It is no coincidence that in Italy
priorities for the good of the nation are undermined through a variety of local
or collective identities. Combine an electoral system, that is rife with inter
party bickering and self-focused politicians, with a range of collective
ideologies and regional loyalties and change becomes virtually impossible. There
are too many groups in Italy that depend on things remaining as they are and
individuals feel vulnerable if these groups are threatened. Take as an example
the reaction to the proposal to shorten the three-hour lunch break or the
recent wave of strikes from taxi drivers and lawyers as they attempt to hold off deregulation of their jobs.
Italian life is also made more complicated
through an almost slavish devotion to bureaucracy and any student of psychology
will tell you that bureaucracy imposes rules as a means of control and as such
is a major threat to change. But then in Italy its citizens usually overcome
the constraints of bureaucracy where they can by simply ignoring the rules they
do not like, or worse through petty corruption.
Italians will have to adjust their
mentalities and begin to commit to the state because the nation needs to become
a single entity in the way that other European countries are. In the first
instance electoral reform must be the precursor to any changes. Reforms that
create a climate in which the Italian people can make informed choices about
what is right for their country as a whole and reforms that make inter party
bickering and self focused politicians a thing of the past.
However in the final analysis the key
question is how to change things without threatening he local way of life. As
Tancredi Falconeri said in Lampedusa’s Il
Gattopardo “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to
change.”
