65% of young people voted NO to Lisbon Treaty.
Is it a generational or a social divide?
Ideas
Friday, June 20 2008
Young Irish voted NO to Lisbon Treaty
By Adriano on Friday, June 20 2008, 13:20
Saturday, May 31 2008
'Racist' German commercials and catenaccio politics: when Italy feels under siege
By Adriano on Saturday, May 31 2008, 16:27
You are or you are not part of the Eurogeneration? To find that out, check out this commercial!
Have you seen that? Right, you do not speak German. In that case, my colleague Katharina, will explain to you what all the fuss is about:
“We are in Germany. A client of Media Markt, of blatant Italian origins, called Toni, asks a shop assistant in a strong Italian accent:
- A man, finally a man! Well, if you want to buy a TV set, to watch the football match for instance, you always need a man! Why? Because only a man knows about the technique and football. Women instead do not know anything about it!
Then a gorgeous female sales assistant passes by and our man changes his mind:
- I am sorry, "un attimo"
And talking to the beautiful girl he says:
- "Scusi", can you please tell me how that appliance works?”
So, how would you define this commercial?
1. Racist and offensive. I approve the official complaint letter sent by the Italian ambassador in Berlin, Antonio Puri Purini, I will support the boycott of the Media Markt products as Laura Garavini, Pd deputy elected in Germany, invites us to do. I am glad that Media Markt has decided to stop broadcasting the aforementioned commercial.
2. Simply amusing. I have travelled and lived abroad, I have got plenty of friends from all over Europe, and all these stereotyped jokes should not be taken personally. According to my experience, as an Italian, I was always greeted and welcomed with warmth.
Obviously this blog goes for the second answer and firmly condemns this curfew atmosphere everybody has been able to experience in Italy lately. Ours, from the outside, looks like a country under siege. And not only on commercials. A minister (Maroni) who would like to renegotiate the Schengen agreement on the free circulation of people to tackle the problem of Roma immigrants. The anger of many after the world’s surprise on the management of the rubbish in Naples. The deafening silence by the Democratic Party (centre-left) on the xenophobia accusations after the publication of the Security bill approved by the Government. Anti-Roma populist billboards belonging to the Democratic Party. Bottom line, Donadoni, might as well make as many efforts as it takes to deploy an aggressive Italy at the European Cup due to start soon… but the Italy of politics and the Italian society is freaking out on a more and more defensive position. It is the curfew politics!
Traduzione Alessandro Mancosu
Wednesday, February 20 2008
Tell me about your Erasmus experience: participate to the survey!
By Adriano on Wednesday, February 20 2008, 13:24
What's to be Erasmus in...Warsaw? ...Budapest? ...Paris? ...Istanbul?
Eurogeneration wants to start a practical series of articles 100% fed
by people spending or having spent their Erasmus period in any European
city.
This person would be credited and would be asked to send a picture of him/her illustrating his/her experience (not mandatory).
Information I need:
- Finding a place to stay: where to find the best offers both online and offline; what you should knwo to rent a place; universitary campus; prices etc.
- University: are there classes in English? is local language teaching well provided? how does the university system work? what are the tips to live in the university
- Places: tell me 3 places you absolutely recommend to see/visit in your city that are really special and not touristic
- Partying: where to party with other Erasmus, best tips, cultural thinigs to take into account in clubs, pubs or whenever (about alcohol, things to do/not to do)
- Your feeling about your experience in that city: would you recommend it to someone else?
Your picture if you agree 
Send your contribution to farano[at]cafebabel.com
Friday, January 18 2008
The pizza maker and his passport : the mission of the E-migrant
By Adriano on Friday, January 18 2008, 10:07
Massimo has been pizza maker in Paris since 1970. At that time passport was still compulsory to travel between Italy and France. Travel or rather, immigrate! As all moving was, back then, far more definitive compared to the one we are used to nowadays. For Massimo, the conditions of the past do not seem to have changed a big deal: « Naples? I go back every two or three years. But every time I cannot stay there for more than one week. Last time I was not able to find anyone, the streets of the Spanish Borough (Quartieri Spagnoli) in Naples were deserted. Later I was told that everybody had been arrested!».
Massimo’s case might look too extreme, but for most of the immigrants, words such as «free circulation of people», «Schengen area», «Euro», «low-cost flights», «modern mass media» or «skype» - in short, twenty years of Euro-revolution and globalisation – do not mean much. Nothing like all those people who, by choice or by need, pack up their stuff and leave, to travel or to immigrate. E-migrants , with an «e» very fashion that rhymes with email, but that proceeds from afar...the Latin «ex».
Now back to our pizza maker. Massimo tunes up Naples songs from the fifties, songs that he knows by heart or a sparkling Laura Pausini in her best performance ("Marco se n'è andato..."), and even an Eros Ramazzotti with his distinctive flu-like voice ("Ed ho imparaaaaatooo che nella vitàààà...), while kneading the pizza paste with a Neapolitan know-how (unfortunately the mozzarella is from France!). But this does not prevent him from mixing up Italian and French, as much as he does with this tasteless over salted tomato that he mixes with artichokes dipping in vinegar, tasteless stuff that he pulls out an anonymous pot made in - God knows where !
