Ricordi di scuola

Ricordo che ero già un docente di discipline giuridiche ed economiche  alla ragioneria quando mi iscrissi a Scienze Politiche per la mia seconda laurea. Ho ritrovato degli appunti di allora e sulle ali della nostalgia ho deciso di pubblicarne uno stralcio.
Il professore di Diritto Internazionale, a noi che frequentavamo con regolarità il suo corso, ci aveva proposto alcuni argomenti per l'esonero (svolgendo alcuni degli argomenti proposti, saremmo stati esonerati da una parte di programma, e avremmo così sostenuto un esame finale più leggero).
Fra i tanti argomenti proposti ne abbozzai tre, che mi sembravano più interessanti, rispetto agli altri. Ho ritrovato l'appunto che avevo preso in relazione alla scelta e l'ho rielaborato per i miei lettori. Spero che lo gradiscano.
 Se dovessi scegliere, mi piacerebbe parlare della Palestina e dell'OLP (anche se ho paura di non saperne abbastanza). Ne parlerei per dire che la Gran Bretagna forse ha sbagliato nel 1949 (ma ricordo bene?), quando è cessato il suo Protettorato in quelle terre martoriate. Quello è il peccato originale che ha originato tutti i guai e tutte le incomprensioni  nei rapporti tra il mondo cristiano e il mondo musulmano (o forse sarebbe più corretto dire tra il mondo occidentale e quello orientale di religione islamica). Certo adesso che la frittata è fatta mi piacerebbe vedere uno stato federale tra palestinesi e israeliani ma probabilmente la maggior parte dei miei lettori  preferirebbe la soluzione "due popoli, due stati". Certo la Gran Bretagna l'ha combinata grossa, ma all'indomani della seconda guerra mondiale, e dello sterminio degli Ebrei, forse la Comunità internazionale ha inteso in qualche misura farsi perdonare per l'eccidio subito dagli Ebrei.
2) Non mi dispiacerebbe neppure parla della Città del Vaticano. Qualcuno lo ha definito il più piccolo e il più potente stato del mondo. Stalin, negli anni trenta (o forse negli anni quaranta) chiese a un suo consigliere: "quante divisioni di fanteria ha il papa?". L'argomento Vaticano lo sceglierei perché mi ricorda che il Fascismo  volle fortemente i Patti Lateranensi (la data dell'otto febbraio 1929 dovrebbe segnare l'atto di nascita di questo minuscolo ma potentissimo stato) perchè aveva assoluto bisogno dell'appoggio del mondo cattolico (sino ad allora confinato nelle preclusioni che i papi, offesi per la Breccia di Porta Pia, gli avevano imposto all'indomani dell'assalto che il generale Cadorna fece coi suoi bersaglieri e con i suoi cannoni a ciò che restava ancora del vecchio stato pontificio nelle mani del Papa dopo l'Unità dell'italia, celebratasi nove anni prima).
3) Mi piacerebbe infine parlare di quei paradisi fiscali che vanno sotto il nome di Principato di Monaco e Principato di Andorra ma magari rischierei di andare fuori tema perché io darei un taglio finanziario e invece il mio prof forse preferisce un taglio storico.

Still over Brexit

In the papers,  in the last weeks,  we don't get so much news over Brexit. Nevertheless there is more Brexit than we think. British are learning that Brexit is not that good that seemed to be on June 2016.
The horrible news coming from Northern Ireland are a consequence of that disgraceful referendum.
As an European citizen I feel sorry and as a peaceful man I would like UK staying in the EU as a garantee for a progressive, democratic growth of the United States of Europe.
I know I'm too old to hope to see the political Union of our Continent; but let me hope that our sons might be able to see them.
I embrace all the Europeans, including my brother British. Stay together, in peace, English, Scottish and Irish brothers. And if you can, stay still with us.

