Holding the key of Globalization

Chamber of Commerce of Toronto new president Nivo Angelone exemplifies multiculturalism

With a delicate gesture of his fingertips, he softens his half cigar. When he lights up, a blue cloud of smoke, smelling of antiquity, pervades the studio. "Tuscan cigars," says Nivo Angelone, "are my daily dose of Italy." Then he passes the matches so this scribe can light his freshly loaded pipe.
This is how this interview with the new President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto begins. The house is empty; wife and children are away, working and studying. Outside, an unusually sunny morning shines over the still green gardens of York Mills.
Mr. President, tell us something about yourself.
"Where shall I begin?"
From what you deem your distinctiveness.
"Well then, I'll begin from my marriage and my family, which can help you understand who I am."
What is distinct about your marriage?
"The fact that Sara, my wife, is a Chinese from Hong Kong and has a Ceylonese heritage. Ours is an interracial and intercultural marriage. Our three children, Stefania, Elisa and Matteo, are Italian-Chinese-Canadian, but mostly they are citizens of the world. But we're not an exception in our family: my brother-in-law married an American woman and my brother a Polish one."
You would have made Pierre Trudeau happy, as he would see your family as an actual example of multiculturalism.
"Probably, because when we get together nobody cares about belonging to a specific ethnic group. We're here, we get along, we respect one another and we like one another for who we are. We never think of what we represent. The obsessive exaltation of cultural specificity, on the other hand, is hampering the concretization of multiculturalism."
Why do you say that?
"See, I always thought that multiculturalism should create a society of equals."
And...?
"On the other hand, nowadays each ethnic group, doggedly defending its own identity, ghettoizes itself. True, in Canada and especially in Toronto many different communities coexist, but if you look closely at them you see that each one is closed in its shell, they don't open their doors to one another."
What should multiculturalism be, then?
"An occasion for all ethnic groups to get in touch with one another, exchanging their cultures and taking the best from each other. But for this to happen, one needs to listen, to speak for communicating and not just for talking. In Canada we still have the chance to create a great society for the future, on the condition that everyone opens up, regardless of one's culture."
Some people are afraid that by opening up they might lose their identity.
"Did I lose it? Did my wife lose it? No, I am still Italian and she is still Chinese, but we managed to exchange our identities, and our children chose the best from my culture and the best from hers. They are new individuals, you know. It happened effortlessly, and the same went for my brother and my brother-in-law."
What prevented the full realization of Canadian multiculturalism?
"The obstinacy of the various communities to gain space at the expense of everybody else. Therefore the Italians elect their own representatives and so do the Greeks, Polish, Chinese and so on. The need to send their own representatives to City Hall, Queen's Park or Ottawa triggered specific interests, as Guicciardini called them. So fences were erected, some of them really claustrophobic."
The Italian community is blamed for its inability to lobby.
"Thank goodness for it. Lobbying would have meant another degree of closure. Our community already has so many fences based on regions, provinces, until recently even along party lines. We live in a country where we can exist as Italians, Greeks, Polish, Chinese, and at the same time as Canadians. Our cultural specificity cannot be defended by isolation. Only those who live in fear hide or defend from the others. The strong accept the confrontation."
How do you apply these principles in your daily activity as President of Value Plus Insurance Agency?
"By trying and breaking down the fence between the fathers, who still run their companies despite their age, and their children who work with them but hold little decision power. Often this patriarchal situation creates uneasiness and rancour. It's not just a matter of acting as a financial planner and help successful business owners to reorganize their companies by transferring them to their children, but especially of establishing an often non-existing line of communication between them. Psychological work, and in order to do it properly I decided to give myself a deep background. I obtained university specializations in Law, Economy and Accounting. I also cultivated interests in alternative medicine and neurolinguistics. All this enhances awareness, and fosters growth."
Is it hard when you must open a channel between a dominant father and a subordinate child?
"Occasionally it is, because for that father Italy is still the country he left, 40 or 50 years ago, and the Italian peasant culture of the time accepted such dominant figures. But Italy is not like that any more, nor is Canada, a brand new country. And anyway this is the Third Millennium."
