6 - European Union helps Italian

Parliamentary deputy Gianni Pittella supports language expansion in world

In May 1984, the European Ministers of Education convened in Berlin (still split by the Wall). A unified Europe was little more than an embryo, rather a project still being worked at, and yet the governments felt the need to devise a joint cultural strategy to tackle the models coming mostly from the United States and Japan, which attacked the very essence of the Old Continent.
That need was the reason for the meeting, and this journalist was lucky enough to be assigned to cover that event.
More or less, the picture was like this: the United States was flooding Europe with movies, books, and also rivers of Coca-Cola (McDonald's was yet to come).
Japan sent forth the newest technologies but also comic books, like Heidi, whose stories were set in a Switzerland but had little reality to it as Heidi and her friends had been conceived and drawn in Tokyo.
All these products, foreign to European culture, were slowly exerting their influence on the everyday attitudes and consumption patterns of the Europeans, and the Old World had no solid alternative to offer.
For three days the ministers tried in vain to identify some. A communiqué full of commitments, resolutions and hopes, but lacking in proposals, concluded a meeting where nothing was actually decided. It was impossible; that still was the "Europe of Homelands" mentioned much earlier by De Gaulle, where the individual countries played the main roles.
Moreover the Wall was still cutting Berlin and Germany in half. On one side Federal Germany, allied with the NATO, on the other Democratic Germany, a satellite of the Soviet Union. The Wall cut Europe in half as well, leaving it short of some countries that had been decisive, in the past, for the construction of a common civilization. In addition to East Germany, Europe lacked Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Balkan and Slavic states: all of them were under the yoke of Moscow. How could a cultural strategy be devised while half of Europe's culture was daily deprived of its identity? The Iron Curtain weighed heavy on those years.
Those were also the years when, after the great Italian emigration that had followed World War II had dried out, Italians abroad went from the status of (occasionally unwelcome) guests to that of citizens of the countries where they had settled. This new dimension allowed them to come out and cease hiding their specific character, like they had been compelled to do in order to gain acceptance.
The Italian language and the culture that it conveys began to be studied abroad, and not just in schools for immigrants, but also in the universities.
During the Berlin conference some interesting data became available: that the city accommodated at least 10,000 Italians, many of whom had progressed from waiters and dishwashers to restaurant owners; and that Pier Paolo Pasolini was well known not just in university halls but also among the youth that every night were writing graffiti on the Wall: "You have the power, we have the night".
Nowadays the European Union is a reality, not a project; it is able to establish its currency, the euro, as a peer of the U.S. dollar, but also to devise a cultural strategy of its own. It is neither an offensive nor a defensive strategy, but relies on openness instead, aligning with European culture that was never afraid of comparison.
These days this strategy scored another point: the Erasmus World Project, aiming to "strengthen intercultural dialogue and promote European values more efficiently towards the rest of the world", as the presentation document for this project reads. The initial budget is of €200 million, about $300 million (CDN).
In his double capacity as a European MP and the chair of the Italians Abroad committee of DS (Democratici di Sinistra, Italy's strongest centre-left party), Gianni Pittella is an attentive observer of cultural transformations in these years straddling two millennia. The European Parliament in Strasbourg gives him ample opportunity to do so.
Let's begin with Erasmus World: can you summarize it for us?
"In short, Erasmus World is a project of the European Union offering 250 postgraduate diplomas and thousands of bursaries and financial assistance to students from Europe as well as from abroad. Europe wants to open up its universities to the whole world: this is how it wants to gain a winning position in the globalization of culture."
Why did you decide to offer postgraduate courses instead of regular degrees?
"There are several reasons, and I'll mention a couple. First of all that was done to give flexibility to the project. Regular degrees are too heavily conditioned by study plans and the country-specific structures. Then because Europe would have problems in supporting significant numbers of foreign students over a period of four to six academic years. The length of these postgraduate studies, which last 15 months, overcomes these problems and at the same time allows us to have a strong international projection."
Who will benefit from the bursaries and other assistance?
"The graduates who want to specialize at our universities and the 'visiting professors' who come to teach and research. The postgraduate courses also foresee partnerships between European and foreign universities."
How will Erasmus World impact the study of European languages other than English?
