Pompeo & Sesto San Giovanni

The morning news on NPR included a story about new U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo going to Israel and then on to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. He was quoted about fighting the Islamic State and finding partners on other "homeland security" issues. I dearly wish that he and his colleagues would do as much on the social and economic justice issues as they do on the terrorism and military side. I have to believe that a more just world would experience less tumult from war and terrorism.

I got my Sunday Times and a few groceries at Wegmans and headed off to Billy Schu's for some pancakes. A few pages into the main section of the paper, I was taken back to Milan. Our first airbnb apartment in Milan was very near the Bande Nere stop of the Metro M1 line. One end of the line is Sesto San Giovanni, a northern suburb. So we'd take the train in the direction of Sesto 1° Maggio if we were going toward the center of Milan. We had a good modern architecture guide and there were quite a few buildings out that way, e.g., Campari headquarters (Mario Botta), the art space Pirelli Hangar Bicocca (Studio April), Pirelli Real Estate headquarters (Vittorio Gregotti), Deutsche Bank headquarters (Studio Valle), and the Bicocca campus of the University of Milan (Gregotti). Bicocca and Sesto are old industrial areas that are seeing new development. So Sesto was on my list for a field trip but we didn't make it out that way on this trip.

Today's paper had an article entitled "Outside Milan, a taste of a right-wing Italy" about the new mayor of Sesto San Giovanni, expulsion of migrants from public housing, and construction being blocked on a mosque. The new mayor, Roberto Di Stefano, said "If it starts with this [mosque], tomorrow they will ask for a Muslim soccer team, a Muslim school, a Muslim swimming pool." This is happening in a neighborhood that has a significant population of second and third generation Muslims. It just seems to me that it's obvious that an "Italy first" policy, just like "America first," leads to rancor between people which is more likely to lead to the sort of disgruntlement that fosters terrorism and/or fascism, especially when exacerbated by the arrival of war refugees. It seems trite to argue that "we should all just try to get along" but I think I'll keep on saying that we should always give peace a chance.

(anti-war banner in Genoa, March 2018)