Sometime in the early 1990s, around the time of Silvio Berlusconi's first assumption of power, the British notion of Italy as a smiling land of huge families, passionate lovers and cooks was swept away. Underneath its beautiful skin, the Bel Paese was revealed as rotten, oozing corruption and fundamentally undemocratic. In April 2001, the Economist grandly declared Berlusconi unfit to lead his country, and this new, bleak view of Italy was taken up by commentators as explanation of the country's poor economic performance since the famous sorpasso of the 1980s, when Italian per capita income briefly overtook that of Britain. Two years later it was wrapped up in book form by Tobias Jones in his brilliant survey, The Dark Heart of Italy, and columnists have balefully been sounding the death knell of Italian democracy ever since.
But would Jones write the same book now? The Dark Heart of Italy was written after he had been living in the country for four years. It concentrated on what inevitably grips a new arrival from an older country: the weakness of the state and the gulf between left and right that has been played out with glittering, mesmeric bitterness since the second world war. The theatrical intensity of Italian politics is genuine enough, but after dipping in and out of Italian life for more than a decade now, I wonder if some people are so dazzled by it on first arrival that they miss an equally powerful, quieter, but steadying force—that of associative life. From the condominium meeting, that locus classicus of Italian comedy, to the church choir, life in Italy is replete with clubs, circles, associations and pressure groups. Small families and early retirement mean that people have time to get out and about. Our neighbours are hardly ever at home. One has her chess club, another his photography circle, others their environmental organisation. Friends are equally busy; one works with prisoners at the weekends, another raises money for a Palestinian orphanage, a third is a fanatical cyclist. In a recent national newspaper survey, a whopping 43 per cent of Italians over the age of 15 said they belonged to cultural, sporting or recreational associations; 25 per cent took part in some initiative to improve their neighbourhood or city; and another 25 per cent joined environmental groups and protests.
We, too, have got roped into collective leisure. Our son has joined ASD Olimpia Firenze, and this soccer school consumes all of us—not so much a school as a world. About 300 boys train there twice a week, starting at six or seven years old as piccoli amici and hatching out as chicks or pulcini after a couple of years. Many stay on all through their school years and beyond, graduating to becoming dilettanti, adult amateurs with their own teams. It costs about E250 a year, but for that you get a black and yellow kitbag with a pocket for dirty boots, a snazzy tracksuit, winter and summer strips and facilities that would make British equivalents weep. Dozens of people work for the club one way or another; there are ten coaches and two more for goalkeepers, two pitches with floodlights, changing rooms with hot showers, a meeting room, a bar, an office, a laundry and 13 local business sponsors.
Our son is quickly called the anglo-sassone, which, translated, means he is tall, strong, fast and clueless. He starts in the B team. Our first away match is at Dicomano, in the hills east of Florence. How will we find the stadium? "You'll follow me," says the coach when we meet in the bar by our training ground, "I'm in the silver Punto." We set off in convoy. Every other car is a silver Punto. A few miles out of town we lose track of which one we are following. My husband becomes convinced we are on the wrong road and turns off; the car behind turns with us and there we are, lost in the vineyards. Never trust those foreigners, I can see the woman behind me think as we set off again, and sure enough, although we eventually arrive at the stadium, she's nowhere in sight, and we can't start without her, as she's carrying our goalkeeper and full backs. She turns up half an hour later, shaking a mobile phone that won't work in the mountains. It's all our fault, so thank goodness it's muddy and ball skills are useless. The anglosassone scores several goals and he is promoted to the A team.
Everything about the A team is serious and competitive. Football takes over our lives. The more assiduous and involved you are in the club, the more likely your son is to be picked to play. Convocato is the Italian word for selected, and it all does turn into something like a religious mania, which is only ended when our boy gets pneumonia after hours training in the freezing rain. Turns out he's not just an Anglo-Saxon, but a bit of a weed as well. But it will soon start again, the competitive camaraderie between the parents, the dull hours on the touchline, the summer training camp, the mud-encrusted boots.
In Bowling Alone, the American sociologist Robert Putnam suggests that as civic participation increases, so does happiness, social cohesion and the very fabric of democratic society. For the Italians, as in soccer schools so in politics. Last year, 12 per cent of Italians over 15—perhaps 5m people—said they took part in a political demonstration. More than twice that number joined peace organisations or went on peace marches. The Italian state may be ailing, but Italian democracy? Doing very nicely, I think.