"Since we mentioned globalization of culture as one of the objectives of Erasmus World, it goes without saying that all European languages will take
advantage of that. Canadian students who attend in Bologna, for instance, will inevitably bring back some Italian when they will return, much like Spanish will be brought back by those who study in Barcelona. However, Erasmus World will also balance another situation. At present, most European students who participate in international exchange programmes go to the United States; some 550,000 in the 2001/2002 academic year. In Europe there is an evident imbalance because three-quarters of the foreigners who come to study in the Union go to the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy."
Why is this?
"Because European universities have yet to join their forces in order to offer those courses that only exist in Europe. Don't forget that we are still under construction, and this entails some discrepancies between national and community policies. Erasmus World hopes to eliminate such cultural imbalances."
What is the prestige of Italian in Europe?
"Very high. The Italian language is studied as a language of the immigrants, mostly in Belgium and Germany, but also as the language of culture, due to the extraordinary artistic and literary patrimony owned by our country."
In Australia, 377,000 students attend university courses of Italian; in the U.S.A. the same goes for over 50,000; in Toronto alone, in Canada, Italian is studied by over 30,000 schoolchildren. There is an increasing interest in our language all over the world. Is this also true in Europe?
"There are no recent surveys, but based on available information I can tell you that this indeed is true even in Europe. Our language is being studied in
the primary schools of all European countries that received Italian immigrants, which means practically all of them. It is less present in secondary school, but many local initiatives are striving to introduce the study of Italian in every grade of schooling."
What should the Italian government do in order to promote the study of Italian abroad?
"It would not be appropriate for me, an European MP, to tell the Italian government what to do in this direction. I can tell you what Europe is doing for cultural promotion, and I can add that it is up to the Italian government to link with this strategy. However, I can tell you what I am doing, dealing with the problems of Italians Abroad for the DS Party."
Please do.
"I'm systematically visiting all our communities, not only in Europe but also out of it. I recently went to Australia, the United States and Canada, in Vancouver. My purpose is to collect data and information about the needs of Italians who left our country and about the 'state of health' of our language. I do not need to tell you that I found interesting requests and encouraging situations. When my globetrotting ends I will make several proposals that can be carried out using both national and European resources. Italy needs an organic strategy towards our communities abroad; this strategy cannot ignore the teaching of Italian in the schools and universities of the countries where these communities live."
How can the national strategies be harmonized with the European ones?
"This is a problem that many countries have to solve. Of course it isn't easy, because the idea of Europe only recently was superimposed over that of national sovereignty, but there is something that we should all be aware of, especially from the cultural point of view."
What is this?
"The fact that the European Union is facing the historical opportunity of globalization and the new economy that is its first-born child. The new economy has its main strength in knowledge. Europe, then, must address the demand for knowledge. It can also do so if it is able to project itself outward and compete as a peer with the other world powers. However, this effort must be backed by all national policies. Let's make an example linked to the issue at hand. If the diffusion of Italian abroad is promoted by Italy and also is a part of a Europe-wide strategy, it will stand much better chances of success."
This sounds very good, but the kind of Federalism that some people are trying to introduce in Italy exalts the role of Regions also on the level of cultural promotion. Meanwhile, no connection between the Regions and the State was created, thus increasing the risk of dispersal of the initiatives. Also, the regional party called Lega Nord, beating the drum of extreme Federalism, seems not to love Europe.
"I know. I wish Italy would note what kind of Federalism is being created in the European Union. Let's take agriculture, for instance. Jurisdiction and resources have been transferred to the Regions of the various member States, but at the same time a centralized mechanism has been created with the power to impose sanctions and grant incentives according to how well those resources are used. European Federalism is rooted in solidarity; it has nothing to do with the 'devolution' projects sponsored by Minister Bossi, rooted in the rule of the strong. That kind of Federalism will dump onto Italian Regions the full weight of choices made with no degree of subtlety and no form of compensation. Imagine what this will entail for culture: the richer Regions will be able to promote themselves at will, while poorer Regions will only watch. However, culture is a collective heritage, which should be promoted collectively."

Publication Date: 2003-01-26
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2285