Muri ideologici e muri di pietra

Anche se i muri in realtà sono vecchi quasi quanto l'uomo, oggi più che mai, viviamo nell'epoca dei muri!
Chi l'avrebbe mai detto che dopo la caduta di quell'orribile muro a Berlino, saremmo entrati nell'epoca dei muri. Eppure ci siamo! Eccome!
Esiste  il muro di pietra che divide Israele  dalla Palestina; ed esiste il muro ideologico che divide le due Coree.
Trump vuole fare il muro di pietra tra gli Stati Uniti e il Messico; e Theresa May ha perso la ragione intestardendosi a voler costruire il muro ideologico tra il Regno Unito e il resto d'Europa, appoggiata dai ricchi e, più o meno, nobili ex studenti di Eton e dintorni, facendo leva sullo sconsiderato razzismo e sulle illusioni di grandezza emersi da un referendum pilotato con sapienza dalla rete (come la stessa elezione di Trump: leggi Cambridge Analitica) e che si poggia più sull'ignoranza oscura che sulla lucida volontà.
Viviamo il crepuscolo della democrazia rappresentativa in un periodo di oscurantismo ideologico e religioso che può definire la nostra epoca come un nuovo medio evo.
E' per questo che dobbiamo credere più che mai negli Stati Uniti d'Europa.
L'Unione Europea incarna la negazione dei muri e dei confini. In un momento in cui tutti si chiudono, almeno l'Europa resti aperta! 

Brexit, proud and business

Who is going to win the struggle between proud and business about Brexit in UK?
Proud pushes for leaving  but money and business hint for remaining.
I understand the reasons of the proud leavers: I've been a proud citizen of the Roman empire, thousands of years ago; but I can also see the reasons of the business men  who are threathening to move their firms abroad if the PM May insists on her no deal project.
I've already expressed  in this blog my point of view on Brexit: I respect the will of British people and I won't cease to be fond of their culture even if they leave EU.
Nevertheless I want clearly make evdence of my desire to see UK stay in Europe, in the European Union, in order to struggle together to improve the Union, to face the giants of the old and the new economy raising their shadows to overwhelm and rule the world (I mean USA, Russia, together with China, India, Brazil and others).
Furthermore I want to add something which is subject of debate in all the so called domocratic Country, specially after the Cambridge Analycta's scandal and the Russiagate.
In western democracies,  as an historic  achievement,  we have obtained the equality in politic elections: that means, one man, one vote.
But some acute observers started criticizing this equality in the following terms: too many people are heavily impressionable and even manipulable; because of that  they go to the polls  without understanding very well what they are voting for .
It seems that this is what happened in the Trump's election in USA and even in the june 2016 election for Brexit.
These arguments are very dangerous, for they risk to threat the basis of our democracy, as a result for a millennial struggle for equality.
This not less the argument deserves a deep meditation on how fragile can be our democracy and how much we need, from one hand very strict rules on social network and mass media; from another hand how much is important to form a political, leading  class  capable to face the strong powers and represent strongly and kindly rule the poor people.

To exit or no to exit

Yesterday, half a million  people, marched  in London against the Brexit.
I've already written in this blog what I think of this theme.
I love all UK, its people, its multinational culture, its different, strong tradition whatever they might decide to do on Brexit. Even if  they would be out of EU I would keep on loving and respecting their great democracy and their great Country.
Nevertheless I  hope that Great Britain remains in the European Union.
We need them as well as they need us to be together.
United Kingdom, English, Scottish and Irish people are part of Europe.
The European, different people, like English, French, Spanish, Italians, Germans, Danish and all the others, are like those cousins which have a common inheritance to share: it's better to find an agreement and keep on together.
We have already fight too much to conquer and manage on our own, exluding the others, the whole inheritance and it has been a disaster.
Who does not remember the cruel wars the ones against the others? How many have them been? I cannot even count them out since the Roman Empire has collapsed, almost sixteen centuries ago.
That's enough my  European friend.
I want we to stay together, with our differences, with our peculiarities, defending our own culture but sharing our friendship, building a new great Country to face the new millennial challenges against the giants of the world (I don't only mean USA, but also China, India and the others emergeing, dangerous  powers).
And I can't forget the sweet face of Helen Joanne Cox who has died for the European dream to be true.
Please, don't let her blood sacrifice be useless.
I embrace you, brothers of Albion. Do what you think is better for you but don't forget that together we'll be stronger. Europe is strong if we keep together though someone would prefer to split us.
The good things to joint are much more than those to break up.
And London is for ever, anyway.

The story of Mr Winningoes - 7

- “Have a drink, please. It is cognac from Charente, one of the few things that I appreciate of French people.”

This way saying he poured some of that liquid in a short, carved wine glass, explaining  that a cognac, to be really good, has to leave, if slightly rotated, a thin layer of color inside the glass.

