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Posted on 07/15/2003 12:37:56 PM PDT by knighthawk
THE old woman at the door of the Tuscan church tower looked us up and down and decided immediately that she did not want to let us in. "Chiuso," she hissed. Closed.
"But we've come all the way from England," said one of our party brightly. Suddenly the old woman's expression changed. "Inglesi?" she said, with a welcoming smile. "So sorry, I thought you were Germans."
The European Union, of which Germany and Italy are founding members, is a broad church designed for one big happy family. Its doors are not meant for slamming. But it seems that old prejudices are alive and thriving – even among the leaders who preach the EU dream.
First there was colourful Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, who recently told a German MEP that he would be ideal for a film role as a commandant in a Nazi concentration camp. That was almost diplomatic compared with the outburst that followed from one of his junior ministers.
Stefano Stefani last week accused German tourists of drinking too much, eating too many potatoes and taking part in burping contests. The Germans, he complained in a letter to a newspaper, "are beer-bellied supernationalistic blonds" who "loudly invade" Italian beaches.
Stefani's job? Minister for Tourism.
When outraged Germans and fearful Italian hoteliers complained about his insult, Stefani first made amends by inviting Gerhard Schroder, the German Chancellor, to visit him on holiday. He even conceded that Schroder was "not as bad as most Germans". Before Schroder even had a chance to pack his overnight bag, Stefani was out of a job. He resigned as a minister on Saturday, claiming in public: "I love Germany."
To neutral observers this has been the finest piece of international name-calling since 1993, when a Norwegian minister referred to John Selwyn Gummer, then a British government minister, as a "drittsekk". The word is difficult to translate politely but if you hold on to the image of a leaky bag of manure you will get the idea. The British public failed to rise up in Gummer's defence, but the Germans are furious with the Italians and, being German, are directing their fury efficiently.
They are boycotting pasta and, led by Schroder, they are cancelling their holidays to Italy. They have bombarded the Italian embassy in Berlin with faxes of complaint and, in an effort to prove they are not all brawny shotputters, German women have sunbathed topless on the Italian embassy lawn. Bild Zeitung – Germany's biggest tabloid newspaper – has also been publishing a daily list of handy Italian phrases, such as: "Take your oily eyes off my wife."
In response, ordinary Italians have launched a charm offensive (the Italians, of course, are famous for their charm). The owner of an Italian restaurant in Berlin has put up a notice declaring that his establishment is a "Berlusconi-free zone".
For other EU members, especially the British, the squabble presents its own problems: we cannot wipe the smiles off our faces. As far as name-calling is concerned, the Germans have been characteristically restrained, but it cannot be long now before somebody remembers that the Italians are hot-headed and disorganised. Wait a moment, though, is it the Germans who are characteristically restrained? No, of course not. That is the British, stiff upper lip and all that. The Germans are characteristically humourless and efficient.
You can get an idea of the complexity of European relationships by examining the way nations tell jokes about each other. As far as anybody can tell, the map looks like this. The English tell jokes about Irish and Germans, Germans tell jokes about Poles. The Dutch tell jokes about Germans and Belgians. Poles tell jokes about Ukrainians. Ukrainians tell jokes about Russians. Who do the Irish tell jokes about? They're still working on it. Just kidding.
As more countries queue up to join the club, it can only get worse. Among the candidate countries are Turkey, Bulgaria and Cyprus. Greece, which is already a member, has a long feud with the Turks, but if there is one country that hates Turkey more than Greece it is Bulgaria, which has not forgotten Turkish atrocities in the Balkan wars. That was in the 1870s.
So it is important to put all this quarrelling behind us. Let's forgive and forget and let's certainly have no repetition of the story told by Rod Liddle, former editor of the Today program on BBC Radio 4. He recalled last week how an Italian friend was working as a lifeguard in Rimini when a German couple approached him to say that their five-year-old son was missing. The friend picked up his lifeguard's megaphone and made an announcement to the sunbathing crowds: "A German child is missing," he called out. "And for every one German child zat goes missing zere vill be 10 Italian children executed." If you hanker for European unity, please don't laugh at this joke. And whatever you do, don't mention the war.
If people want on or off this list, please let me know.
This is one of the reasons why Diversity Is Our Buddy. Learning to curse in multiple languages is an indispensable part of a modern literary education.
"Drittsekk." It's in the dictionary, right between "Democrat" and "DU."
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