Democratic dictators

Although there are several topics I could write about (most notably, my 'unique' take on Michael Jackson's death), I will repeat myself writing about politics. Or more precisely, writing about the failure of democracy in its standard definition. This is motivated by the recent events in Honduras. It must be said that Honduras is a rather irrelevant country in the world. This is not to be taken negatively; Colombia is also an irrelevant country, it's just that it is sometimes relevant for negative reasons.

Since I find Honduras irrelevant, I trust you can forgive my lack of knowledge about its basic facts. Let me summarize the situation as I learned it by reading some online news this week. Honduras had/has a left-wing president called Manuel Zelaya who, as several of his peers, wants to be president for a little longer, forever if possible. He tried to do it in the correct way, but the main courts denied his desires. Zelaya is a populist, clever enough so as to maintain good relationships with Venezuela and the United States. Zelaya's ambitions for continued periods in office made the congress (in which Zelaya's party has the minority) rather uncomfortable, and several processes against him were initiated. The opposition claims that Zelaya intends to convert Honduras into yet another puppet country of Chavez, pretty much as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua already are. They're are not that wrong in that one. Zelaya's was kidnapped by the army and expelled to Costa Rica in his pajamas. Funny scene. The congress then named a rather stupid guy called Roberto Micheletti as temporary president (if you read Italian, make sure you read this note on Micheletti); Micheletti expects to call for presidential elections very soon, and to bring Zelaya into justice if he dares to change his pajamas and return to Honduras.

The situation in Honduras is useful to illustrate a phenomenon occurring in several other countries: legally-elected leaders are becoming into democratic dictators. In other words, potential dictators are using seemingly democratic methods to gain legitimacy. It's democracy only on the surface: indeed, the idea of democracy has been reduced to the mere act of winning an election; basic laws and principles, such as the respect for the opposition and law systems and the preservation of the so much needed equilibrium of civil institutions, are rapidly fading out. The executive power is increasingly gaining more and more power in the process; we can see it in left-wing countries such as Venezuela, right-wing countries such as Colombia, and in undefinable countries such as Italy. Now it is easy to change a constitution based on polls and perceptions induced by media. And nobody seems to complain about it.

The situation is rather worrying, even if you happen to live in a country in which the president is not one such democratic dictators. At the end, they all will end up acting by example.

I go to work using a bike

The thing I like the most about living in Grenoble is, undoubtely, the possibility of going to work using a bike. This is something I hadn't done before: in Colombia is simply out of the question, and in Italy work is so close that there's no need for bike. Instead, since INRIA is relatively far from the city center, and taking the bus is kinda boring, going by bike is the thing to do.

These first days have been extremely demanding: I arrive at work and at home extremely tired. My physical condition is lame. And it's a lot of biking anyway: according to this Google map (in which you can see the path I follow everyday as a blue line) from my place to INRIA there are more than 7km. I generally take around 25-30 minutes of continous biking (there are only two or three traffic lights), so that means that my average speed is approximately 15km/h. This is very slow, and I suppose that it must be fun to watch me biking around: since I am not used at all, apart from going slow I take a lot of precautions. I also must add that I actually like to go slow sometimes: these days the view and the weather are so nice that there's no point in going fast and missing the scenary.

I plan to explore new ways of going/arriving home, using one of the many bicycle routes around. (In particular, there is one that instead of following the highway as in the map, follows the river, so it's very nice in the afternoon.) The main advantage is that the region is mostly flat, something really convenient for my poor physical condition.

Capri

Those of you who have had the privilege of not living in Cali Colombia surely ignore that in Cali, the name Capri is more related to an upper-class neighborhood than to the Italian island. Although I never lived there, I have fond memories of Capri, the neighborhood. The thing I remember the most is that it comprises a number of apartment buildings, each named as an Italian city. The buildings surround some sort of square with trees, something that is not really a park. A short walk around the green square is enough to discover that Bologna, Firenze, Modena, and other Italian cities I cannot recall now are somehow represented in Cali. This is not strange in Colombia, as many things (buildings, avenues, parks, neighborhoods) have foreign cities or counties as names. I suppose that this could be considered as 'exotic' from the foreigner eye. My explanation is that in the local minds foreign names or words often convey sophistication and style; in the case of Capri the choice of names also corresponds to a severe lack of imagination of the neighborhood's planners.

