FILIPPO RACITI
(ANSA) - Catania, February 5 - Italians stopped for a minute's silence Monday as the funeral of a policeman killed by fans was broadcast live across the country.The flag-draped coffin of Filippo Raciti, 38, passed thousands of mourners lining the streets of Catania, the Sicilian city where he died during riots at a derby with Palermo Friday.It was greeted in a packed city cathedral by a long burst of applause and a salute from Raciti's eight-year-old son, who was wearing a policeman's uniform."May this death bring change," said his wife, Marisa Grasso.Raciti's wife and daughter stood close to Interior Minister Antonio Amato, Sports Minister Giovanna Melandri and National Police Chief Gianni De Gennaro, who wept openly. Members of the centre-right opposition also attended including former foreign minister Gianfranco Fini.In a message to De Gennaro, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano called for "severe" measures to "restore normality" to stadiums. Raciti - the first policeman to die in decades of stadium violence - died from internal injuries as fans fought police with metal bars and powerful firecrackers.Soon after the news of his death, authorities suspended soccer in Italy indefinitely.
The stark reality of Sicilian life is brought home in events like the tragic death of Filippi Raciti.
Andrea Camilleri writes not only to amuse and charm, but he also wants to educate us about Italian society. I am probably guilty of enjoying his books so much that I miss their educational message.
Football is a religion in Italy, when we were staying in Spoleto, football supporters of one team [I can't recall which but InterMilan I think] drove round and round the town with flags and their car horns blaring hour after hour.
posted by Uriah Robinson at 8:33 AM
5 Comments:
I remember the riot police nonchalantly keeping time with their riot batons as the Fiorentina fans chanted anti-Juventus slogans.
There was a whiff of violence in the air. Well, maybe more then a whiff in the rocks with which Fiorentina fans pelted the Juventus team bus, injuring a player, and in the anti-Semitic signs waved by the Juventus fans.
Peter
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I think Don Blogger Malfunziona has struck again.
Did not Il Duce while standing over a 2000 year old Jewish catacomb in Rome rant on about removing these strangers from our midst?
I have also seen on the TV the Confederate battle flag waved by "Southern" Italian fans presumably as a sign of their hostility towards the "Northern" Italian clubs.
Interesting that the "southern" Italian fans would display that hostility toward the North. I'd always thought it was the North that looked down on its Southern neighbors -- the Northern League, and all that.
I also had not heard of Il Duce's rant, but I did once read of a good rejoinder. A commentator, noting the odious nonsense about "pure" ethnic stock and about how Jews were supposedly polluters, strangers and the like, wrote that the oldest and "purest" Romans were the Jews of Trastevere, who had been there 2,000 years. In the rest of Italy, the commentator noted, the Roman stock had been thoroughly intermingled with that of Lombards, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and other waves of invaders.
Peter
===================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
It is really sheer ignorance.
We have just an example of such ignorance on our TV news, as two American billionaires have purchased Liverpool Football club.
Much of our media never misses an opportunity to take an anti-US position.
The TV made a great deal of the fact that the new owners would not be able to get the fans to abandon the "club song" for the Star spangled Banner.
That "club song" is "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel 1945 ! It is almost as American as apple pie.
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