're fundamentally a decent guy and your heart is in the right place. (And your polemics are interesting even when I think they're light years off-base.)

But since you are usually very quick to comment on posts with which you disagree, even on the smallest detail, your silence here made me wonder.

Date: 2009-11-25 07:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
Actually, I did not comment because my disagreement, so to call it, was so enormous that there was no point in having a debate. Besides, it is my impression that the person who posted this must be very young. It is true that I once said in jest, of the Netherlands, that it is kind of hard to believe in a personal God when certain countries are never incinerated by bolts of lightning; but apart that it was a borrowing from Calvin and Hobbes, I would not really want to see the paintings of Rembrandt and van Gogh erased from the world, nor, more importantly, fourteen million people being killed without even a chance for repentance.

Date: 2009-11-25 10:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ccr1138.livejournal.com
I'll leave that up to God, thanks.

Date: 2009-11-25 04:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] larmer.livejournal.com
Great post. Thanks.
Edited Date: 2009-11-25 04:00 am (UTC)

Date: 2009-11-25 05:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] guardians-song.livejournal.com
*applauds the Italians* I did not realize there still existed countries that would, overwhelmingly, not go gently into that politically correct night. Bravo. May they hold the line and begin to push it forward.

WWPD

Date: 2009-11-27 10:21 am (UTC)
ext_14638: (Default)
From: [identity profile] 17catherines.livejournal.com
Well, what *would* Peppone do?

Re: WWPD

Date: 2009-11-27 10:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
He would say (I am quoting from an actual story, which had a similar problem): "As mayor of this village, I acknowledge your positions. But as boss of the Communists, without whom nothing gets done around here, I tell you all to go to Hell, because I have more respect for a dead Christ than for the living (sort of) lot of you". Then he would turn to Don Camillo and say: "Does his lordship the arch-priest have anything to say?" And Don Camillo would put on a hypocritical smirk and say "His lordship the arch-priest yelds before the threat of violence".

Re: WWPD

Date: 2009-11-28 12:49 am (UTC)
ext_14638: (Default)
From: [identity profile] 17catherines.livejournal.com
I don't think I've read that one before - thank you for linking to it! I am extremely fond of Don Camillo, but I always did love Peppone best...

... actually, now I think about it, I love the crucified Christ over the altar best. He gets some wonderful lines.

Re: WWPD

Date: 2009-11-29 03:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fpb.livejournal.com
I've translated a few other Don Camillo stories that never made it into English, including another one about old Mrs.Giuseppina: http://fpb.livejournal.com/11412.html . These are the others - http://fpb.livejournal.com/274792.html and http://fpb.livejournal.com/209726.html - the end of the Fear story, that had never been translated into English, no doubt leaving many readers to wonder who had murdered Antonio Pizzi and who had shot the various shots around the church at the end of the first Don Camillo book. Alas, except for a few words in this, the Crucified Christ does not turn up. I might see if I can find one in which He plays His accustomed and ironical role.

Re: WWPD

Date: 2009-11-29 07:17 am (UTC)
ext_14638: (Default)
From: [identity profile] 17catherines.livejournal.com
I certainly did wonder about that! I thought that the story had been deliberately left unfinished, perhaps as some sort of obscure statement about the workings of community (not that I could make sense of it, mind you, but I put that down to my own slowness, not a lack in the story). It didn't occur to me that there were stories missing...

I'm having a lovely time reading all these stories, thank you!

Date: 2009-11-28 10:35 pm (UTC)
ext_1059: (Default)
From: [identity profile] shezan.livejournal.com
LOVE the Lucio Dalla confirmation!

hiciluseO

Date: 2011-06-03 11:24 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
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