Articles by:

The Associazione Nazionale Famiglie Emigrati (National Association of Migrant Families) is a not-for-profit association founded in 1947. This year, ANFE's Regional Branch of Sicily, operating since the 1950s, is participating to the Columbus Day celebrations with an outstanding delegation and remarkable events.

Created to protect and support Italian emigrants and their communities throughout the world, today ANFE is increasingly committed to promote the social and cultural integration of immigrants in Italy, and to assist them in entering the labor market.

This year the main theme of the events organized by ANFE is "Legality."
Here is ta list of the major events on schedule. They are all open to the public.

It is widely accepted that without human intervention, Venice would eventually be abandoned to the tides. The MOSE will temporarily separate the lagoon from the sea. How will it work and why is this—according to you—the right answer to Venice's flooding problems?
Yes it is, the Venice Lagoon survived to nowadays thanks to a series of interventions during the centuries (as the diversions of the rivers in order to avoid the silting up of the lagoon).

The objective of the Italian legislation to safeguard Venice is to guarantee the complete defence of all areas in the lagoon from high waters of all levels, including extreme events. Ever more frequently, Venice, Chioggia, and other historic towns and villages in the lagoon are flooded, and the lowest lying zones - usually the oldest and most valuable - are flooded almost daily, particularly during the winter. The risk of an event representing a danger to the city, such as that of 1966, is ever greater.

The Mose system includes mobile flood barriers (realized at the lagoon inlets in order to isolate temporarily the lagoon from the sea during the high water events) and local defences, carried out by “raising up” the lagoon banks and public pavement in the lowest areas of the city. The mobile flood barriers are made up of rows of flap-gates built into the inlet canal beds. They are "mobile" in so far as during normal tide conditions they are full of water and lie flat in their housings built into the inlet canal bed. When tides exceeding safeguarding level are forecast, an emission of compressed air empties the flap-gates of water until they emerge. In this way, it is possible to temporarily isolate the lagoon from the sea thereby blocking the flow of the tide. The inlets remain closed both for the duration of the high water and for the time it takes to manoeuvre the flap-gates (on an average a total of 4.5 hours).

The gate-opening manoeuvres follow precise procedures, taking into account the possible increase of water in the lagoon due to input from rivers, rain, local rises caused by wind, and/or the passage of water between one gate and the next. The Mose can protect the lagoon and the urban centres from a tide level of about 10 feet and with a sea level rise of 2 feet.

Management of Mose is flexible enough to cope with an increase in high waters in various ways, depending on the characteristics and scale of the tidal event. Depending on the situation, the defence strategies can involve simultaneous closure of all three inlets in case t of an exceptional event or alternatively and according to the winds, pressure and amplitude of the forecast tide, differentiated closure of the inlets, or again, partial closure of each inlet, as the gates are all independent.

The integration between the mobile barriers and the raising up of the banks and pavements defines a system of defence that is extremely efficient and functional, and that not only guarantees the total defence from high waters, but also guarantees port activity, water quality, and the safeguarding of the lagoon environment. This is a vital environmental program being undertaken by the government as a response to the body of special legislation introduced to

safeguard Venice and its lagoon.

MOSE is the product of long and detailed studies carried out by private companies and research institutes in Italy and around the world. The technology however is essentially Italian. Who are the main scientific-technological actors behind MOSE?
For many years now, the Consorzio Venezia Nuova on behalf of the Ministry of Infrastructure - Venice Water Authority has been implementing an extensive system of measures throughout the Venice lagoon area, designed to provide complete protection from flooding and sea storms and safeguard the ecosystem.

Since it was set up, Consorzio Venezia Nuova has carried out extensive studies and experiments aimed both at understanding the phenomena and processes affecting the ecosystem of the lagoon, and at planning projects and implementing real protective measures, involving many Italian and foreign universities and research centres. It avails itself also of many American experts from the M.I.T. university in Boston, the SCRIPPS Institute of San Diego, the University of California and, since 2006, it has taken part in an international network for Storm Surge Barrier Managers, done by Dutch, English, Russian, and Italian Countries. The goal of the international network is exchanging and sharing experiences and the transfer of knowledge on operational and functional management of large movable storm surge barriers in order to optimize the management of barriers by innovative technology. In this network public administrations co-operate and collaborate on issues of common interest, forming a community of practice.

What is the relationship between private bodies and state institutions in the work of projecting and realizing MOSE?
Playing the leading role in safeguarding Venice, each within their particular area of responsibility, are the Italian State (measures to physically safeguard the lagoon and restore hydrogeological balance), the Veneto Region (abatement of water pollution), and the Venice and Chioggia local authorities (urban restoration and maintenance and measures to promote and encourage socio-economic development). The body responsible for policy, coordination and control of the objectives established by the special legislation is the Committee as per art. 4 of Law no. 798/84 (the "Comitatone"), which is composed of the competent ministers (Infrastructure and Transport, Environment and Territorial Protection, Cultural Heritage and Activities, University Education and Scientific Research), the Chairman of the Water Authority, the Chairman of the Veneto Regional Authority, the mayors of Venice and Chioggia, Treporti-Cavallino Local Authority, and two representatives of the other local authorities along the lagoon boundary. It is chaired by the President of the Council of Ministers.

