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My
town is called Messina
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Half-finished
houses, dormant trams and disappearing landscapes.
A voice in anger against the everyday abandon and
dereliction that is Messina.
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 My
town is full of rivers which dry up for most of
the year. Roads climb up from the rivers' edges.
One year they're dirt tracks, the next they've been
surfaced. As each year passes houses are built on
the rivers' banks, then blocks of flats, then housing
estates. At this stage the river is covered over
and a road is built where the water once flowed.
And you ask yourself: "but where did all the rainwater
go? where does it flow now?" And again: "is there
a leak underneath the surface?" And: "it's hardly
flowing up here, along the road?"
Beyond the banks, where once there were mountains
and hills and a patchwork of vegetable gardens,
now there are buildings. Through the years the mountainside
has disappeared. The vegetable gardens, which about
these parts are beautiful, fragrant, evergreen plots,
have disappeared leaving space for shopping centres
and houses. Sometimes an estate is built halfway
up the mountain, then some years later another is
built at the bottom. Then they have to build more
roads to improve communications and another beautiful
piece of the mountain disappears for ever. Then
another month or year or two pass and the top estate,
the one halfway up the mountain, starts to crumble.
Cracks appear in the houses and the whole area is
evacuated. Whole families are left homeless. It
goes to court and the families accuse the bottom
estate of unsafe building practices and say they
literally took the ground from under them, houses
and all. But the court says that the construction
firm used shoddy materials and rules that it should
pay all damages. However the construction firm that
has to pay the damages went bankrupt a few years
ago and there's no one to pay up. The people who
lived on the estate have to move to rented accommodation
and get no compensation.
This really happened, you can check if you wish.
My town is called Messina, this happened recently
and one of my friends lived on that estate.
Then, along the banks of another river, the remains
of an ancient Roman town are found when digging
the foundations for some important public building.
All this is normal enough, all Italian cities are
built on some ancient town, which in its turn was
built on another older site, each one piled on top
of the other. That's just the way Italian cities
are, one piled on top of the other. The remains
are then carefully dug out and brought to the local
museum where they are put into storage, piled on
top of older remains. "Fine" you think and wait
for the builders to start work again anxious to
see that magnificent public building, so essential
- as the letter had said - for the town's development,
appear next to your house. Months go by and nothing
happens. The months turn into years. You were ten
when the building started. Now, at thirty, you walk
past the corrugated iron hoarding, where that key
cultural centre - meant for conferences or whatever
- was to be built, and all you see is a huge hole
dug out in the middle of your town.
Then one day you come back from abroad, where you've
been living for a while, and in the middle of one
of the town's busiest streets, this time it's not
a river, you find a building site and ask your father
"what's that? What are they doing in the middle
of Viale San Martino?" (That's the name of the busy
street). And you find out that they're building
an ultra-modern tram system, which there's probably
no real use for. Your holiday's over and you go
back abroad. In six month's time you come home again
and expect to see a brand new tram cutting through
the centre of town, running for kilometres with
views of the sea, and all things imaginable. At
long last you'll be able to get around quickly.
And, in this optimistic mood you're looking forward
to your homecoming. You ask your father, who collects
you from the station: "is the tram finished?". No,
he replies, they ran out of money and abandoned
it halfway through. So you go for a walk to the
busy street to see what effect a half-finished tram,
abandoned for months- nearly a year at this stage
- by a bunch of idiots in the council, would have
on the centre of town. Thinking to yourself: "idiots!
How can people be such idiots!" And you think it
would be of little use, probably none, but at the
same time you'd like to be able to tell everyone
about those people, who for years and years, more
or less since you were born, have run this town,
and who are nothing but incompetent idiots and money-grabbing
thieves. Just say, because even saying it would
make you feel better, that this town is being run
by idiots and has been since you were born. Even
if you know that they couldn't care less if you
called them idiots. It would run off them, like
water off a duck's back, because they're not really
idiots but money-grabbing thieves. But while you're
on the subject, and can say what you like you say
"idiots" and repeat it a few times because it makes
you feel better "Idiots! Idiots! Idiots! Idiots!"
That's enough. You calm down, that will do.
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| by
MARIO
VALENTINI |
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September
2001
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THE SURVIVOR'S 
