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| Italy elections: 'All parties have failed to build a community safety net' | Italy elections: 'All parties have failed to build a community safety net' |
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| Under a bridge in the multicultural San Salvario district of Turin, people mill around a double bed, sofa and chairs. It looks just like a domestic living room, in the most urban of settings. Today, the event is promoting a new association that provides home services – be they plumbing, carpentry or hardware – at a reduced cost to cash-strapped locals who cannot otherwise afford them. On another occasion it might be a workshop showing people how to reuse everyday objects , or a free legal services session for immigrants. It's all in a day's work for Manamanà, an independent cultural association that has helped bring a new spirit of civic culture to Turin, in what it says is the absence of an engaged political leadership. | Under a bridge in the multicultural San Salvario district of Turin, people mill around a double bed, sofa and chairs. It looks just like a domestic living room, in the most urban of settings. Today, the event is promoting a new association that provides home services – be they plumbing, carpentry or hardware – at a reduced cost to cash-strapped locals who cannot otherwise afford them. On another occasion it might be a workshop showing people how to reuse everyday objects , or a free legal services session for immigrants. It's all in a day's work for Manamanà, an independent cultural association that has helped bring a new spirit of civic culture to Turin, in what it says is the absence of an engaged political leadership. |
| Sitting under the bridge with a bowl of cauliflower soup distributed by the group for free, Mattia Garofalo, one of the many professionals who volunteers for the group in his spare time, explains that the function of Manamanà is to introduce "a different idea of community" and to demonstrate "the capacity of a society to network, to build relationships, to have a safety net". "And that," he adds, "is what we really feel that all political parties – not just left wing or right wing or centre– have failed at." | |
| Since its birth in 2003, the association has gone from being primarily directed at Turin's large immigrant population to providing services for any and all who find themselves in need. Its most successful event, in 2011, was a barter market, where no money was allowed and thousands of people attended. Sometimes the events are funded by the local authorities; sometimes by private companies. | |
| Life has been tough in recent years. Austerity has hit hard. The new home services association, says Garofalo, was born out of a growing realisation by the local district authority that, just as there were many locals who could no longer afford domestic basics, the businesses that provided those very services were going bust because their clients were no longer spending. | Life has been tough in recent years. Austerity has hit hard. The new home services association, says Garofalo, was born out of a growing realisation by the local district authority that, just as there were many locals who could no longer afford domestic basics, the businesses that provided those very services were going bust because their clients were no longer spending. |
| But Garofalo, 31, who works in publishing and volunteers with Manamanà in his spare time, reckons life in Turin during the crisis might be better than in some other Italian cities because of the investment that was poured into the city before things got really bad. In 2006, Turin hosted the winter Olympics, helping to turn a city known almost exclusively as the home of Fiat into a vibrant cosmopolitan hub. Jobs were created. Tourists returned. And, as an indirect result of this investment, he believes, the culture of the city changed as well. "You kind of have a civic network which doesn't really exist in most other cities in Italy," he says. "For instance, in Rome, you don't have it all. You go to a lot of areas there … and you really feel there's nothing for the people there." | But Garofalo, 31, who works in publishing and volunteers with Manamanà in his spare time, reckons life in Turin during the crisis might be better than in some other Italian cities because of the investment that was poured into the city before things got really bad. In 2006, Turin hosted the winter Olympics, helping to turn a city known almost exclusively as the home of Fiat into a vibrant cosmopolitan hub. Jobs were created. Tourists returned. And, as an indirect result of this investment, he believes, the culture of the city changed as well. "You kind of have a civic network which doesn't really exist in most other cities in Italy," he says. "For instance, in Rome, you don't have it all. You go to a lot of areas there … and you really feel there's nothing for the people there." |
