16 - Advantages of investing in Italian

Italy's Toronto Consul General Brofferio believes in importance of language

Prof. Paolo Balboni, dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature at Venice's Università Ca' Foscari remarked that, whereas people all over the world are asking Italy to organize Italian language courses, in Canada and the United States there are those who ask for money without any strings attached. All funds are used for the diffusion of Italian, but Balboni underscored the refusal of any control.
"Well, the mechanism is fairly simple: the Italian government gives annual contributions to several institutions abroad, called 'managing institutions', for them to promote the study of our language," says Luca Brofferio, Consul General of Italy in Toronto. "The managing institutions sign agreements with the school boards that are interested in including Italian in their curricula, and pay out for the teachers, educational material and promotional activities. Therefore, a first form of control is exerted by the managing institutions, which have a keen interest in getting results from those contributions, lest Rome freezes them. A second and third level of control is exerted by the Consulates of the districts where these managing institutions and school boards are located and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These controls verify the correct use of the funds."
Luca Brofferio, Consul General of Italy in Toronto for the past four months, tackles the problem of the diffusion of Italian in Ontario with pragmatism: "If one divides the amount of the contributions by the number of students attending Italian language classes," he continues, "the result, to the tune of a few dozen euro each, amply justifies the investment."
However, in both primary and high schools enrolment in Italian courses is down. Does it mean that the investment has lost its appeal, that Italian in Canada is no longer attractive?
"The decrease is real, and it worries me, especially because it is larger than that suffered by the other great Romance language, Spanish. First of all, I rule out the possibility of Italian not attracting any more. It may be decreasing in schools, but still over 31,000 youngsters are studying it right now. That's something. I would rather interpret this recession as due to objective factors: the cutbacks to language teaching, which triggered a conviction that foreign languages are not as important as the subjects linked to business and economy. I noticed a lack of attention by Canadian authorities to certain educational processes. And yet, multilinguism should be the way to multiculturalism. I almost suspect that multiculturalism could be practiced mechanically, as a compulsory act. French, the second national language spoken only in Quebec, proves the failure of this policy."
Is no one else to blame if the study of Italian is decreasing?
"We all make mistakes, but honestly I wouldn't point my finger at the managing institutions, for instance, which are constantly devising new strategies to promote the study of our language. In recent years they developed a system that may be expensive but gives good results, based on students travelling to Italy, thus making contact with a reality that they would otherwise only study in theory. The same managing institutions are creating permanent structures in Italy, turning these travels into a permanent teaching method. They are doing their part; the Italian government recognizes this and keeps contributing. Anyway, I have an idea of my own about the study of Italian."
Such as...?
"I must warn you that I'm no specialist, so my idea could turn out to be impractical. I would establish some pilot courses where Italian was taught the way we learned it in our youth: with parsing and sentence analysis. This would not only benefit our language, by being learned according to regular criteria, but also English, currently studied only through assimilation."
How would English benefit from this?
"You see, English grammar is only studied in university here, and only in courses of Linguistics. However, grammar and sentence analyses are truly important. The point is not to hammer sterile notions in a student's mind, but to elicit specific mental processes. This results in improved profit. I believe that studying Italian the old-fashioned way would trigger an interest in parallel grammar and logic structures in English, with a clear benefit for the study of this language."
What struck you most about the Italian-Canadian community in the first four months you spent in Toronto?
"It's much better than I expected. It has an awareness of its Italian character that I never encountered anywhere else, not even in Europe."
This country played an important role in the success of our community. Canada opened its arms to Italians right from the start. They did not find systematic hostility like in Switzerland, or in Australia. Our fellow nationals were able to give their best here, and did so...
"I concur with this analysis, and so does our Embassy and our Government. That's why we spare no effort to bring here anything Italian, beginning with the language. Personally, I waste no opportunity in promoting our community in Italy: recently two Italian journalists came to Toronto in the framework of the preparation for the Team Canada mission to Italy. I assisted them in meeting with the largest possible quantity of Italian-Canadian managers and structures. I accompanied them to the meetings. It wasn't just out of courtesy, but also of the need to let Italy know the quality and quantity of this big Italian enclave in Canada, and especially in Ontario."