Independent of the names, I always liked Capri. All of the buildings ---which I suspect were built in the late 70s or early 80s--- have a very appealing and simple architecture. They are all very similar, or at least the differences are very hard to find. Yet you can tell all of them were built in different periods. The two or three apartments I visited (one of them in Bolonia, if I am not mistaken) were huge (say, around 120m2) and very well distributed. The first time I visited Capri was in 1992, when trying to reach some field in which I practiced soccer. The field was actually kinda hidden, behind the neighborhood, so I had to cross Capri by foot to reach the field (which, by the way, no longer exists). At that time, I lived in a very different and distant neighborhood; I had to take a bus until reaching what you could call the "entrance" of Capri, and then walk all the way from there. I used to practice very early on Saturdays and Sundays, so every weekend I experienced something I always found very impactant: a silent Capri, with empty streets, in which the only sounds would come from my steps (or from the music of a dying party nearby).

In some way or another, and for a long period of my life, the streets and buildings of Capri represented to me some sort of "reachable wealthy". That is, if there were some sort of well-defined hierarchy of neighborhoods, then Capri represented the one that was right above my neighborhood. In the social scale, Capri was waiting for me, so as to speak. This of course has to do with the fact that my mandatory visits to Capri were part of my first steps alone in the city, so pretty much anything would have impressed me at that time. The remarkable thing is that, after so many years and experiences in life, I still regard Capri as a special place. Furthermore, and in the case destiny would put me in Cali again, Capri would be my first option to live in.

All these memories about Capri were triggered by the neighborhood I am living in right now, in Grenoble France. The buildings surrounding the green, pedestrian square Jean Moulin are very similar to each other. I could bet that the Jean Moulin neighborhood was also built during the late 70s or early 80s. There is a quiet atmosphere in the Jean Moulin neighborhood that transports me directly to 1992 in Capri; this is specially true in the mornings, when I leave for work. The difference is that such an atmosphere lasts the whole day, something particularly noticeable in these days with abundance of light.

As the Capri neighborhood, the Jean Moulin one is surrounded by ample parks. Unlike Capri, however, around Jean Moulin there are many other facilities, including bus and tram lines, many bicycle routes, a stadium, a river and two cemeteries. I enjoy going to one of the parks (which is actually a garden) to use the public WiFi, hearing the kids playing, and the delicate sound of their parents spanking them. Seeing so many kids is kinda weird coming from Bologna. The public WiFi restricts the use of fun stuff, such as the chat and facebook; if it wasn't like that I'd spend whole days in the garden.

The connection between the Capri and Jean Moulin neighborhoods was as unexpected as interesting. It is curious to see concrete evidence on how your past (inadvertently and not) affects your present.

On leaving Italy

The other day, as part of one of those insightful quizzes that only Facebook can offer to us, I publicly declared that Colombia and Italy are number one and two in my personal ranking of "best countries in the world". Some people could say that those choices are just another failed attempt of being funny through irony. No: I honestly think that the two only countries in which I have lived are among the best places in the world to live. 

To my surprise, two Italians reacted to the presence of Italy in my ranking. They wonder "why Italy?" This post is intended to answer that question. It also coincides with the fact that I am leaving Italy later this week, thus closing a very interesting period of my life. I am supposed to return for a few, busy weeks at the end of the year, so any concluding remarks about my life in Italy should be better stated now. 