| Garofalo, who was born and raised in London to a Sardinian mother and Ethiopian father but has been living in the Piedmont capital for the past nine years, has a fairly balanced view of Italy. It frustrates him to hear Italians self-flagellate about anything and everything because, having lived in Britain, he knows how features of the country's culture – its food, its lifestyle – are appreciated and envied the world over. | Garofalo, who was born and raised in London to a Sardinian mother and Ethiopian father but has been living in the Piedmont capital for the past nine years, has a fairly balanced view of Italy. It frustrates him to hear Italians self-flagellate about anything and everything because, having lived in Britain, he knows how features of the country's culture – its food, its lifestyle – are appreciated and envied the world over. |
| But in other ways he is frank. He rails against the "basic incompetence" of much political administration; the fraught relationship between the state and individual (his mother, he says, still misses the Citizens Advice Bureau she visited in London); above all, the failure of Italy's universities and labour market to make the most of its talented youth. When asked who he will vote for in the upcoming election, he sighs, and then laughs. | But in other ways he is frank. He rails against the "basic incompetence" of much political administration; the fraught relationship between the state and individual (his mother, he says, still misses the Citizens Advice Bureau she visited in London); above all, the failure of Italy's universities and labour market to make the most of its talented youth. When asked who he will vote for in the upcoming election, he sighs, and then laughs. |
| "I think you'll probably get the same answer from everyone and it starts with a sigh. I'm unsure. I'm unsure, I'm unsure, I'm unsure. We're talking about it every day. I and most people are probably going to vote centre-left, but feeling nauseous about doing so." Why nauseous? Isn't Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the Partito Democratico (PD), seen as a safe pair of hands – lacking in charisma, perhaps, but experienced and competent? | "I think you'll probably get the same answer from everyone and it starts with a sigh. I'm unsure. I'm unsure, I'm unsure, I'm unsure. We're talking about it every day. I and most people are probably going to vote centre-left, but feeling nauseous about doing so." Why nauseous? Isn't Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the Partito Democratico (PD), seen as a safe pair of hands – lacking in charisma, perhaps, but experienced and competent? |
| "He's already been in government and he's not really done that much in government," says Garofalo. (Bersani supporters, of course, would dispute this – pointing out his reforms pushed through in Romano Prodi's second government.) | |
| Garofalo's biggest gripe, perhaps, is the never-changing face of Italian politics. He voted for young hopeful Matteo Renzi in the PD's primaries last year, but now that he has gone, he says "there is nobody at all who is new in any way, shape or form." Of Renzi, he says: "Do I completely agree all his ideas? Maybe not, but there is this widespread need for change because everyone feels that for literally the last 20 or 30 years nothing has worked; the economic situation in Italy has gone downhill. Even the good things haven't been made better. So it's just a question of: you've already got a track record of not managing, doing stupid things, being incompetent, why are you still there?" | |
| Garofalo's exasperation is so great, he says, that he is almost tempted to vote for the technocrat prime minister, Mario Monti because, even though he disagrees with him profoundly, he trusts him to at least do what he says he will – which, after two decades of Berlusconi and limp centre-left government, is by no means something Italian voters take for granted. This, he realises, is a sad indictment of Italy's politics. | |
| Despite all this, Garofalo says he remains optimistic about the future of Italy. How can that be, I ask, when he cannot bring himself to believe in the project of any of the vast array of politicians campaigning to lead the country? He laughs. This is one of the "great differences" between Britain and Italy, he says: while he cannot trust Italian politicians, he has huge faith, he says, in the people, and their capacity for change. | Despite all this, Garofalo says he remains optimistic about the future of Italy. How can that be, I ask, when he cannot bring himself to believe in the project of any of the vast array of politicians campaigning to lead the country? He laughs. This is one of the "great differences" between Britain and Italy, he says: while he cannot trust Italian politicians, he has huge faith, he says, in the people, and their capacity for change. |
| • Thank you to everyone who got in touch, and do keep your suggestions coming. Along the way I'll be tweeting interviews and other posts using the hashtag #StoriedItalia2013. | • Thank you to everyone who got in touch, and do keep your suggestions coming. Along the way I'll be tweeting interviews and other posts using the hashtag #StoriedItalia2013. |
| You can contact me on Twitter at @lizzy_davies or by email at lizzy.davies@guardian.co.uk. | You can contact me on Twitter at @lizzy_davies or by email at lizzy.davies@guardian.co.uk. |