As soon as I had drunk, I immediately felt a comforting warmth. On the warm’s alcohol wave I thought that that man surely knew so much indeed about life. His theories, yet quiet abstruse to me, showed however a sort of suggestive charm.

- “You certainly know how has the second world war concluded” - said the man, who went on talking about the last phases of the war, mixing them with some personal circumstances and original points of view, totally different from official historical interpretation .

- “Excuse me , my friends, for detouring from the main path” - he returned to say taking back the main stream of his narration. -“After all, such problems, didn't interest to me so much at the time, neither they interest to me today. I had to follow my life, and rather, the use of the atomic bombs in Japan made me understand, even more, the urgency of stopping mankind’s foolishness, under the risk of destroying the world and all its living forms. When I was dismissed, appointed as a real hero, I decided to go to pay a visit to my father. I still felt some grudge towards him and perhaps, I thought, I would  fling to him my medals,  which “his” king had given to me. But the memoirs of my happy infancy wound me in a veil of emotion and when I saw my father, old and tired, convicted on a wheels chair, I understood that was time to pass over and look at future.

7. to be continued...

If you want to read more of this please go to the link below

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/edit-book/one?digitalItemId

The story of Mr Winningoes - 4

The burst of the second world war caught me surprised on this walk of studies and searches.

Bitterly I was forced to consider that human beings pursued their premature end, rather than search for the truth.

But at that time I hadn't yet understood that every human action, even the most iniquitous and bestial, has however its own reason to be done and for me, that war, would have been another fundamental step on the way of comprehension.

When Germany, violating the international agreements formerly undersigned, moved war to England, attacking London, I realized that the right moment had come for me to show that the Parnells loved to fight for freedom, under any flag and against whoever oppressed its exercise. I went to England and enlisted, as a volunteer,  in the Royal Air Force, despite I have to confess you that, after the betrayal of my father, I felt more Irish than English, also considering that in those days, as it is today, Ireland was divided in two parts, with a part still under the British dominion.

4. to be continued...
If you want to read more of this please go to the link below

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/edit-book/one?digitalItemId

The same old story

I think that UK is living, in these times of Brexit, the same crisis which passed forty years ago, when Maggie Thatcher took the power.
Like at those times, UK is experimenting a difficult passage from an open society, capable to accept from abroad all  the best contributes which can come, to a scared misure which risks to transform the Country in a less cultural pole for art and intellectual minds.
 I've always been very fond of the English skill of hosting people from all over the world.
I've admired and been fascinated by the way England has been able to allow anybody in search of freedom and democracy to stay in the Country.
And now, with Brexit, I feel that all this will be more difficult (I hope, nevertheless, it won't be over). I realize there are two opposite souls in England: one opened and one closed.
Which one  is going to win the challenge?

Memoirs of London - 15

15.

Chapter Three 
Leicester Square 

In the  morning, right in that day,  when all the white collars and secretaries in London were already at work, as previously agreed, I called  the Office to find out what would have been my place of work. Lucky gave me a hand: Jim, the guy who led a great selling point had forfeited the day before and that  made  vacant the position he occupied in one of the most important squares around the West End. 

When I got to the shop in Leicester Square I introduced myself to  an  Eastern Arab manager whose  name was Ibrahim.  He gave  a careless glance at my badge and  showed me my positon the back of the store, where I found the machine "Carpigiani", the milk to make the ice-cream, the  cones and some chocolate bars they called flakes to be served as "optionals" squeezed in the cream on top of the ice cream cone.

 In addition I had provided, right next to the ice cream machine, a dispenser with two trays, one for the orange juice and the other for the lemonade that I made it myself with running water and concentrated juice.

 Taken up position at the front of the store and, proud in my white apron, I began my new adventure of ice cream seller  in the Brian Brook Company.

Leicester Square is a square not far from Piccadilly Circus. You get access from there through  two short but commercially important streets: Coventry Street and New Coventry Street.

In the way to the wide  Trafalgar Square, instead, heading south, all  around the National Gallery, in a street called St Martin,  there is another special category of street's traders: the itinerant painters!

