Today, I’d like to submit to your attention an elective question of choice. This may as well be my much-awaited editorial. As we mentioned above, Ciancia has been remiss in making the announcement regarding the new consular post in Atlanta. Please accept our apologies. Unfortunately we did not receive any communication regarding the appointment. As some of you may know, Angela della Costanza-Turner has been confirmed Honorary Consul for Atlanta. We are delighted to congratulate her. We wish her the best of luck in this post and hope to have the best of communications with her office and work together closely to provide better service and a friendly approach to the brilliant Italian community of this area. As I was jotting down my wishes, last week came from the left field a pleasant surprise. With a refreshing down-to-earth approach, our honorary consul proposed to celebrate Italy’s 63rd Birthday with an open, simple format. I immediately obliged – as this approach marks a change of direction from the pump & circumstance format of the previous “official” celebrations. Collaboration pays off. In fact, the evening was a great success with nearly one hundred participants packing an entire restaurant floor, opera singing, and excellent food, all sweetened by the fact that it took the consul and I a scant one hour to put it all together.
For those of you who may wonder what I am fiddling about, for almost two decades the management of the consular post in Atlanta has been marked by a clear vertical format, whereas our organization advocated that the educated quality of our community calls for an open, horizontal approach. The isolation of the honorary post in Atlanta from its community has been historical, with its self-fulfilling and self-referential celebrations rubbing counter wise a land of class transparency, visibility and initiative. As a result, most of our community looked the other way.
This management style, which percolates from the territorial, feudal structure of the zone Italian consulates, is decadent and obsolete. Not that there is much we can do, but the success of the Festa della Rebubblica celebration shows that the consular post has a pull of gravity and that it has many interests and points of contact with Ciancia. I hate to say that our community is a bit lethargic, perhaps busy making ends meet, but it is hard to petition it for participation. In spite of serious efforts made from every source, including the honorary consul, to foster participation and create occasions to meet, if we compare our scant 5% involvement to the 50% rate of participation of the German and French communities to the initiatives of the Goethe Institute and the Alliance Françoise, we pale. Part of the “problem” is endemic (if I may squeeze a bit the adjective) stemming from the natural reticence of the Italian natives toward their government officials – do you hear me, fellow Italians? How is it possible that with a stable community of over 3,000 we have a scant 85 subscribers to the AIRE lists? The second “problem” is, to be quite frank, that Italian hate spending money to attend events. Unfortunately, events remain a costly business, so it becomes a catch 22. Sponsors are few and far between and what do we sell them? Libations? We need to understand this formula before we ask for more.
Back to the management conundrum, as a notorious counter-current person – some say, as a trouble-maker – I have flown the flag of transparency as the only viable paradigm of “us” abroad. And you, sensible readers, know that my definition of “us” is a rather comprehensive one, embracing fellow Americans and anyone who shows interest for our richly textured culture, or for that matter, for anyone different than themselves. For two decades Ciancia has stood alone, supporting the Italian and Italophile community with services, core information and a steady point of reference to their residence. Of course, there was the ICE as well as there were vital, independent driving forces within the Italian community, and I cannot fail mentioning Nicola Vidali and Tito Mazzetta, among those promoters who simply could not sit still and do nothing. In 1996, Tito produced a memorable Festa della Repubblica at the Carter Center, attended by a record-setting 500 people, while our Nicola delighted us with so many evenings of noble cinematography. Yet, at its core, the community was largely dormant.
Well, something is changing. This is why I saw the recent five hundred attendees, sitting at the Rialto Theatre as a cultural renaissance of sorts. Many of you may not remember the dark ages of this city, when the closest thing to an Italian icon was canned spaghetti and frozen pizza at Kroger. Forget Nutella, pasta Barilla or a San Pellegrino! One hundred celebrating the 63rd birthday of our nation is definitively a resurgence.
Back to the horizontal model, after almost three decades of residence abroad, I find that the primary reason of our foreign status is appreciation for a society that awards merit and content – not political affiliation, or worse, the mighty dollar, so weak and volatile, after all, these days. From it, I deduce that aligning ourselves with the open and transparent managing style that made this nation a leader in the world of research and technology is a duty. Still, at its core, it remains a matter of choice. And, as I envision a close collaboration between the existing Italian organizations as a turn-around milestone, I compliment our consul for the effort made. Atlanta has now four large entities, which are capable of working together in perfect harmony, the ICE, the Honorary Consulate, Georgia State University and Ciancia. We also have the Italian Society, the Accademia della Cucina, an inactive IABC, and our rising star, the Italian Film Festival. Together, they can be a powerful squad.
What happens if we don not cooperate? Well, the quintessential example of chaos and separation is right next door, offered by Miami’s Italian society, divided, Babylon-Tower-style, in a myriad of factions, like “le galline di Don Abbondio (Manzoni)” each bickering, gossiping, and poking one another, yet all bundled by the legs by a common destiny – the chef’s pot. He… he… I am sorry to say that Miami’s Italian society is a shameful parade of peacocks, each admiring its own feathers.
Are we are different? You bet we are! We are Atlantans, and we are excited about leading this City out of its gritty provincialism. This simple initiative by our new consul brings the hope that the success of a communal approach may bloom into a solid collaboration and bring more exciting programs. Con i miei migliori auspici. Yours truly AGP.