In the last two years this enclave has been living in limbo: its reference oscillates between Italy and Europe, and this leads to a strange split personality. Many Italians, those who have been living here for the longest period, took no part in the political and economic process that led to the formation of the European Union, and then one day saw the blue flag of Europe unfurled alongside the three-coloured one in front of the Consulate General in Toronto. They are wondering whether this European Union has a future.
"It does have a future, but today's Europe is an economic giant and a political dwarf. The problem is not in assembling countries with common roots, but their differences, their identities, which grew with the passing of the centuries. Claiming that Italians, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Hungarians, Polish, Portuguese, Greeks and so on have the same cultural imprint is easy, but the fact is that all these peoples have different histories, often conflicting, even more often hostile to one another. Nowadays the problem is how to overcome the nationalism that inevitably survives in every country. This is a long and arduous task, but it will lead to a true union. Let's not forget that the European Common Market had a 40-year preparation before becoming a world reality and producing richness."
In an essay, published during the Cold War, Barbara Spinelli wrote that "Europe will save itself on the condition of remaining a Contest, a Controversy between stupidity and tragic wisdom". Those were the years of the confrontation between USA and USSR, and Spinelli was sketching a role for Europe as an alternative to both blocks. Today one of the blocks does not exist any more, but I would like to ask you whether Europe will be able to discuss with the surviving power, the United States, as an equal?
"Sooner or later it will. Realistically, though, I must add that this will most likely happen later. For Europe to become an equal of the United States, it will have to match their economic, political and military conditions. Economy should be no trouble - the solidity of the euro proves it already - but this is not the case for the political side and for the military side. The USA is a solid block from the social - and therefore political - standpoint, as they share 200 years of history as a nation; and they wield matchless military power. These things count in international discussions."
In your opinion, what could be Italy's role in the process of political growth of Europe?
"A very important one, because in comparison with the major countries of the Old World our policy is much more balanced. The Germans oscillate between opposite extremes; on Iraq, for instance, they totally refused to back the war. France is looking for a primary role, and has been doing so taking advantage of this big international crisis, but they have lost a part of their old influence. The United Kingdom keeps one foot in Europe and the other out of it, and this has consequences on the political and economic sides. I made just three examples, but I could do the same for each of the 25 states composing the European Union as of next May. The fact is that the Union is still on paper, while nationalism and self-promotion weaken it. Could you imagine Ohio, or Oklahoma, trying to dictate Washington's policy, or worse, drawing their own policy?" And that's what France,
Germany and the United Kingdom are doing in Europe?
"Exactly. Therefore Italy, which does not claim leading roles or special rights but is nonetheless a major country, can act as a mediator among the various nationalistic temptations. Italy may have grown in haphazard fashion, but today it is an indisputable world player. Moreover, we are equipped with the greatest political realism, the greatest sense of history. We are moderates. In short, we do not pretend to teach anything, because we made so many mistakes in our history that we allow others to make their own. All these factors give Italy the possibility to play a vital role in Europe's process of political growth."
Will Europe succeed in preventing the clash of civilizations looming over the world, or anyway to contain the damages of a war that was obstinately pursued in spite of logic and humanity?
"I think that every war is a clash of civilizations. Wasn't the war in the former Yugoslavia a conflict between the Western and Balkan civilizations? The fact that Milosevic was a negation of civilization per se was a different matter. The armed intervention was necessary in order to stop the massacre. As it was inevitable in order to stop the world danger of Saddam."
I cannot accept the concept of an "inevitable war". The very idea of war, i.e. annihilation of our neighbour to prevail by force, is repellent. Nothing in war appeals to the force of reason...
"And this is a respectable position. I abhor having to recur to war, too, but in my line of work I cannot rule it out, as war is a condition of mankind, unpleasant as it may be."
Franco Cardini called it 'the ancient cruel game"...
"Precisely: a game as old as the world. But we'd better not follow this path, which would lead us astray. However, I feel I must sternly condemn the mounting anti-Americanism. It serves no useful purpose, even if certain positions in Washington may appear incomprehensible to most of us. We watched the rallies against 'Bush's War'. The least I can say is that they are one-sided: was there even one rally against Saddam's dictatorship? Were it not for the United States - the modern replica of the Roman Empire - Kuwait today would not exist as a sovereign state, women in Afghanistan would still be banished to illiteracy and on the other shore of the Adriatic, Milosevic would reign over a Muslim cemetery."

Publication Date: 2003-04-13
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2591