This past Christmas my father offered me a Garzanti dictionary, just to take the piss, because he claims that, having spent a few years in France, I forgot my Italian. But next time, I will take you, dad, to Massimo’s and you will have to admit that his mistakes are far more blatant than those of the E-migrants, as big as a wooden oven !
So, dear readers, next time you come across an immigrant, a real one, do this : tempt him, tell him what the world is like nowadays: beautiful because of its melting pot. Babelize-him !!
Translated by Alessandro Mancosu
Foto di Veronica ArtMusic
Wednesday, December 26 2007
Let's say goodbye to typewriters. In 2008.
By ely1984 on Wednesday, December 26 2007, 22:30
Information sometimes gets out of reality. When Monica, a brilliant babelian that worked in this editorial office, told me that during the summer, I couldn’t believe it. During the exam that gives you a journalist license – yes, in Italy, the fascist-origin-law on journalism still exists – the candidates have to use a typewriter. Yes, it’s true: that noisy and almost unobtainable thing.
Now the culture commission of the lower chamber approved a proposal of law by Pino Pisicchio (president of the justice commission) that states the abolishment of typewriters during the exam and introduces the use of PCs. Welcome to the digital era, oh my dear journalists!
But beyond this funny news, why don’t we think about removing the order of journalists? During the tv programme on France Inter, Transeuropéennes, to which I participated few weeks ago, we were talking about journalists passes and notice that Italy, together with Portugal, was the only country that still has an Order. And now that the symbol of that ancient and démodé kind of journalism is gone, what do we need the Order for?
Friday, October 19 2007
We are a more committed generation (than our parents's)
By Adriano on Friday, October 19 2007, 12:11
Are we or aren’t we a committed generation? Such a question arises spontaneously when one thinks, on one hand to the growing commitment of the youth for the planet and on the other, to the comparison with our parents generation. The Blog Action Day, this year about the protection of the environment, is the occasion to make things clearer when it comes to our commitment.
Nowadays, the mushrooming of NGO, appeals, parades, concerts (last one the Live Earth) is not enough to explain our involvement. What changes among today’s youth is the growing awareness of the issues of our planet, that compared to the 1968 is far more concrete. Of course, taking part in a parade in May 1968, posing in front of a camera or in a hippy meeting is much more fashion than going as a volunteer to Africa, getting committed with an association or participate to online initiatives such as this Blog Action Day (whose logo is on purpose displayed beside that picture that goes back to 1968). It goes without saying that throwing stones to the police in Saint-Michel Boulevard turns out to be trendier than being responsible consumers or avoiding leaving the charger of the mobile plugged or standing up for the right of vote for the immigrants who have been living in the country long enough.
But I do not just refer to the small everyday deeds far from the extreme deeds that moved our parents. I am also thinking about initiatives for the European Federation or other associations that try to draw the European countries closer to one another. Or to leave his homeland with the Erasmus Project, an occasion to rethink tolerance and breadth of outlook.
No, we are not the X generation, those who do not have ideals, individualist and so forth. The generation of our parents was undoubtedly more politicized but not more committed than ours.
PS (about politicization) 
On my bedside table at the moment I happen to have Cuori Neri, a good book by Luca Telese about the “black Dead” that perished during those terrorism years in Italy. In Rome alone between 70’s and 80’s there were a hundred political murders, victims of the hatred between fascist and communist militants. In the capital city, one of the most heated battle ground was the borough of Trieste-Salaria, where I have been studying for three years. My memory goes back to the evenings spent in front of the ice cream shop in Piazza Trieste. And now I can grab the full meaning of the graffiti displayed on the wall of the building: “Paolo is still alive”.
Paolo is Paolo di Nella, militant – fascist and conservationist - violently killed on February 9th 1983 while putting ads up on the wall. Now those times of extreme political exacerbation no longer exist. And below that graffiti in 2000, it happened that I together with Nicola Dell’Arciprete spoke up in order to shake the asleep minds of the Italian public opinion by creating a medium which could give us the chance to make our voices heard. Today that medium does exist and you are reading it. I reckon this is a commitment as well.
Translated by Alessandro Mancosu
Thursday, October 4 2007
Am I going or am I coming back? The dilemma of the migrant
By Adriano on Thursday, October 4 2007, 11:25
It’s now a ritual. The plane has to stop first, while the other passengers rush to the cupboards uphead, I take out the French sim card and replace it with the Italian one. It reminds me of those moments in which a country takes over another in an international peace operation.
Here I am once again. Naples, Capodichino airport. Welcome back, my friends say to me. But you go or you come back to your homeland? There are two theories that belong to each of the two schools of this eurogeneration folks. There are those who follow the reason: my life is now in Paris. I go to Cava, my homeland. And there are some others that let out a “I come back” regarded as a sign of weakness, as if the trip had to finish soon or later in the island of the myth that is in everybody’s heart. Keeping it in mind, talking barely about it, creating a myth out of it. Always.