Italy and Colombia share the fact that they are wonderful countries for everyone but their own citizens. I think it's human nature not to apprecciate what you have had for free for so long; to have a lot and still to complain about some missing part.  Consider the Italian case: the weather is excellent for the European context, people are suprisingly open and friendly, and the culture and food are outstanding. Italy has serious problems, of course, as every country in the world does.  Italy is well known for its corrupted public administration, infested of greedy, cynical politicians; a disease which has grown out of the indifference of ordinary citizens, who reject the situation but that unconciously promote it by doing nothing to change it. It is the Italian system which is wrong and needs urgent reforms, not the country at large, with all the good things it might have. 

There is then a subtle distinction between a country and the system that underlies it. It is common to confuse the two things and to misjudge the latter because of the shortcomings of the former. Such shortcomings seem as impossible to deal with, especially if you have never seen other systems, other visions of the world. Then you realize that a change is possible, that things can be done. By living in Italy I have been able to compare the only system I knew of with a different one. This was most useful to apprecciate the many good things in my own country, and to give its many shortcomings a right proportion. 

Everyone should have the experience of living abroad. (Notice that some vacation doesn't count as "living," in my opinion.) You become more tolerant, and learn to apprecciate new facets of life. I can tell that change in myself, as I can certainly perceive it in the Colombians living in other parts of Europe, as well as in my those Italian friends who have had the chance of living abroad. It's hard to explain, but they're different. For the Italians the effect of living abroad might be more significant: unlike other countries, in Italy you can live your whole life in the small town where you were born. The risk is that your perception of the world is very narrow; the feeling of being a foreigner can be unvaluable to open your perspectives. 

Now I am looking forward to experiencing the French society. I am in particular curious about how the fact of having lived in Italy might change my perception of it. And how my third-world mentality can accommodate to understand, assimilate, and apprecciate a new system. Stay tuned.

The European tour

This week Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is visiting Europe, in what it's been called "the European tour". This "tour" actually only comprises two countries, Spain and Italy. Yes, it's kinda crappy a tour. That's what happens when you are a president and you do very little about the human rights violations in your country: nobody wants you as a visitor.

So, you might be wondering: how come Uribe is going to be a guest of honor in Spain? Spain is an obvious choice given that Spanish groups own pretty much what is worthy in Colombia: communications, banks, natural resources. President Uribe will be hosted by President Zapatero and the Kings of Spain. But those gatherings are only a formality. The important meeting will be next Wednesday, in a breakfast with all the CEOs of managerial groups in Spain which own (or are planning to own) a piece of Colombia.

The choice of Italy seems less obvious. The diplomatic relationships between the countries are practically inexistent. There are no big Italian companies in Colombia and unlike other southamerican countries, Colombia did not have a large mass of Italian immigration. I see two reasons for Uribe's visit to Italy: the Vatican and Berlusconi. Indeed, Uribe will spend most of his two days in Italy visiting Vatican city and the Colombian priests who happen to be influential there. Not a surprise, given his ultraconservative profile.

Uribe and Berlusconi share so many things that the topic well deserves a series of posts. I don't know what it's worse: a Southamerican president that reminds us of the most incompetent European leader, or an European president that behaves as the most populist third-world president. Both are right-wing guys, extremely popular and populist. They have little respect for the courts and judges in charge of the corruption cases related to them. In fact, an ideal scenario for them would be a world without courts. Both Uribe and Berlusconi were disappointed when Obama got into office.

This is Uribe proudly showing the latest achievement of Colombian diplomacy: Barack Obama's autograph. (Not a joke, really.)

I think Urbe's visit will be largely ignored in Italy, a country in which news from Southamerica are scarce and uninteresting. Here only Chávez appears into main headlines. Perhaps Italian media will only comment on President Uribe's weird habit of giving away Colombian citizenship certificates as he travels around the world. (Yes, Uribe has a very strange definition of 'souvenir') As of next Friday, I will share citizenship with Letizia Moratti, mayor of Milan. How about that?

