We stood on the bridge for a few moments surrounded by end-of-the-day tourists taking photos of the cityscape. At that moment I noticed three vertical white fabric banners hanging from a row of upper floor windows a hundred metres or so along the canal. The hand-written messages on the banners scribbled in Italian in large, uneven black letters were clear in their message in any language: We want the Chinese out of Venice. We want Russians and the Mafia out of Venice. Venice is for Venetians. In a city that has through all the ages - and particularly during its heyday as a trading centre - welcomed all cultures, languages and religions from across the world, this rather crude expression of xenophobia came as a surprise. Not many passers-by were noticing it, but I'm quite sure they made an impact on those who did. Back home in South Africa racism and xenophobia is a sensitive issue, and for us such blatant, in-your-face ugliness came as a quite a shock.
Update: Since I wrote this, I had a chat with my friend Enrico, a Sicilian native living in South Africa. I showed the two photographs to him over coffee, and he gave me his interpretation. Basically the poster on the right is a response to the one on the left. The left-hand one says 'No Chinese mafia in Venice', the right-hand one says 'No Italian no Russian mafia either'. Now, there's no discernable mafia of Italian of Russian kinds in Venice, so perhaps it's a touch of sarcasm or perhaps a clever-dick answer. But obviously my take on it is wrong, as can also be seen from the comment below. Note to self: Research these kind of 'Italianisms' a bit more before writing about them, in future...
