I have no words

[gothikmaus]

YES! I pwnd the office proxy! I can check LJ! (Uhm, I hope I won't get in trouble because of this?)

Anyway, onto more serious things.

As I've mentioned a few times before, I'm not particularly proud of being Italian. There are a lot of things I don't like about Italian society and Italian attitude, but I like even less all the prejudices foreigners have against us.

The latest one: an Italian immigrant currently living in Hannover raped and tortured his girlfriend and the German judge accorded him a reduction of sentence because of his "cultural background". Apparently the judge thinks that in Sardinia, where the man was born (in 1978, not in 1878 might I add) it's normal for men to beat and torture women out of jealousy. The first thing I thought when I heard this was "Had he just finished reading Lombroso's theories or what?"

Here's a link to the piece of news, in Italian because I didn't find anything in English (or German):

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Esteri/?id=1.0.1413994893

Is this the image people abroad have of us Italians? I know we have a lot of flaws, most of the time I say we don't even deserve to be in the European Union at all, but seeing that there are still people who think we're all primitive and violent makes me so very sad. It's like saying all Germans are Nazis. So, so sad.

Comments

[vanita.livejournal.com]

Hi there.
I never heard of prejudices like that. I mean, of course people think about mafia. But not like that. And from a judge ... fuck.

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

I was very upset because it was a judge who said that, someone who's supposed to be impartial or at least as close to impartial as possible.

I know there are prejudices about every nations and even within nations (East-West in Germany, North-South in Italy) and I have prejudices myself, the usual stuff about people from the South being lazy, but I always try to look beyond them. It may be fun saying Italians are all loud and messy, Germans are all strict and French are all snob, sometimes it's even true (we ARE loud and messy), but it's not a joke here, it's a trial. Even the man's lawyer (a woman) was horrified.

[vanita.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. This is not fun, this is the law. Weird judge, very weird judge. I hope there aren't more like him.

[(Anonymous)]

...
Deutsches Gesetz... *sigh* (Hey, that reminds me of one South Park-episode in which this 9year-old child was put in juvenile prison 'cause he had a fight with a black kid and the judge decided it was a racist crime... so sad that this isn't only satire.

Anyways; you want to hear some Italien prejudices? Well, in Germany I suppose you'd think of the mafia first, then of 40years-old men that still live with their moms (at least they think that where I come from) and of course, you eat pizza and spaghetti all the day. (Just like French people only eat baguette and cheese and Germans sauerkraut and weisswurst XD) Yeah, that would be the three main prejudices against Italian people. Oh; how could I forget that: In the social class where they don't read BILD they also think of Mussolini and his, mhhh, relation to German history. (And that you won the World Cup in Germany! xP)

But seriously, how can you say Italy doesn't deserve being in the EU? I mean I've never been in Italy (but when I was 4 years old...) so I don't know the Italian attitude... Forgive me this question. XD

Good luck you don't get in trouble...
Dawn

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

Oh, but the thing about 40-year-old men still living with their mother is totally true! :D No, seriously, Italians tend to live with their parents until they are about 30, part of it is because Italian mothers are a bit possessive and anxious (I know mine is) and part of it is because the job situation has been so bad lately and flats are so expensive. I went back to university to do a year-long specialisation course and I won't have a steady income until next year, so I have to live with my parents at the moment because I can't afford a flat on my own. Here in Milan the cheapest you can get is 400-500 euros for a room in a shared flat, which is ridiculously expensive. And since most young people earn about 700 euros a month, it's very difficult for them to live on their own.

The thing about Mussolini is partly true, I read somewhere he did have an influence on Hitler at the beginning because he had a "longer dictatorial experience" so to speak, Fascism in Italy started in 1922, while Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933, didn't he? He studied what Mussolini had done in Italy and used it as a model. Disgusting, I know.

Hehe, the world cup. I was so happy when we won because the Bild had said so many awful things about us and when we won I was like "Take that, you arseholes!" XD

I say we don't deserve to be part of the European Union because of our politicians. I know there are corruption and stupid politicians everywhere (I mean, look at Bush!) but here politicians just think of their own business and don't care one bit about real problems.

And about the attitude, the positive side of it is that we're usually creative and flexible, we can always find a way to solve problems, but the negative side is that we don't look for the best solution but we just choose the easy way out, so our solutions are usually temporary. And that happens with big problems like traffic or pollution too, politicians don't really want to make an effort and just keep putting it off, hoping problems will just disappear or magically fix themselves.

Whoa, that was a long answer, sorry. ^_^

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I think this 40years-old-men-prejudice doesn't include young people that simply can't find a home but speaks more of, well, 40years-old men that work on the assembly line and would have enough money to get an own home but are too lazy to do so. And, of course, while they don't work they sit in front of the TV and watch football. And are almost as small as Japanese people... XD

Yeah, I think I remember Mussolini being totally on the side of Hitler but in like 1943 or 1944 when it was clear that the war would be lost by the Germans he hastily 'defected'. (Well we didn't do WW2 in History yet so I'm kinda unsure.) But yes, Hitler became Führer in 1933. Haha, a student-teacher-relation... very disgusting.

Yeah and I was so sad. XD (Not because of the BILD, of course, lol.) Seriously. I cried when you made this goal in the 121th minute. vv"

Politicians that don't care about real problems? Aren't they everywhere like that?! (Right now in here, two SPD-politicians are having a real fight about nothing. They're SO going on my nerves.) But we should be happy we don't have somebody like the former Indonesian president Suharto. (At least I strongly assume that...)

But I feel sorry for the corruptness (??) of your Italian politicians ._. As far as I know, Italy is at place 45 of the worldwide ranking of corrupt politicians. That's not fine I believe.

Sounds as if I would make a great Italian XD (I have can never answer a problem in a way it stays alright for more than 48 hours...)
I had to laugh. Problems will magically fix themselves. That's a nice description of, uhmmm well, mankind.

No I thank you for this long answer, it was very nice. :3

[achtanablah.livejournal.com]

I've heard of a similar case like this, but it was against a Turkish man. That makes sense since the Turkish are all EVOL Muslims and all, but I didn't think that anybody would have prejudices like that agaisnt Italians.

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

Turkey is actually the less religious state among Muslim-based nations, they have quite a definite distinction between religion and politics. During the latest elections a moderate religion-based party (like the CDU in Germany) got a lot of votes and people organised demonstrations against it because they didn't want Turkey to turn into a religion-based country.

But I guess there's still the idea that all Muslims are bad, isn't there? Or that they're all terrosists. It is true that men tend to consider women inferior, though.

[dienacht.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of Italian's in Australia so we don't have such a warped perfective on you guys. We do call you wogs though, which anyone who isn't Aussie would consider a racial slur. It's really not, we use the term wog in a fun sort of way, and Italian-Australian call themselves that also ( see the film The Wog Bog for example).

I can't speak for all Aussies but the main stereotypes we think of with Italians is that they're loud, use their arms a lot when talking and are hairy :P

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

Well, those are the usual stereotypes (along with the mafia-pizza-mama's boys stuff) and I'm OK with those, I mean, we are loud, we do gesticulate a lot and most Italian men (and a few women ^_^) are quite hairy, so it's not really offensive. It's the fact that a judge had such a prejudice that shocked me.

[dienacht.livejournal.com]

It'd a rather amusing twist of fate if this guy sued the judge for racial prejudice.