There had been a webpage on the PAL website entitled "Save Italy Movement USA." This was in response to the flood of millions of immigrants from 152 countries around the world, mainly the third world, into Italy. In 2007, there were about 300,000 into the small country. I had intended on taking many news links from, or about, Italy, and showing how extreme this situation really is. Also, there is staggering photo evidence of it as well. I think that this in tragic, and will eventually mark a permanent end to Italian culture. People talk about visiting the Veneto and that all they see is Africans, Pakistanis, etc. Brescia, overnight, has become the home to a large "Little Senegal."The average Italian woman has 1.2 children. Amazing, when we look back on the centuries of large Italian families. It takes 2.1 children to just stay even in population. The Muslim population is expanding at the fastest rate, and throughout all of Europe, and they have large families. The news from Europe and Italy is ripe with new Muslim organizations "making demands." Demands in a country and culture which is NOT theirs. They even openly talk about how they will take over. The population of the North African states, in particular, are exploding in population, with no economy to support it.
Italy's population is older, and the way financial and economic interests view it is that they need "new tax payers" to line their pockets, above all else. They use the excuse that someone needs to pay for the aging population as they retire, which wasn't a problem in the first 6,000 years of civilization. This ties into so many issues: Globalization, the European Union, the right to national sovereignty, the Vatican, individual cultures, Western Civilization itself, and so many others. To digress, the "Save Italy Movement USA" was to be a coalition of Americans to oppose this, in whatever activist form it might take. At the very least, any representatives from the Italian government should be made to not feel welcome anymore.
When the late Oriana Fallaci dared to criticize the mass Muslim migration into Europe and Italy, it caused quite a stir. I always wondered how "survival" could be radical. This goes far beyond "left and right" politics. Fallaci was a Leftist. The "Italian Muslim Council" screamed to high heaven, a court in France indicted her; don't ask me to explain how this can happen. It's the result of nations who lose both their culture and sovereignty. Even the Northern League has abandoned their quest for in independent Padania; having to focus all their attention to this issue.
When immigrants from Europe migrated to America, they always just assumed that the "old country" would always be there for them. Either to return, or as a symbol of their particular culture. That this culture would always endure, as they became part of what was a "Euro-American melting pot." Up until very recently, this was still an accepted fact and assumption. Also, only Western countries are to become "multicultural." Even the base cultures! (European)
What amazes me is how countries like Germany or Italy, the average citizen, could accept joining up with what they could clearly and plainly see was the result of this program in France and England. Surely some of them must have visited Paris or London. Also with the EU open borders, the poor areas of Europe invade the wealthier areas. Why should Germans pay because they have been the most successful people in Europe recently? Why can't the poor regions take it as a challenge, and national pride, to become more successful instead of latching themselves onto Germany's ankles (or whatever rich area) ? Germans have the right to their own culture, just like everyone else.
Also, why should the average working person in a wealthier country, pay for the road conditions of the poor countries? The EU was a power grab by bankers, which have war mongered and leeched off of Europeans for centuries. Thankfully, that same type of power grab was stopped, at least temporarily, in the USA (North American Union). While the average German citizen is a victim, the German government is more tyrannical than it's ever been! They attack free speech at every turn, and are chomping at the bit to send their police to other countries because they want to arrest "free speech abusers" there.
As stated earlier, this issue knows no bounds. We see the World Bank demanding that Russia start accepting massive numbers of third world immigrants. We see American General Wesley Clark demanding that European cultures be eliminated. We see a president of the World Jewish Congress demanding that Australia become "multicultural," while at the same time insisting that Israel become "Jewish Only." What is really going on here? It's called Globalization, and it operates just like cancer does.
4 comments:
Are you kidding me?! I wrote in a comment above that I was a "little" offended by your linking of the symbol of Genova to the idea of "Padania". With this post, however, I am VERY offended.
Clearly, we don't see eye to eye on issues surrounding globalization. Fair enough. But let me at least point out two rather glaring hypocrisies in your support of a "Save Italy Movement USA".
First, you ridicule present-day immigrants to Europe as "NOT" belonging to their new home countries--this coming from the point of view of a cultural heritage organization that celebrates historical immigration? Do you not realize that the story of "Padanian" Americans was (is?) significantly one of bigotry and persecution suffered at the hands of native-born Americans who were equally offended by the presence of immigrant "foreigners" from non-WASP lands?
Second, the whole point of the PAL (and certainly of the Lega Nord) is to deconstruct, if not destroy, the very idea of "Italy". Yet now you want to "save Italy" and its implied monolithic culture? Likewise, you speak of a singular "German" culture that today needs saving. Well, my own family background is Bavarian, and just as northern Italians are frustrated by the conflation of their identity with the entirety of Sicilia, Napoli, etc., southern Germans are frustrated no less by the same pattern of equating present-day political boundaries with cultural identity.
The fundamental truth that we are struggling with is that the very notion of "culture" and "identity" is not a stable idea defined by timeless essential characteristics. What it means to be Padanian, Lombardian, Genovese, Italian, European, Californian, American, Christian, Muslim, Turkic, an so on, changes. Even though I am not myself Roman Catholic, I am extremely proud that my country no longer views Catholics as "un-American" as it once did. Thus, I see absolutely no problem with Muslims being embraced within redefined notions of what it means to be German, Italian, French, British, and so on. And it bears noting that most Europeans agree with me, as xenophobic politicians such as Jean-Marie Le Pen, Umberto Bossi, and the late Jorg Haider, very rarely enjoy majority support--even when they are opposing obviously corrupt and ineffective governments as Bossi's Lega Nord so often is.
