• Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    the south was more or less spared the worst of the years of lead

    Kinda. You had mafia violence, such as the high profile murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino (judges with an anti-organized crime agenda and funnily enough, personal friends, despite one being a communist and the other a fascist), which for example involved blowing up a stretch of highway with explosives. Or the riots in Reggio Calabria in 1971 where Anarchists and Fascists fought against the conservative local government (which received support from the communist party). Sardinia had literal banditry as late as the late 60s.

    Italy was kind of a clusterfuck during the Cold War.

    Your point about development also tracks with some of the things I’ve heard from talking to people there / people who left there in search of other opportunities.

    I grew up in Italy, but admittedly in the North (Emilia-Romagna).

    • CTHlurker [he/him]
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      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Wait you're italian? I almost always saw you post about Poland, so I figured you originated there. My wife has some family that has spent the last 30 years in Piedmonte, and I kinda go by some of their statements, even if they aren't very politically involved people. So my source is also a northener, who explained some of things that he passively absorbed through either media or just local street knowledge.

      • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
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        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I'm Polish... I grew up as an immigrant in Italy... then we moved to Germany.

        I know many languages because of it, but the experience of economic migration lowkey sucks.

        • CTHlurker [he/him]
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          1 year ago

          oh okay. Didn't mean to pry into your private affairs. I'm sure that the experience of being an economic migrant is downright terrible, and being Polish in Northern europe or Germany also sounds difficult if the Germans I know are any indication.

          • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
            ·
            1 year ago

            It's not that bad. Sure, there's some bullshit, but Eastern Europeans have been replaced by Arabs as immigrant bogeymen.

            Getting used to a new bureaucracy, mentality, language, even finding somewhere to live is a struggle and it's a pretty steep "learning curve" unfortunately. If you're not from the EU then they just might kick you out, not renew your papers etc., but that's hardly unique to Germany.

            • CTHlurker [he/him]
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              1 year ago

              Thats funny, the place where I grew up in Southern Denmark doesn't have a lot of immigrants, but since it's close to the border with Germany, it does get a lot of polish people looking for whatever work they can find, and typically also living 10 people in two bedroom appartments. The fun part is the locals will absolutely shit themselves every time they see a truck with a polish licenseplate (or romanian, but there aren't as many people from there in Denmark compared to Poland). This was made way funnier from 2016-2017 and onwards, when Poland suddenly became the right wings "based defender of Europe from the Syrian refugees who were coming to lower your house price and make your grandkids stop talking to you".

              • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]
                ·
                1 year ago

                Yeah, true. There are many people who don't live here but commute from across the border. Those firms are usually very exploitative.