L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2017 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS FRANCESCA BEZZONE I was having dinner a couple of weeks ago, when my atten- tion was caught by the news blabbing on tv: The Sun, one of Britain best-selling tabloids, had compiled a list of the world's most dangerous cities and, lo and behold, Naples was one of them. Now, I've lived in Ireland (that paper is pretty popular there, too) for 15 years and I'm well aware the Sun is not neces- sarily the most authoritative of sources when it comes to foreign affairs, yet it has a huge reader- ship and its opinion is bound to create discussions. And it certain- ly did in Italy: the country, shocked, rose in disbelief. Naples, our beautiful, charming, magnificent Naples, up there with cities like Caracas, Raqqa and Mogadishu, where wars rage and human rights are blatantly trampled upon. Everyone who has a tie, offi- cial or sentimental, with the city of Parthenope immediately made his or her voice heard. Naples' mayor, Luigi de Magistris declared in an interview with ANSA that the Sun's was "a false, superficial judgement, from someone who evidently never spent a day of his life in Naples." Pietro Savastano, known for his role in popular tv series Gomorra, icily declared not to be "interest- ed in commenting on a tabloid. We know what kind of news they carry." The world of higher edu- cation and arts, in the figures of Naples Università Federico II's dean, Gaetano Manfredi, and Sylvain Bellenger, the French director of the Capodimonte Museum, stood up to defend the city's honor with words of love and respect. Even the Italian Embassy in London took the stage to declare with a tweet that "Naples (is) not included in any global index on 50 most dangerous cities. The Sun confuses fiction with reality listing it with Raqqa and Mogadishu." Holy words. The list, thatched to be based on relatively superficial research, took into account some realities of Naples which are certainly not easy to ignore: yes, there are organized crime killings and drugs are sold around the streets, but not more than in any other large urban conglomerate. I was in Naples only once in my life and I have a very vivid memory of it: chaotic, loud, in your face, exotic to the eye of a young Northern girl. Undeniably, uncompromisingly, without a doubt wonderful, filled with scents and sounds and peo- ple and children, with words that sounded like the sun, if only the sun had a voice. Naples, to my teenage eyes, was music and not only because, in typical mid 1990s style, I ended up buying a Nirvana boot- leg and set of postcards in the Galleria Principe di Napoli. The streets were simply replete with it: the melodious shouting of ped- dlers, the chit chats of people around me, the passing by of Neapolitans: yes, because the people of Naples – I have the luck to know some very well – make music when they walk. Naples was colors, Naples was the blue of the sea and the dark, austere shape of the Maschio Angioino silhouetting against it. Naples was also the bleak, impoverished districts I'd passed on the bus when getting into the city, those very same that made many of us, comfortable kids of the wealthy countryside of Piedmont, think "how could peo- ple live here." There was no ignorance, no haughtiness in those words: it was, quite simply, the first time we had seen true poverty. Naples was the Vesuvius looming at the horizon and that white smoke touching the sky and melting into the clouds. All that was Naples to me, then. And so much more the city has been and is still to Italy. The reason we Italians – all of us, Northeners, Southerners, islanders – lashed out in horror and indignation at the Sun's own opinion of Naples is, first of all, because what was written didn't correspond to reality. Surely, there are burglaries and mug- gings in Naples, but not more than you would expect in any large Italian or international city. Yes, camorra is a sad, dangerous reality in Campania, but orga- nized crime is unfortunately alive and kicking in many parts of the world. In other words, crime is a reality of Naples, but it doesn't represent it, just as it doesn't rep- resent New York, Los Angeles, London or Paris. The majority of people lucky enough to visit it never experience a problem beside the traffic, I suppose, and the fact the lovely Neapolitan accent may be harder to under- stand if you're not that good at Italian. And there's something more, you know: we got upset because Naples, when you think about it, is Italy in a nutshell. Naples, pat- rimony of UNESCO, with its treasures and palaces mirrors the blue tinted vault of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and the castles of the Savoias in Piedmont and Rialto bridge in Venice. Naples' own dream-like stage, the Teatro San Carlo is the home of Mimì, Tosca, Desdemona and Cho-Cho San, heroines of opera, voices of Italy. Naples is heaven-for-the- soul food, it's pastiera that taste like orange blossom and cream and hot pizza, the shape and scent of the country whole. Naples is San Gennaro and Presepi, the hearty, innocent, yet profound side of Italian spiritual- ity. This is why we found the Sun's view unjust, even before finding it wrong because based on biased, unconfirmed data. There are certainly some shadows in Naples, some deep ones, even. Yet, the lively, spark- ly beauty of its lights is well suf- ficient to brighten up everything. Just like Italy, Naples is not per- fect, but it's soulful and magnifi- cent and likes to become a home for all those who visit it. As a matter of fact, Naples has been removed from the Sun's list. Editors may have come to their senses in the end and that's good. Sometimes, when politely but sternly complaining, we Italians still manage to make a difference. Naples' mayor, Luigi de Magistris declared in an interview with ANSA that the Sun's was "a false, superficial judge- ment, from someone who evidently never spent a day of his life in Naples.". © Enzodebe | Dreamstime Naples, patrimony of UNESCO, with its treasures and palaces mirrors the blue tinted vault of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and the castles of the Savoias in Piedmont and Rialto bridge in Venice. © Benkrut | Dreamstime The many reasons why the British Sun got it all wrong about Naples

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