Students from the Academy of fine arts in London and from  the High  Artistic schools around the world, amateurs, skilful men  in the art of painting and portraiture; young emerging artists and old decayed artists; aspiring artists or assumed, all converge in this corner of London to offering passers-by the result of their inspiration onto canvas, for a fee that can range from a few pounds for a portrait or a caricature done right there, to much more  expensive  portraits in different  styles and subjects, with the hope  to leave to his descendants  maybe the equivalent of a Van Gogh. Although few tourists, to be honest, had the courage and the business acumen to invest and bet on the pictorial talent of those strangers, anonymous exhibitors;  and not least, it is certain that everyone, including the merely curious, breathed some fresh air authentically Bohemian because, beyond the artistic value of those painters not sedentary, passers-by were to appreciate the skill, ease and freedom with which they expressed in their art their existential anxieties, actual or alleged that they were.   In the more immediate vicinity of Leicester Square there are plenty of  box offices, theaters, pubs, discos, restaurants, clubs, bars and nightspots, bureaux de change and clothing stores; the latter, mostly, are the property of Indian and Pakistani traders, open seven days a week, from nine in the morning until late at night. The presence of several offices of the change machine was a safe attestation of cosmopolitan  London especially for the attraction made to foreigner visitors by this place.
.. to be continued...

Memoirs of London - 6

In 1979 I was back on the road to work for the B.B.C., a company that, apart from the initials of its name, had nothing else to share with British state television. In fact, the Benjamin Building Company did not afflict people with boring programs, neither it  talked with shameless lies about national and international political events. Finally my Company did not even put its nose in the lives of the Queen and the other members of the Royal Family,  generally speaking.

The company I worked for delighted their customers  by selling ice cream and drinks, logistically relying on a chain’s shop of souvenirs, sweets and tobacco’s  strategically located at several points in the great London area known as West End.

 This vast and famous London metropolitan area, which also includes Soho district and numerous small and large parks, is bordered by a perimeter that runs through the important streets of Oxford Street, Charing Cross Rd, Shaftesbury Av and Regent's Street, forming an irregular trapeze whose four tops pass from Tottenham Court Rd to Oxford Circus; from there to Piccadilly Circus and  finally end at Leicester Square, couple of yards   from Trafalgar Square, where Admiral Nelson's statue, according to the likely intentions of the public authorities who wanted it so powerfully high, witnessed  the  British’s greatness and glory to all those who would walk from there: French people, foreigners  and British from all over the Empire.

 In those years, the greatness and glory of England, after the almost total depletion of the British Empire,  seemed more remote and far from the statue of the great conductor of the seas. And nostalgia, it’s all over known, is a feeling that more acutely manifests itself, when the best times are over and  a crisis is bound to come.

 And that Great Britain was in crisis at the end of the seventies of the twentieth century, it immediately became apparent also to the "street traders" who, living among the people, felt the moods of the average citizen in an emotionally direct way.

 On the street, they felt discomfort and nervousness, though the real troubles were still to come, shortly thereafter, with the irresistible rise to power of the Conservatives headed by Margareth Tatcher (later known as the “Iron Lady"), which would mark the end of a cycle in London's administrative life, characterized by a policy of traditional securing of democratic freedoms and sympathy for the weaker social classes.

Moreover, the English metropolis had represented since the rising of the first music liberation and protest groups (born on the wave of the American Hippies movement, also known as the "beat generation") a decisive cultural reference point, helping to make London the Capital of the Rock Movement, where refugees disappointed by the illusion of the failed revolution of 1968, could find a safe refuge escape from the backflow of the reaction which  had gone through  the whole world.

And it was right there, in London, that they could still see the last glow of brightness before its definite sunset. So, in a good way, I agreed to resume my job and sell ice-creams and drinks in the street. By my side I had a refrigerating machine that turned milk into ice cream and a refreshing machine dispensing orange and lemonade.

Where  else could I work, let alone  the road? And to do what? Maybe to get into some office with air conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter, and the stench of paperwork under my nose? There was no other world for me, now, if not that; no other destiny, no other life I could have wanted, than the free life  of street's traders.

 Returning to the road meant for me to relive from the very beginning my adventure in that mysterious and fascinating city that, unfortunately and superficially, is too often considered cold and inhospitable, considering also that never or almost never come into you get a direct contact with English or British people.