Because the complexity of the Venice problem, the “reciprocity” of every action in the lagoon environment and the highly experimental nature of the safeguarding interventions delegated to the State require the preparation and implementation of an “integrated plan” of interventions to tackle the various aspects of the physical and environmental safeguarding of the lagoon ecosystem in a unitary and organic fashion and with a systematic approach. Special Law no. 798/84 thus established that the State administration could nominate a single body to take on responsibility for the interventions as a whole.

To carry out the measures aimed at safeguarding Venice and its lagoon in accordance with Law n. 798 of 1984, the Venice Water Authority avails itself, like its concessionaire, of the Consorzio Venezia Nuova. It consists of a group of leading Italian construction companies of international importance and local cooperatives and firms with considerable experience of operating in the lagoon. The Consortium acts, of course, under the direct control of the Venice Water Authority and on the basis of a general plan of interventions defined and approved by the “Comitatone” (and therefore by the institutions represented on the committee) and by Parliament which, in Special Law no. 139/92, adopted it as a reference for the development and financing of interventions programmed, implemented and underway.

Consorzio Venezia Nuova has developed a structure able to plan, organise, manage and control the safeguarding measures during the various phases of implementation, while at the same time acting as the operational interface between the granting administration (the Venice Water Authority) on one hand and those carrying out the work on the other (designers, experts responsible for studies and experiments and companies carrying out the work).

Why is MOSE so controversial in Italy and especially in Venice? Many say that it is “surgery before medicine” and that less radical, softer measures should be tried first that would avoid the environmental disruption and skyrocketing costs that MOSE seems to bring with it.
Well, it was controversial in Venice, like any big project is and not only in Venice or in Italy!

The opposition was more noisy than substantial: the majority of Venetians was, and it is, in favour of the Mose project.  If a few years ago, the Mose project was defined as too “huge” and not necessary by the opposition, now the same people say that it is not sufficient, and that Venice will need something bigger! The Mose project is the best solution for solving the problems of high water now and in the future, in presence of a bad sea level rise, as well. It is an important measure for the lagoon environment, not against it.

Nothwithstanding its uniqueness, Venice faces challenges that have some similarities with those affecting other cities: London and Rotterdam, in Europe; New Orleans in the U.S. The international conference under preparation in New York is entitled “Saving Venezia, Protecting New Orleans”. To what extent and in what ways could MO.S.E.’s approach and know-how offer useful suggestions for these other cities?
Consorzio Venezia Nuova is part of the International Network, that is a great unique opportunity for each country for building effective parternships, for sharing organizational aspects, for improving the current management, for exchanging products, services and for innovating services and competencies.

Find the full program of the conference on ILICA's website

On September 25th a day-long internations conference in New York will be dedicated to the subject “SAVING VENEZIA & PROTECTING NEW ORLEANS.” Organized by ILICA (Italian language Inter-Cultural Alliance), the conference brings together scientists, academics, and experts from Italy and the U.S. to discuss MO.S.E. (acronym for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or Experimental Electromechanical Module)—a high-tech project intended to protect the city of Venice from floods through rows of electronically operated mobile gates.

“MO.S.E.” —the name is also a play on the Italian name for Biblical prophet Moses, Mosè—has been underway since the early 2000s and is entirely based on technology developed in Italy. In this conference the organizers suggest that MO.S.E. technologies could be of interest also to those who, in America, are studying how to protect the New Orleans bay from problems that have some similarities with those of Venice.
 

Before and during the conference, i-Italy will be publishing a series of reports and interviews about this event and its scientific and cultural background. We start today by interviewing Cav. Vincenzo Marra, President of ILICA and organizer of the event, and Professor Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Queens College, CUNY) and president of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI,) who is sponsoring the initiative.
 

Q: You have conceived a rather unusual gathering open mainly to scientists, experts, and academics... This is hardly the typical composition of many Italian-American events that people are mostly familiar with. What motivated your choice?

VINCENZO MARRA: We want to contribute to make Italy known in the US not only through folkloristic images and gala dinners...The XX Century image of Italy was the result of all the stories represented especially by images contained in "The Godfather". Since 1967, the year when more Italians went back to Italy from the USA than viceversa, the quality of the new Italian immigration in the USA, gave some of the best intellectual contributions to American social, financial, and academic world. From ISSNAF to NOVA, I could give an endless list of new Italian young professional associations in the USA. Somehow, someone must create a new paradigm for the new Italians.
 

