Tuscany journal: 2007 part 2 - Fascism

I have friends of long standing in Tuscany, Italy. I stayed with them for 11 summer weeks almost 50 years ago, and we have stayed in touch. Since then they bought a vineyard in Tuscany, where they have worked very hard, and have built a nice business. The family has shrunk over those years; Pappa died of cancer in 1968, Mamma died of cancer two years ago. One brother died of cancer 10 years ago, leaving a wife and twin sons who live near the vineyard, but are not close to the rest of the family, and another brother has become estranged. This leaves my “brother” Paolo (names have been changed), his wife Anna, and their son Gianni running the vineyard and living in the family home. Gianni has taken over the marketing of the wine (he doesn’t like to work in the fields), and spends long periods of time in Texas and Colorado, hobnobbing with wealthy Americans who play a lot of golf.

Over dinner one night, we discussed politics.

“Oil is also an armament in today’s world. Chemical weapons, like the ones they thought Saddam Hussein had, are not the only dangerous arms. Oil also is” said Paolo. “The greatest danger today comes not from Iran or North Korea, but from Venezuela.”

I was so surprised by this remark that I didn’t have anything to say, but agreed with his contention that oil was like an “armament.” “I think the Second World War was partly about oil, wasn’t it?”

“No Ann,” Paolo twirled his hand in the air. “The Second World War in Germany was started for economic reasons, because the Jews held all the economic power. They had to get rid of them.”

I was stunned again. It was odd to hear such talk from Paolo because, although he has something of a temper, he does not thrive on hate. There was no way to continue the conversation without getting into an argument, so I expressed my disagreement and we moved on.

“You know, Ann, at heart I am a Socialist, but why should I pay taxes to help people who refuse to work!” Paolo said.

Gianni chimed in. “There can only be people who work and people who starve. Let them starve. Why should I work so hard to support people who refuse to work? With the taxes the way they are, how can I make any progress? I want to work on this land for maybe ten years, then retire to the Caymans.” I was hearing reverberations from his time in America. Italian young men don't dream of retiring to the Caymans.

“Giuseppe, you are contradicting yourself,” I said with a smile. “You cannot become so successful that you can retire in ten years and at the same time be prevented from being successful by the high taxes.”

The conversation glided around, with Gianni getting more and more agitated. “President Bush was too timid. He should have dropped an atomic bomb on Iraq” segued soon into his story about a rabbi who wanted 20,000 casks of kosher wine. “The rabbi came and started telling me how to make my wine, how to keep the place clean. As if I don’t know how to keep the place clean! Any Jew who comes into my business and starts telling him how I am supposed to make my wine will have to get out of my home. I am the boss here,” he jabbed his finger toward the ground. “I told the rabbi ‘I don’t care who you are. Let you and your other rabbis stay out of my face. It is I who makes the rules here, not you! I make the rules! I won’t make inferior wine just to please some ignorant rabbi!' We got into an argument and he finally slapped me right in the face”

“Really? And what did you do?”

“What would you do? I slapped him back.”

“Don’t you think that’s just the rules of their religion. I don’t think he was trying to insult you,” I tried to calm him down, but couldn’t let this pass without a comment.

“It’s not only them, it’s dirty, lazy immigrants who come into my country and try to change it. This is my country. They have no right to tell me what I should be doing. Keep them out. Down in Texas the immigrants are coming in through tunnels, and I agree that Americans should stand in the tunnels and shoot them as they come through. Shoot them! What right do they have to come into the country? It’s the same here. Kill them if they try to come in.”

“That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” I ventured.

“You think people don’t believe this in America? They do. I know plenty of Americans who will tell you the same things I am telling you.” The vitriol continued to pour from his mouth.

Homosexuals aren’t too popular around here either.

“Pfft,” Paolo semi-spat. “They are ridiculous. I mean, let them do whatever they want to do, but I can’t be around them.

“You are around them, whether you know it or not,” I offered.

“Nooo. I can tell. You can see them a mile away. They’re just disgusting and I don’t want to be around them.”

I had to say something. “I can’t personally go along with your feelings against Jews because a good number of my friends are Jewish, or against homosexuals because a large number of my colleagues and even a couple of my bosses have been homosexual”

“Me too!” crowed Gianni. “So many of my friends are Jewish.”

Gianni dismissed global warming in a manner transparently reminiscent of American conservative talk show hosts, then he took another tack. “It is too late to stop the climate change, so why bother to shut down companies who employ a lot of people and produce pollution?”

“We should just give up?” I asked.

“That’s all we can to. It’s too late! Don’t you understand? It’s too late! Why should we pay taxes to cut down pollution when it’s too late already. I work in the country. I don’t produce any pollution so it’s not something that I’m contributing to, but I pay taxes, don’t I?”

It seemed to me that Gianni’s parents were a little alarmed with their son too, and I didn’t want to create massive problems for them, so voiced my opinions with a smile. After Gianni had gone out, I turned to Paolo and said, “What would your father say if he heard this? He fought against Mussolini.”

Paolo spread his hands in frustration. “Times have changed.”

Pappa’s grandson would have been sporting a brown shirt and doing the goose step, striking a hateful stake into a family of great good will. Maybe it is too late, though not in the way Gianni was thinking.