For years I’ve been wanting to say “I go to Cava”. I left that place almost ten years ago. I’ve been living in Paris for five years now, I’m putting my roots here. Can I then use the same verb - to go – in order to draw the route to Tallinn or to Havana? Maybe one day we will make up a verb of movement, a proper one, a son of this hybrid, unstoppable need to come and go.
P.S. I’m sorry but I need to consult with someone: am I the only one who goes paranoid by thinking this kind of stuff?
Translated by Alessandro Mancosu
Thursday, September 27 2007
Wear a red shirt to support Burma
By Adriano on Thursday, September 27 2007, 19:42
In support of our incredibly brave friends in Burma: may all people around the world wear a red shirt on Friday, September 28. A lot of people among the eurogeneration are launching this initiative: via email, forums or Facebook as my friend Enzo did.
This blog supports this move towards more democracy in this part of the world where many European corporations support a bloody regime which has to be fought.
Monday, September 24 2007
Post-Erasmus depression
By Adriano on Monday, September 24 2007, 09:37
September. Time of arrival for 400,000 European students who set up in one of the hundreds of University cities that host the Erasmus project. But September is, unfortunately, also the time for getting back to their routines for about 350,000 students who, in the past academic year, have gone through an experience that is said to be capable of transforming one’s life in most of the cases. At least for one year or a semester. After that, one gets back to his own old habits and can trigger a sort of “post-Erasmus depression”.
If you type such an expression into Google no psychology site pops out. By contrast, I came across the unbeatable dissertation written by Fiorella de Nicola about the subject Antropologia dell'Erasmus. Partire studenti, vivere sballati, tornare uomini «Anthropology of the Erasmus. Leaving as students, ruining our lives, returning as adults»). It might be an irony of life, but Fiorella and I – Fiorella was in Alicante during the academic year 2004/5 – are from the very same city, Cava de’ Tirreni [ I enjoyed making a montage of the two towns. Our little town is nice but would not Fiorella have written the same stuff if she had left for little Finnish village?]
My compatriot got it very right in depicting the naivety of those who are living the last days of the Erasmus experience:
«They don’t have a clue about what is waiting for them back in their countries “the post Erasmus syndrome”. They don’t know how horrible their house will look, their city either too cold or too hot, University boring as never before, the TV squalid, their friends just average…they will be overwhelmed by a depression as huge as a Kuala Lumpur sky scraper. They will reject anything which is not related to their Erasmus. The syndrome is experienced by all, without exception, but the intensity and the length of it will vary. Since it is just a syndrome that will be by definition a temporary condition, a thing that can, must, last just a while…not to become pathetic»
Her speculation on the meaning of the word identity managed to convince us:
«In short we must be prepared to lead an existence of outsiders, people without roots. That will be not because we don’ t have a homeland. In fact we will have too! Or even more. Ours, the one we were born and brought up in. The one that has “adopted” us for one or two semesters. Our friend’s ones: Germans, French, Portuguese, Mexicans, English, Scandinavians, Americans, Canadians: their houses in Alicante were ours. And who knows what kind of magic was applied in order for us to feel that a bit of their cultures, their friends’, has become part of us… «It might as well be that this funny joke of the European identity is not that far from reality»
Will that be true? And how to come out from the Post Erasmus depression? Eurogeneration opens up the debate.
Have your say, in the comments.
Translated by Alessandro Mancosu - Welcome, Alessandro on Eurogeneration!
Foto Pedro Prats Michael Khoo/Flickr.com
Saturday, July 7 2007
Italians abroad: eurogeneration or simple immigrants?
By Adriano on Saturday, July 7 2007, 13:44
Italian youth abroad is different from people coming from the rest of Western Europe. We don't go expat like the others, just because we love to discover other cultures... Very often this is a matter of necessity, to go away from a clanic and gerontocratic system.
The zoom of Valeria Maccarinelli and Andrea Decovich took those Italians in Paris. With the sun of their dreams and with the light of their success. We are proud to host those pictures on Eurogeneration.
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
© 2007 Decovich&Maccarinelli/ PhotoCast.org
Wednesday, June 6 2007
Our eyes
By Adriano on Wednesday, June 6 2007, 13:04
They are sons of the Erasmus program, Interrail and low-cost travels. Or maybe they just adopted the homeric curiositas (remixed to Radiohead's rhythm, please) as way of life. They adore the diversity but they also cultivate their own roots. They de-activated national frontiers from their mental software. They speak (or they say they speak) one or more languages... And "foreign" do not belong to their dictionary. They have already spoken another tongue in bed. Either to understand each other or simply to show off... They have received their first salary in euro. Or maybe they adore to use the same (but more and more expensive) currency for a pint in Dublin or a cous-cous in Paris. They travel without passport. But they do not forget those who live in their area without any right. And they want to discuss, to dream and to converse with other Europeans. About Europe they want. About Europe they are building. On the ground.
This blog wants to tell you about that Europe, the one of people belonging to the first eurogeneration. It will try to interpret their thoughts, to collect their ideas... And to read news with their eyes. With the eyes of those who didn't forget their past and the babel of the Old Continent. But who want to build their future beyond boundaries. In a café, s'il vous plaît.
Adriano