ANTHONY J. TAMBURRI: We need to go beyond the "Three Fs" (Food, Fashion, and FIlm). The conference brings together Italian and American voices from the realm of science, for sure. But it also transcends the specifics in that it gives rise to a sort of epistemological comparison and/or exchange in how we receive and perceive certain modes of knowledge. In addition, especially with the inclusion of film makers, we witness the initial steps of how science is also employed in a cultural sense insofar as the fictional film project “Watermark” uses the geological challenges of the Venetian lagoon as a backdrop to a feature film.

Q: Why did you pick this particular subject? It is also a rather “controversial” subject...
 

VM: I see no risks in this. Italy is one of the G8 countries, it has often been at the helm of change, innovation and creativity and not only in the arts and culture, but also in technology. The world must know what MOSE is... Furthermore, the social evolution called today "Globalization", is redefining the social economical map of the world. Italy is geographically a small country however, in the 1700s, the Italian language was spoken by more people than those who speak English today. It is time for Italy to remember also the art of communication. By thinking always with politics in mind, we will be talking for the rest of our existence while the rest of the world will be more and more interested in what we do rather than what we say.
 

AJT: We tend to forget about Italy's contributions in the scientific and technological fields. Instead of thinking back to an Italy that no longer exists (the images of the poverty-stricken mountain villages,) we want to emphasize that Italy is indeed an historical source of science and technology as proven by the numerous Nobel Peace Prize winners over the years in the sciences. Furthermore, Italy is indeed a cultural source. It is the country of a language and culture that have given to Civilization the roots of modern western poetry (Dante and Petrarca), the template for what we call Modernity (the philosophy and art of the Italian Renaissance), and the matrix for our own modern-day legal philosophy (Cesare Beccaria).

Q: Why is it that the best known areas of Italian excellence seem limited to the “made in italy” phenomenon, especially in the gourmet and fashion industries?
 

AJT: Italian Americans too have a responsibility in this. As a community we seem to rely too much on the popularized images of Italy, be they steeped in the nostalgia of an Italy of long ago, be they steeped in the more controversial images that many feel do not promote the Italian/American causes in any manner of speaking. Indeed, then, we appreciate the effort made by ILICA to bring something different to the fore that, first, situates us in a different intellectual mode and, second, forces us to look at an Italy not all that familiar to the Italian/American community at large.
 

VM: The inspiration of Ilica is based on Vincenzo Sellaro, the founder of the OSIA in 1905. That was a major change and was very much needed. After 100 years we need the same kind of momentous change. This is only the first step. ILICA intends to be a catalyst for a new kind of Italian who come to the US not out of need but by choice... Those Italians need to be integrated into a multi ethnic, inter cultural society. As we need to know where we come from, we must finally start telling the world where we are heading. And, forgive me for saying so: we have so much more to offer than what we have achieved during the last century. We must create a synergy between tradition and XXI century Italians.

Q: How do we go about building a bridge between these two different realities: the descendants of those Italians who came “out of need” and today’s Italians who are coming “by choice”?
 

AJT: There is a new concept of migration today (not e-migration or im-migration) It's a new global mobility, and Italians are again in the forefront of these new developments... In my graduate class in Florida I had at least 5 students who came from Italy to study Italian/American culture as either a primary or secondary field, and some of them have remained in the US, they have children now who are Americans. Indeed, at least two of the particpants in this conference have had an experience analogous to my graduate students; they grew up in Italy, came to the United States at one point earliy in their post-laurea years, and they remained. It is a culturally constructive “contamination” between the two worlds that needs to be understand better, more profoundly, so that we can better appreciate our cultural heritage. This is the necessary inter-cultural discourse between Italy and America in which we all need to engage. This is one of the promises of this conference and one of the primary reasons I signed on to it.
 

VM: Indeed the ILICA acronym has this "Inter-Cultural" element in it, that tries to speak to a global world. And actually we have not forgotten about other areas of excellence such as food... we are flying in two great chefs to work with Andrea Tiberi... and also 2000 pounds of fresh fish from the Adriatic sea, which is so different from the one you find in the Atlantic... That is to make a point: the Italians who come here by choice are complementary to those who came here out of need. Italy must learn more about the Italian American experience and the Italian Americans must learn more about Italy today. We must recuperate the time we wasted by ignoring each other for too many years. Then we should help each other to enter the inter cultural society with an open mind. If an Italian American likes the Romano cheese on his fish salad, the Italian must recognize that as a different taste approach. We all use the "duck sauce" everywhere in the Chinese restaurant and I know that Chinese people don't even use that sugar taste in their food...However in the processing of globalization is more important to learn that one out of five chairmen of corporate America is of Italian origin.