What did you do, besides trying to get different generations of Italian-Canadians to talk?
"I worked as a stonebreaker. When I arrived from Sulmona in 1968, a 19-year-old hopeful, that's what I did. For six months I worked 12 hours a day, actually a night, in Toryork, breaking boulders with a big hammer and turning them to gravel. I did that until I managed to pay off the debt I had contracted to buy my passage to Canada. After that I did a little bit of everything, always within the community. I even acted in theatre."
You were an actor?
"Indeed I was, and with me there was also Domenico Pietropaolo who would later teach Theatre at the University of Toronto before becoming the director of the Department of Italian Studies. We performed Machiavelli's Mandragola, works by Pirandello, by Dario Fo, and that was a way to make the latter known in a period when he was banned from coming to North America. When we performed for a Canadian audience, all seats were sold out. We had 700-800 spectators. When we performed for the Italians, the cast outnumbered the audience. This should tell you something. But theatre was just one aspect of the activity that my friends and I carried out for the community."
What about the other aspects?
"We created associations that helped newcomers integrate in this country. I held classes on civic education and I think I assisted at least 30,000 people in obtaining Canadian citizenship. I published magazines and hosted TV programmes. In addition to assistance, our purpose was to ensure some protection in the workplace, then slaughterhouses without any rule. We asked for insurance against accidents, decent pensions for those who had toiled all their lives, a chance not to remain labourers forever. In summary, we were politically multicultural even before the idea and name were coined. Nowadays I'm proud of co-ordinating, with Laureano Leone, currently Honorary Consul of Canada in Sulmona, the committee that erected the monument to multiculturalism in front of Union Station. I don't see that sculpture just as a work of art, but as the symbol of my civic commitment."
From stonebreaker to President of the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto. You inherit from Clemente Benelli an organization of ever-increasing visibility.
"And we must use it."
What do you mean?
I mean that we must make Italy, as well as Canada, see how great a resource we are."
How great?
"There are 60 million Italians abroad, but everywhere there are also the Italian Chambers of Commerce, the expression of those Italian emigrants who became entrepreneurs. We know the real needs of the countries where we live, and this is an advantage for Italy that we can help all over the world. But it is also an advantage for our adoptive countries."
How?
"For instance, a Canadian company wishing to do business in China, or in Argentina, or in Australia. Well, it can ask us and we can put it in touch with our Chamber in Beijing, Buenos Aires or Sydney, which can create contacts and assist in trade. Do you realize the importance of the Italian Chambers of Commerce? If you consider that no other country has structures like these, you will realize the full significance of my words about our huge potential. We hold the keys of globalization. Of course, one thing is to say these things, another is to practise them; that's why the Toronto Chamber won't have one president."
What do you mean by that?
"I mean that I shall surround myself with virtual co-presidents. I intend to create a series of Chamber committees - for agri-food, advanced technologies, fashion, machinery, etc. - whose chairs will assist me. Let's say we need to participate to a high-level discussion about high technology. I will go, of course, as I represent the Chamber, but the chair of the specific committee will also come, because he will be the specialist. They will be my alter egos. This structure will allow us to identify our real possibilities for intervention, but also to expand in less traditional areas, e.g., investments in Italy. Also, we shall give special attention to culture."
Entrepreneurial culture?
"Not only that, culture per se. I am convinced that trade follows the routes opened by culture. Do you know why? Because both culture and trade, in order to develop in full, need to listen to their interlocutors and find out what they want. I hope to transform the Chamber into an ideal partner for every activity because I want it to listen to everybody. As I told you already, though, our community needs to grow up and learn what Italy is today, so we need the Chamber or some prestigious associate of its to sponsor every worthy cultural initiative. Culture, one of Italy's great treasures, cannot remain closed in small circles, and must not be proposed by intellectuals alone. Entrepreneurs can and must do the same. They will grow, and society will grow. Adriano Olivetti proved that an entrepreneur could also be an opinion maker. He was among the creators of modern Italy."
_ AN.MA.

Publication Date: 2002-12-08
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2096