Us, who else?

This post starts from the great eco we actually gained on Italian media thanks to an article published by the well known Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Sun. 17 Jul. 2011.

We were on the First page of one of the most read newspapers in Italy, on the home page of its website, on many tv news editions, and thanks to it we had so many more supporters in a few hours.

It goes without saying that we couldn’t be happier than that, since one of our purposes is to show the other side of our town, the “clean one”. BUT we also NEED to tell something about us and our actions.

We’ve been called the angels of rubbish by the La Repubblica’s journalist Conchita Sannino. She referred to the thousands of youngsters called “angels of the mud” who in 1966, after a great flood, run to Florence from all over the world to help the town not to lose all its treasures covered by mud.

Well, we’re actually in a very different condition, we’re not victims of a nature catastrophe, but of a human behaviour together with all the great political and criminal interest that lie behind the “rubbish business”.

We don’t want to be called “Angels” because we’re actually very angry. We are indignant just like the young Spanish indignados, we’re frustrated just like our Greek peers, furious just like our contemporary from Maghreb. We use FaceBook to desperately try to survive in a city that has been abandoned by the State and the welfare.

Everyone can choose how to show their rage, we created CleaNap, and even if it could have been started by the infinite “garbage emergency” of our town, it goes beyond it and overpasses it.

We want to revalorize our beautiful Old Town Centre, regain possession of our town, and tell something to the rest of Italy and of the World! We decided to do that smiling, with our small quantity of madness that made us dive without thinking twice into a kind of impossible mission that starts from this: we want normality.

Us, who else?
If not us, who else should start this small revolution?
If not us, with our lungs and hearts tore into pieces every time we go out?
If not us, with our job insecurity and uncertain futures?
If not us, who else should do that?
We have to try, to resist, to fight, but we must be many, many more.
We cannot win alone, together we can.

From Naples to the rest of the world.