Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto
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Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto versione italiana Every bar in Pigneto, the neighborhood in Rome where I live, has the same picture on the wall: a German tank patrols its streets. Directly beside this, as though to counteract the tank’s presence, photos showing Pigneto’s liberation from fascism are framed as well. In a neighborhood originally built for rail workers, that fearsome wartime image still stirs the conscience of a part of Rome stuck in a time of rebellion and resistance. Here, after all, is where Anna Magnani filmed the most famous scene in Italian cinema, from Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City, when she runs after her husband as the Nazis take him away to be imprisoned and tortured. That street, today sadly occupied by a bingo hall, seems still to resound with Magnani’s screams and the report of German machine gun fire. A war rages on. Stolpersteine on every street corner remind us of the partisans and Jews sent to die in the Ardeatine Caves or the extermination camps. Pigneto’s ongoing gentrification, characterized by speculation and shady business deals, makes it impossible to fully grasp the social significance of our predecessors’ pain. Everything has been sold off, from the broader history down to our everyday rituals. It’s easier to find any kind of cocktail you can imagine than seeing a store where you can buy a pot or twine. In the mornings, those who live here will tell you the neighborhood still feels normal, but absolutely nothing we see is deserving of the name. Fortunately, Pigneto is still largely multiethnic. How long will that last? The people, not only migrants but anyone trying to make ends meet (no one is swimming in gold) live in constant fear of expulsion. It’s no accident that home prices have shot up lately and those who could once afford an apartment – from Bangladeshis to Moroccans (and, more generally, various segments of the working-class) – now find themselves pushed further east, to the outskirts. This is how the neighborhood has gradually moved over the last few years toward a stunning, near-total bourgeoisification. It should be noted, though, that despite all that, pockets of social and tenant pushback persist. A multiracial resistance, visible in the faces of Pigneto’s residents, is doing something to this neighborhood that gentrification hasn’t entirely snuffed out. Lockdown was suddenly enacted against this backdrop as the coronavirus wreaked global havoc and blew through our lives. Initially, the people of Pigneto felt like they were suffocating. No one was used to the silence. Everyone missed the joys of the racket young people in love made when they first quarreled and late-night conversations about the last film someone saw at the Cinema l’Aquila, a movie theater built with money seized from the mafia. We all missed the noise, even me, who never liked it before. The arguments between drug dealers and buyers that sometimes | 1 Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto ruined our nights were also gone. We were nearly destroyed by the realization that the lives we’d had until February 2020 were slowly but inexorably slipping through our fingers. It was an awful feeling. Early on, friends evoked the specter of the German tank that had watched us menacingly before the lockdown from colorful bar windows. If only the enemy was clear-cut, a Nazi like the one driving the tank we see in the bars. We’d at least know what to do if it were a Nazi instead of a virus. How do you fight an unknown disease? After these kinds of reflections, people began using the telling phrase: We’re at war. I am a Somali and Italian woman who knew all too well what a war was. I knew the one that had engulfed Somalia since the 1990s, a fratricidal war spoken in the singular language of AK-47s. Don’t call this a war, I wanted to shout at my neighbors. This isn’t war. It’s hard, but it’s not war. War is a word that thickens more than it clears the mist of worry that besets us. We’re worried for our health, our finances, our parents, our children who were abruptly made to cut their social ties and rely on distance learning. It only took a few days before the neighborhood understood that calling a public health emergency a war was idiotic. One song that spoke of war (and invaders), “Bella Ciao,” which we sang at the top of our lungs from balconies, made it clear that we didn’t have to become the heroes of a story, simply its spine. The fight would be won with the love we had for others and the creativity that we were using more than ever to stave off an economic tidal wave. It was at that moment, when our minds were coming back to life, that the neighborhood examined itself and for the first time in many years did not like what it saw. In silence broken by finches and chirping sparrows, we were coming to accept that this neighborhood of Pasolinian and neorealist memories had been sold to the highest bidder for some aperitivos and kiss-and-fly tourists. This wasn’t supposed to be, couldn’t be how things were done, socially or economically. We asked ourselves whether the coronavirus had given us a chance to change for the better. It probably wouldn’t alter everything, like we were hearing from other parts of the globe. One thing is certain: everywhere, other neighborhoods like ours are wondering if the world still thinks, after so much death and anguish, it can go back to being a free-for-all like it was before. | 2 Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto Pigneto during the lockdown (da twitter @TimisoaraPinto) | 3 Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto Personally, whenever I strolled through Pigneto with my groceries before the lockdown, I was alarmed by the rows of identical businesses, especially the bars, which had the same menus, the same people, a single color, a single thought. How long could a migrant live in a gentrified | 4 Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto neighborhood that was becoming a playground for the rich? How much longer could anyone from the working-class stand their ground? How many would have to be thrown out? These questions had been bothering me for a while. They floated through the air even when people pretended not to see them. In a time suspended by Covid-19, after telling itself so many lies, Pigneto finally considered whether another kind of life was possible. A quieter life, more humane, defined by relationships, colors, close-knit businesses and a shared culture. A smaller life, perhaps one more true. No one, in fact, had answers for the neighborhood’s problems, but the question was moot, full of possibilities, and the days passed in disquiet. Then May 4th came. I’d been nervously looking forward to this day. I had faithfully adhered to the government’s directives, leaving the house only to get groceries or stop by the pharmacy. During this period, confined within my four walls, I tried staying loose by being active around the house. A stationary bike, posture exercises, abs workouts. It got to the point where, seemingly contrary to the rest of the world, I was actually losing weight. This did not alleviate my anxiety. I longed for my friends, my family, my lovely walks. Those who write for work need to walk. Without an outlet, the energy that builds up in your chest, the jitters, the contradictions that are the daily bread of the writer’s life have no way of getting out. You can’t make yourself into written word. Walking serves mainly to unwind that mechanism which fills our hearts with trepidation and despair. It gets the blood flowing again and awakens dormant ideas, letting them come to fruition. I thought of many of my novels and articles while clocking miles throughout the city. I’ve always walked a lot. Putting one foot in front of the other has calmed me and, over time, brought internal balance. It shouldn’t trouble us to admit that those who write for a living are, deep down, always a bit crazy. Often refined, certainly, respectable and educated, but as off the rocker as Don Quixote. | 5 Lockdown in the Free Republic of Pigneto Nuovo cinema Aquila I’ve never denied my madness, my conversations with ghosts (writing is nothing if not phantom speak), and with time I’ve learned to live harmoniously with a skill that is, on occasion, a curse. Walks have always been the perfect remedy. I’m very good at them. The lockdown, though with exceedingly good cause, has nonetheless taken away this necessary pleasure. For two months, the loss of my walks made my writing something of an orphan. I saw how the quality of what I produced wasn’t my best. I was constantly dissatisfied. Getting to May 4th was really a question of survival for me. I had big plans for future walks. I’d go to the Colosseum, then make my way over to St. Peter’s Basilica. Places that weren’t exactly near me, but which I dreamed of visiting with the resolve of the teenager I hadn’t been in decades. But when May 4th came at last, I stayed in Pigneto, within its familiar borders. I started walking everywhere around the neighborhood like a pioneer. Lanes and alleyways I’d never gone down before.