The magic revolution

I can't sleep in long flights. I simply can't: the position I use to sleep is a bit particular, so I can't simply sit and close my eyes. I wish it was like that. Really. In long flights I spend the time watching the tv/movies and walking around the plane, sometimes engaging into conversation with some other wanderer.

This was the case in the flight Kuala Lumpur - Amsterdam I recently took (a post on my trip to Malaysia is in preparation). I was clever enough to choose an aisle seat, in the last row of the Boeing 777-200ER. The seat in the aisle is good for me because I wasn't trapped by the sleeping passengers, and I could easily access the two bathrooms and the little bar in which one can grab free biscuits and ice cream.

During the flight I met this young Italian guy who was returning from Adelaide, Australia, where he completed the thesis work for his first laurea degree in Anthropology. I found it funny that in the middle of the night he was trying to look down through the windows of one of the side back doors of the plane. He said he was trying to look at Ukraine which, according to him (and to the GPS), we were flying over at that moment.

There is an invariant property that you observe when talking to Italians, especially Italians abroad: the 98% of the times, after some minutes of chatting, you end up discussing about Berlusconi. It is something you could bet on. It is interesting to see how the opinion of people about their own country changes (or evolves) once they're abroad. In the case of Italians, this often includes some form of embarrassment.

Indeed, it was with embarrassment that this guy was telling me (and to the other Italians who joined the conversation once they heard us speaking in Italian) that the Berlusconi government has/had plans to close the Italian consulate in Adelaide. Many have protested against this decision, including the own Australian government. Indeed, many Italians (and Australians with Italian roots) are served by that consular office; closing it would have a dramatic impact in them, as they would have to travel very long distances for any kind of bureaucratic issue.

After a quick catharsis in which all the other Italians in the conversation mentioned/complained about some of Berlusconi's recent scandals, the young guy I first met concluded saying something like

"I know a revolution that removes Berlusconi from power will come soon. And I look forward to witnessing that."

That got me thinking. I was quite surprised to hear that an educated young man, very well aware of the problems of his country, could have such a childish perception of the Italian crisis. He was indeed waiting for some magical revolution that, out of the nothing, would come and fix everything. A revolution that could benefit him, but hopefully one not requiring any commitment from him. A comfortable revolution, you can say.

Then I realized that this kind of childish ideals must permeate the minds of most people in the world. They simply do not understand what democracy means, and reduce the act of voting to the act of delegating some responsibility. As such, people expect the others they chose to fix things; external, easy solutions to their problems.

This is in the case in which people do vote; my impression is that only few people actually vote. This seems to be the case in Italy; one usually hears that voting does not change anything. And that's why Italy is quite fucked up these days, I think: corrupt and cynical politicians are in power and only a few benefit from that. The problem is of course what the rest of the people do (or don't do). Often they do not vote, and their political implication limits to following newspapers, loudly complaining about (bad) news during lunch, following the blogs of journalists who denounce corruption, or joining one of those facebook groups that make sense only temporarily.

Even if they won't admit it, they are also waiting for the magical revolution to come.