Being an Italian abroad at the time of Coronavirus
I am Italian. This is what is written in my passport. I am also an adopted Milanese — I was not born there — as I left most of the 21st…
Beware of what you fear, as you may become your fear yourself.
I am Italian. This is what is written in my passport. I am also an adopted Milanese — I was not born there — as I left most of the 21st century in that city, a vibrant city, economically speaking, especially for its fashion industry.
But, nowadays, Milan is associated mainly with Coronavirus. Currently, I am in Wroclaw, Poland, for a conference about reasoning on public policy, and there was a specific talk about this infodemic (information + epidemic, very useful neologism). However, since February I am based in Amsterdam, the place where I find myself at home at most.
Here, among a public of academics, highly educated people committed to science and rational reasoning, I fronted an experience I would never expect.
Feeling wrong in your bones. Dirty. I present myself in coffee breaks, people tell stupid jokes about my ‘Italianhood’ and take a step backwards. “May I sit next to you? I ask because of the Coronavirus.” She was serious. No polite answer was possible, so I remained silent.
I talked to a very dear friend of mine about this sensation, who lives in Milan — feeling the infodemic at the forefront, so to say — argues that I should laugh, as now it’s the turn of Italians (and Chinese, by the way), tomorrow will be their turn. Coronavirus is democratic, it does not look to passports.
Okay, thank you, my friend, but this is not enough for me. Hobbes was true: the bottom line of humanity is homo homini lupus, man is wolf to man. I think that, in very light form, I felt the sensation of being discriminated by society as a whole, like being a Jewish in Germany in the dark years. And it is horrible, believe me.
My reaction is not to hide, not to show off, to act normally, that is avoiding people whose attitude towards me is unacceptable for my standards, looking for the others, who are a tiny minority.
Yes, only a minority of humanity could elevate beyond the Hobbesian motto, following Terence’s motto which is the foundation of humanism: homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, I am a man: and I deem nothing pertaining to man is foreign to me. The original motto is in Greek, of course. Greece is the lullaby of what we consider the source of civilization: democracy, philosophy, politics, mathematics, logic.
Let’s start from the foundations. Again.