Italian Perspectives                                     
by Sandra Giovanna Giacomazzi 

I have a dream…    (April 2003)

I have a dream… No, I’m not quoting Martin Luther King’s famous speech.  I’m talking about a recurring dream of mine, actually two dreams.  Ever since the beginning of the second Intifada, I’ve had a dream for Israel.  In my dream Israel rises from the earth and is transported to the middle of the desert in California, a gift from the United States, either in order to become the 51st state or to reconstruct their own country, as they please.  Then my dream moves fast forward to the future ten or so years from now.  The California dessert has become a garden and modern cities have been built, together with all of their wealth and services.  After that there’s a dissolve to the Middle East to the land where Israel once stood and where Palestine now stands.  The buildings of the city are in a state of decay, the institutions are no longer, the hospitals and schools have become animal stalls or communal habitats, the desert has re-conquered its terrain, and the greenery and the perfume and color of the flowers have disappeared.

My other dream has only emerged in the last few months, with the installation of mass hysteria and the spread of such rampant anti-American sentiment.  In this second dream it’s the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, in short, the Anglo-Saxon world that rises from the earth and establishes itself in the parallel world on the other side of the universe.  Another fast forward moves to the future where our institutions have improved their efficiency, where environmental problems have been solved, where everything that was improvable in our civilization has been improved.  However, there’s also a spiritual vacuum of sorts, nostalgia for our cultural roots so far away, no longer reachable with the simple crossing of an ocean.  Besides the longing, there’s a profound sadness, because from the other side of the universe we are able to see our old world.  Europe has become Islamicized, occupied without any war whatsoever, just a peaceful colonization, a simple demographic take over that becomes a democratic turnover.  There, too, the historical palaces are crumbling, the institutions have vanished, and our European brothers are bent under the weight of the law of the Sharia.

Sandra Giovanna Giacomazzi writes for the Roman daily, L'Opinione della Libertà.  She is also the first prize recipient of the Mario Soldati Prize for Journalism and Criticism for 2002.



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