As Italy enters the fifth week of its lockdown, Kamin Mohammadi gives the rest of the world some insights into what happens next.
The First Two Weeks
Remember Week One? That faraway time characterised by confusion and anxiety and a sort of elation? We in Italy were as confused as you are in Britain about what activities justified going out. Teenagers – who had by then been out of school for two weeks –roamed the streets. Most businesses were still open, many people were still going to work, and so a decree was issued closing bars, restaurants, gyms and all non-essential businesses.
Decree after decree limited our movements ever closer to home, closing parks when people were spotted walking cats and even goldfish in bowls, auto-certification was required by law to state why you were out, subject to fines and a criminal record if found to be untrue. The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was on TV every night, sober, measured, focused. He urged his countrymen to stay at home. Celebrities appeared on television and social media, filmed at home in their tracksuits, begging people not to go out, for the good of the country.
Everything stopped. Everyone was at home. Even with the growing horror of the Coronavirus pandemic which has dominated this year, this was unimaginable and we were in shock.
This enforced exercise in empathy makes us feel determined to eventually build a society that is fairer and more equaL
We were also in mass grief for the numbers of dead, for the horrific images coming out of northern Italian hospitals, for funerals families could not attend, for lonely deaths encased in plastic. We shuddered at the sight of the Pope’s solitary figure in the vast empty space of St Peter’s Square. We wept every time we saw the Palazzo Cighi lit up in the colours of the Italian flag. We talked about all the plagues Italy has survived in the past and found the comparisons somehow unhelpful.
Italians trapped in their apartments in cities took to their balconies and windows at 6pm every day to sing the national anthem together, to bang pots and pans, to shake tambourines and to sing popular songs, to applaud the healthcare workers. The sense of solidarity and unity was immense and gave us all a feeling of community that was surprising given the death of social life.
Everyone suddenly found they had time to talk to friends and family all over the world. Social life via video calls blossomed, social media became everyone’s method of documenting their lockdown. Parents tried to figure out homeschooling and how to navigate lockdown life in small city apartments. Our homes became spotless as we did thorough spring cleans for perhaps the first time ever. In my shopping forays, I was charmed by the new-found politeness and reserve of Italians who now quietly asked, from at least one metre away, if you would mind moving your trolley so they could pass, whereas once they would have just walked over you, running their trolley over your toes, while talking loudly on the phone.
Italy Finds its Heart
It was as if Italy matured overnight – the anarchic, rule-breaking Italian character morphed into one embracing social responsibility and the greater good over individualism. Kindness shone out everywhere and became our new modus operandi, from politicians (who stopped spinning and mudslinging), to celebrities, to the army of volunteers and neighbours looking out for each other, for the more vulnerable. We said ‘Italy has found its heart again’ and felt it to be true.
The news dominated our time and our talk from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to sleep. If we slept at all. We tried not to think about our lost incomes and were just felt grateful to be alive, to have a roof over our heads, food in the fridge. We signed up for courses, we made online communities, we embraced the culture of this great country that was suddenly available to us online for free: virtual tours of museums we had long ignored when they were on our doorstep, concerts played in empty auditoriums so they could be live-streamed.
Technology saved us. Yoga teachers started conducting classes through conference calling apps, group workouts and online aperitivos and dinner parties became ubiquitous. Rainbows drawn by children trapped at home and inscribed with the hashtag #andratuttobene (everything will be ok), hung out of windows everywhere.
They gave us hope and courage every time we saw footage of army trucks carrying away dead bodies at night from epicentres like Bergamo because the crematoria could not cope and the world-class hospitals of the wealthy Lombardy region teetered on the brink of collapse.
We all recognised that the healthcare workers needed protection, even as the state failed to supply them with adequate PPE, and so we took it upon ourselves to lighten their load by not getting infected, by applauding them from our windows. We applauded when Germany became the first European country to come to Italy’s aid by taking some of Lombardy’s intensive care patients, sending special COVID-19 ambulances equipped with ventilators to lighten Italy’s load.
We shared pictures of Venice’s crystal-clear canals filled with fish, ducks sauntering down a silent Grand Canal, the dolphins visiting the coast of Sardinia for the first time in 20 years, the wild boar seen wandering down the street in Padua, the deer dancing with joy on the shoreline of Viareggio’s beach, usually a chequerboard of sun loungers and umbrellas. We realised that this was not going to end in a couple of weeks and that there would be no ‘normal’ again. That there was no going back.
As I negotiated daily decrees and ever-increasing limits imposed on my movements – now within 200 metres of home – I watched my friends in London going to parties, getting on tubes. I listened to the British Government talk of ‘herd immunity’ and I thought I would go mad with worry for my loved ones. American friends here called me and cried bitter tears at the actions of the US President, crying out “but don’t they see our suffering? Does what Italy is going through count for nothing?” We felt abandoned by the world.
The Second Fortnight
Sometime around two weeks in, a hush descended. The most upbeat social media users went quiet, no longer posting their daily activities. Online courses were abandoned, and ‘spiritual teachers’ telling us how positive this time is were switched off. Reality settled on us like the layer of dust beginning now to gather on our pristine mantelpieces.
Consumption of news has had to be limited for the sake of our mental health – the quotidian routine has become more about staying sane than following the latest figures moment-by-moment.
On a societal and even personal level, grievances have had to be shelved. Warring couples have put aside their differences to get through this enforced togetherness, with the law courts closed, legal disagreements have been put on ice. Many parents have abandoned the earlier structured days of home-schooling and day drinking has become the norm for some.
This is not a holiday, nor is it a sabbatical. As a writer, I had decided to treat lockdown as a writing retreat, but I realised it is also not that. Slowly it has dawned on us that we are here witnessing a great change in global human behaviour; a catastrophe that with every day that passes makes our habitual way of life increasingly impossible to contemplate.
Armed police deployed outside Sicilian supermarkets to stop the hungry from walking out with unpaid-for trolley-loads of food. Unemployment started to bite for many and the state’s promised help felt inadequate at best and scornful at worst. While the state has promised the regions €400 million of cash, regional governors have complained this is not nearly enough.
Poverty is the new reality for many, especially for those whose living is precarious, who are freelance, or who work off the books. Tourism has been wiped out, a source of income that will not return any time soon. The city of Florence, the economy of which is not only based on tourism but also on industrial sectors such as mechanics, fashion and pharmaceuticals, is facing an estimated loss of €1 billion.
The great leveller has also cruelly exposed our divisions – city dwellers going stir crazy stuck in small flats hit out at those posting pictures of spring-time walks in rural isolation. Domestic violence has shot up by 80%