eurogeneration

570,000 inhabitants, medium size, quiet and yet cosmopolitan city: Washington has greeted me warm and sunny – it resembles Brussels, “capital” of those wanna-be United States of Europe that, as USA, have chosen a city lacking of a strong personality to pile up their institutions.

But, since my arrival at the airport, I understood I am not in Europe any more, either for the long time queuing up (ah Schengen!) and for this amazing poster for the immigrants to see, with a big WELCOME in capital letters. The question arises spontaneously: can you picture the same image in Paris (where wearing the Islamic veil is forbidden to women in schools), or in Berlin or Rome?

The impression, my guide confirmed, is that whoever gets to US nowadays is welcomed better compared to our immigrants.

Pictures by Greg Gorman. Translated by Alessandro Mancosu. More pics on Facebook.

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

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

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

Strasbourg, 2001, in an Erasmus party. With Nicola Dell'Arciprete (left) under Réunion food effect and myself under Alsacian beers effect...

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.