… well I\u2019m not!<\/p>\n
By birth I\u2019m English, but I don\u2019t feel English either, I never really did. However, one thing that I do remember about my English upbringing was the sense of patriotism that we had instilled in us from quite an early age. Maybe that\u2019s changed now, I really wouldn\u2019t know as I\u2019ve only spent a total of about three months in England over the past eight years. I\u2019m out of touch, and it\u2019s only when I occasionally meet English people who are out here on holiday that I realise just how alien English culture has become to me.
\nIdentity crisis? No! I\u2019m perfectly comfortable with the sense of freedom from cultural ‘restraints’ that my twilight world allows me.<\/p>\n
As I said, I was brought up in England with a strong sense of patriotism, and for that reason it was rather shocking to me, when I first moved here, to find its equivalent almost totally lacking in Italy. In fact, rather than a sense of loyalty to their homeland the attitude that I most frequently encounter amongst Italian friends and acquaintances is one of shame, desperation,\u00a0or disgust, usually expressed in such phrases as l\u2019Italia fa schifo!<\/strong> (Italy is crap!)\u00a0or siamo in Italia, cosa ti aspetti?<\/strong> (we\u2019re in Italy, what do you expect?).<\/p>\n Well, that\u2019s enough of me and my opinion. Let\u2019s hear from a real Italian, the late great singer, composer, actor and playwright Giorgio Gaber<\/a><\/span><\/strong>. In his song Io Non Mi Sento Italiano<\/strong> (I don’t feel Italian), Gaber expresses the widespread lack of patriotism that many Italians feel. Please excuse the English translation, which sounds very unmusical to my ears, but I’ve tried to steer the fine line between clarity of intent and literal translation<\/p>\n