Hello again,
I'll answer the second question first. Yes, it is hypocritical, but I think it's equally disappointing that northern or south Italy is planned out in this manner. Therefore, this is something that could be of interest to anyone who loves the Italian peninsula. However, on the surface, you are correct. Thank you for pointing that out.
As far as your first issue. I think we should think a little more about ourselves here. After carving out a civilization from a wilderness for more than a century, we were practically forced out of our neighborhoods, for decades, in a less-then-friendly manner. Not just in San Francisco, but just about everywhere else in the region. That's really quite a story. I think it should be discussed. But being that it stems, and played itself out, from a complex set of circumstances, I don't think that now is the time for that.
I think you've largely misread me. I think Southern Italy is awesome. However, I think the people of Northern Italian descent have a right to exist too. I admit, I think we're the greatest people ever. Sorry, but it's what I think, and I don't feel any guilt for it either. Since apparently there's a "Jewish Homeland"... a "Japanese Homeland"... a "Chinese Homeland"... an "Indian Homeland" ......
Have a great day.
Joe R.
Thank you for addressing my concerns, Joe. Your responses are much appreciated.
Please accept my critical remarks--as you appear to have done so--in the spirit of constructive dialogue, which was what I intended. I applaud you for the inclusive attitude you consistently display throughout the site, and I certainly do not expect you or anyone to apologize for having and displaying pride in their heritage. Be proud, indeed!
As a dear friend of greater Liguria, and a member (by marriage) of the larger "Padanian"-American community, I celebrate your work. I just caution against replacing one fiction (that Italian=Italian=Italian) with another (that Padanian=Padanian=Padanian) in a way that becomes exclusive, rather than inclusive, and more reactive against perceived outside threats ("them" vs. "us") rather than recognizing with pride the contributions that "we" have and continue to make to a larger human whole: whether that whole is seen as California, the USA, an even broader "America", Italy, Europe, or simply planet Earth.
Perhaps I'm just being oversensitive, but my own family's "homeland" in Bavaria certainly took "heritage" celebration down a frightfully tragic path in the 1930s. In no way suggesting that is what the PAL stands for--because it clearly does not--we nonetheless need to be vigilant against the potential misuse of heritage.
Thanks again for all of the thoughtful work you've put into the PAL. I still have my problems with the name "Padania" and with the use of Lombardian icons such as Theolinda to symbolize the entirety of northern Italy--indeed, I think Theolinda might be more a part of my own Bavarian heritage than my Ligurian-American wife's--but I'll regularly check back to your site, not with the intention of "trolling" around and leaving nasty comments, but out of sincere interest.
Ciao!!
Pete
Hello Pete,
I had mentioned, and probably will continue to do so, that da Vinci or Columbus were not "Padanians." We just utilize it as an "umbrella" term rather than a "intrinsic thing." A name that is a little more pragmatic than Subalpine Italy, or even Northern Italy for that matter. A loose construct for the present/future, maybe more at some point, and which was a historical term in different forms for centuries (ex. Transpadane Republic).
I think most of the problems for the last several centuries can be predominantly tied to monopoly capitalism and finance, which uses nations, religion (the abuse of Shintoism comes to mind), etc., to advance their agenda, and the rest of us have to pick up the pieces later, with all the accompanying confusion, for decades after. If all the inconvenient facts, from all sides could be brought forth at one time in one place, then it would paint an entirely different (bigger) picture. I probably don't agree with you on the surface, but I do agree that people are mentally lazy and will just say "think God it's over" and don't want to dig through the rubble of facts to make certain that it doesn't happen again. The government can't do it (ex. Warren Commission, 911 Commission), only collective individuals can really do it when they individually ask "why did you skip this particular highly significant fact that would obviously change the entirety of your final conclusion?"
If I was you, I would feel absolutely no historical guilt. The Bolsheviks, of which 271 of the 286 commissars were Jewish, killed 65 million Russians and Ukrainians between 1919 and 1940. They owned most of the slave ships in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade (ultimately, a handful of highly immoral individuals). They have yet to confront these realities. Still, I don't think any person should feel guilty for something that they themselves didn't do.
All races produced outrageous genocides at some point. Ghengis Khan, Mongols, and Huns, in Europe, massacred tens of millions. The fossil record is showing that small light boned people were genocided from large areas in Africa (Pygmies, Capoids, Bushmanoids), where they once thrived. There are many other examples, in other areas of the world.
"Langbard" is another "umbrella" term. The whole of the region basically was under administrative control of the Langobardi, which is significant in many ways. "Langbard" is an impractical name, due to the definite tie to the Langobardi, rather than the culturally superior Tuscans, for example. Queen Theodelinda isn't to replace the Virgin Mary, but is a symbol of the past (Paganism, early Christianity) and future (Roman Catholicism, of which she brought to her Kingdom [Queendom?]); as well as another symbol of a unified region. Another similar strong figure, who also ruled over the entirely of the region, like Alboin, might tend to only represent the past. Theodelinda was a Roman Catholic.
Joe R.
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