 This story is devoted to London and to the dear places where I have lived in.  But it is also dedicated to all the peoples that those places with such variety and vivacity animated in those years who will pass through the main scene of my story: the streets of London.

6. to be continued...

One year ago

One year ago (and two days) Jo Cox was shot dead by a right far fanatic who didn't agree her committment in politic and social subjects.

Joanne Cox was a MP for the Labours and when the crazy man assaulted her, she was busy in her Constituency for the coming referendum to decide if UK had to stay or to leave European Union.

As we all know British choose to leave. But this doesn't matter, in the end. I mean that I keep on feeling sentiments of brotherhood to British people though they decided to leave.

The day before yesterday some people have seen their bravery recongnised by great british honours: two policemen and two other people who helped Jo Cox against the blind violence of hate who took her life away. 

A foundation has now been founded in the name of Jo Cox (see the link below).

I don't know if this foundation is also pro European Union but I'm sure it is not against anyone.

And this is what it's important at the best.

 I have not known Jo Cox when she was alive but I know she was for solidarity, brotherhood and friendship all over the world and not only in Europe.

And I still say that London is for ever.

https://www.jocoxfoundation.org/

Someone is smiling somewhere

I apologize in advance with those who voted to leave EU; I know they are the majority, though so  fragile and changeable as politic matters are; nevertheless let me say that the loss of parliamentary seats in the  House of Commons, suffered by the Tories in the last elections, has a meaning that in some way goes against the Brexit; only in some way, I agree, not completely against, for I know even the Labours will be working to manage a definitive leave; of course there is a difference between a hard and reasonable Brexit. 

The gap between the two ways is filled with what is more careable for a left side party: social solidarity; health security; more equal health distribution; public services; social protections for the weak, even if they are continental workers, or simply  foreigner workers.

Democracy, if the word has still a residual meaning, in this society dominated by  financial and multinational powers, means also to give space to different points of view. 

So I still thinking that Great Britain should remain; I still believe European must stick together to face the challenges the world outside is waiting for and UK could play a great role in these challenges on our side. 

I believe it is also on respect of the memory who gave her life to defend the weak, on defending European Union, like MP Joanne  Cox did. 

And I still believe London is forever.

I'm for Prince William

Michael Thorton, a veteran observer of the Royal Family, has published in the today's DM on line, a very interesting article on the succeeding matter for the throne of England, asking Prince of Wales to make himself apart in favour of his son Prince William, taking example from his great-uncle Edward VIII.
Well, let me say that I agree with Thorton's point of view; and despite the comments of bird of ill omen bishop Broadbent, who has declared the wedding between Prince William and Miss Kate Middlengton will last only for seven year, I wish the regal pair to reign over, together, at least, as long as His grandparents have done.
Read more on this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1331083/emailArticle.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331626/emailArticle.html

Where's the truth on Iraq's war affair?

I report from the Daily Mail on line the following news. I'm astonished and worried about knowing that such important politicians may lie on such involving matters.
Blair distorted the case for Iraq war, admits Sir John Scarlett
By Tim ShipmanLast updated at 12:30 AM on 09th December 2009

Former MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett
The spymaster behind the dodgy Iraq dossier yesterday made clear that Tony Blair 'sexed up' the strength of the intelligence with an 'overtly political' foreword making the case for war.
Sir John Scarlett said the then prime minister's claim that spies had 'established beyond doubt' that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was 'quite separate from the text of the dossier itself'.
Sir John, former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, admitted that the claim that Saddam could fire chemical weapons in 45 minutes was also 'lost in translation'.
He conceded that it would have been 'much better' if the dossier had spelt out that the claim referred only to battlefield 'munitions' rather than 'weapons' - which was taken to mean missiles capable of hitting British bases in Cyprus.
Sir John, who recently retired as head of MI6, also revealed that Mr Blair never bothered to ask him about new intelligence received just ten days before the outbreak of war, which made clear that Iraqi chemical weapons and missiles had been 'disassembled'.
'The intelligence reports went through to the Prime Minister and to senior ministers,' he said.
Asked repeatedly whether Mr Blair or any other senior minister had asked about the intelligence or demanded a new assessment before giving the green light for war, Sir John replied: 'No. No. No.'Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234179/Iraq-inquiry-Sir-John-Scarlett-says-pressure-Number-10-dodgy-dossier.html#ixzz0ZAaLJiIi