Politics and Sport: Apple, not Higuain, can give Naples a fresh start
“We decided to land in Europe, and to create the first research and study center in Naples. With us, one of the most beautiful cities in the world will step up to the future, creating a new relationship between the north and the south of Italy.”
The breakthrough is probably just around the corner, as long as the Silycon Valley company is able to deliver Steve Job’s philosophy. A revolutionary, Jobs always had special consideration for social and cultural development.
I used to live in Naples when Maradona was playing there and I was a reporter for Tuttosport.
Loving and hating Naples at the same time came easy. It was a very contradictory city, capable of giving you everything, asking for nothing in return, but it could also be crocked and malicious as well (not because it wanted to, you understand, but because it felt it had to).
Napoli could both smell and shine at once, and was masochistic to the point of self-harm. Cowed not by respect but by fear of the Camorra Mafia, which had insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of a once-healthy organism.
That Naples that doesn’t exist anymore, just like the city that was ruled by the Bourbon dynasty, or Frederick II. A city that was almost the centre of the world in terms of medicine, philosophy, art, science and technology - the very first railway road was constructed there.
The Naples I inhabited was offensive even to the most popular Neapolitans, forcing them to move elsewhere. People like Eduardo, or Totò, went to live in Rome, carved up by the stereotype that Naples is all about pizza, mandolin and lazyness. Something that couldn't be further from the truth.
Let me add that the stereotype of the lazy, dishonest Neapolitans is slander. My friend Roberto Saviano has proved it, explaining in a perfect way that the current ‘paralysis’ is provoked by the power of gangsters alongside a political power which has been reduced to a servile role.
When I was there, the San Paolo Stadium was where dreams came true, a divine miracle that had descended from the heavens. People subsisted on bread and Maradona. And even without bread, Maradona was still enough.
Now, another Argentinean is here to hark back, nay even replace El Pibe de Oro and his Neapolitan adventure. His name is Gonzalo Higuain, El Pipita.
But Naples is not the same anymore. “Acca nusciuno è fesso” (there are no suckers here): it is time to stop putting off everything to Sunday, and assuming that the cities' terminal problems can just be solved by watching Gonzalo bury another fierce finish.
The Apple team from Cupertino will definitely help the city, offering jobs to 600 people and injecting Naples with desperately-needed values and innovation, the kind that has revolutionized how the world communicates.
Americans are doing what FIAT CEO Sergio Marchionne, Frederick and the Bourbons have either failed or refused to do.
Maybe, just maybe, ‘sta passando a ‘nuttata’ (the night is ending): there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Marco Bernardini, translated by Lorenzo Bettoni (@lorebetto) and Edo Dalmonte (@edodalmonte)