Dubbed Films in Italy

It is well-known that in European countries having dubbed TV shows and movies is customary. It can be quite difficult to find cinemas with movies in the original language. There are social and cultural reasons for that. In the case of Italy, however, there is a disturbing widespread misconception regarding dubbed films. The misconception is complex and comprises several factors:

• The loss of details associated to every dubbing process is largely underestimated. So for instance, not only losing the chance of understanding a subtle joke in the original language is disregarded, but it is believed that the dubbing faithfully captures such jokes.
  
• Some people think that watching dubbed films is actually the right thing to do. They seem to think, for instance, that in that way they won't get lost with local jokes/slang. (They ignore they might be laughing about very different jokes than the intended in the film.) Moreover, there are actors who are popular for dubbing particular Hollywood actors. So, when thinking of, say, Woody Allen, they immediately remember the actor who does his voice in Italian. (This guy, called Oreste Lionello, recently passed away. I guess that there are some who think that Woody Allen died with him).
• To complete this (already dramatic) misconception, many people in Italy think that the concept of "high quality dubbing" exists. So, it has happened that when I complain about the fact that most movies are available only dubbed, people reply to me: "but we have outstanding dubbing artists, and the overall quality of the dubbing is quite good".

As for the third item, it is convenient to state, in the strongest possible terms, the following. Similarly as concepts such as "5 minute naps", "honest politicians", "punctual Italian trains", the concept of "high quality dubbed movies" only resides in the human imagination. It must be understood that every dubbed movie comes with an irreparable loss of what one could term as "original language content". This of course varies from movie to movie, and there could be some of them in which the loss is negligible. (This is the case of, I think, animated movies and TV shows.)

This loss also applies, naturally, to the subtitles they add so to avoid dubbed movies. In the case of subtitles, however, you still can perceive the original tone and intention of the actor. That is, a significant part of the actual acting is preserved. Some can complain about the concurrent action of watching a movie and reading some subtitle. I can admit that this can be annoying if you're not used to it, but I think the effort it's worth doing.

There is also the fact that movie theaters in Colombia most of the movies come with Spanish subtitles (some of them crappy ones). So I am very much used to it. This (and the fact that I've found watching films and TV in English quite useful for my language skills) could explain my aversion to dubbed films.

Now you, my dear Italian reader, would like to comment on this, and create controversy, if possible?

On Earthquakes

As you probably know, last week an earthquake destroyed a significant number of towns in Abruzzo, in the center of Italy. Around 300 died and thousands were affected in different ways.

The earthquake brought out several issues that I find interesting. I will only comment on two of them. First, even if Italy is a country known to be prone to earthquakes, the concept of earthquake engineering is not widely used. Not even modern constructions are built considering the possibility of an earthquake. Truly unbelievable. Coming from Colombia, where most buildings have been built or adapted so as to resist earthquakes, I found that very intriguing.

The second thing that surprised me was that the public reaction to a natural disaster was exactly like in Colombia. Not only: there is a widespread tendency to donate money. But, does a "first-world" country such as Italy really need money to overcome this?

One would expect an European country to be financially prepared to face unexpected events, including (and especially) natural disasters. Not only regular people pay taxes for that (money that funds civil associations such as the fireman and the Red Cross) but also insurance companies should take care of the bulk of the reconstruction costs. Perhaps the state should inject some fresh money and activate suitable logistics to ensure a timely reaction, but that should be a fraction of the entire reconstruction costs. Not even donating stuff makes sense: that should be covered by any reasonable emergency plan. The only thing worth donating in these cases is blood.

I am afraid that donating money is only useful for the donor: some sort of personal satisfaction by means of an SMS, I suppose. The (rather ephemeral) satisfaction of doing something. So perhaps the only benefited from those donations is the corrupt political system that rules Italy. The same political system that should have enforced strict policies for earthquake-resistant buildings. The same system that has publicly stated that reconstruction will take "many years".

Poor Italy. (I was tempted to conclude with "poor Italians" but, as they say, each country has the government it deserves.)