L’Ambasciatore Giovanni Castellaneta ha risposto oggi, con una lettera al direttore, all’articolo “As Italy’s Banks Tighten Lending, Desperate Firms Call on the Mafia”, apparso a pagina A1 dell’edizione del “WashingtonPost” di domenica, 1 marzo, 2009.
Letter to the Editor
I read Mary Jordon’s article several times [As Italy’s Banks Tighten Lending, Disperate Firms Call on the Mafia, front page, March 1]. Several times because I was expecting, somewhere, to find mention of the fact that Italy’s banking system is among the most solid in the world, or perhaps a simple word about Italy’s not falling victim in recent times to any subprime crisis, artificial real estate boom, bankruptcies, Ponzi schemes, or even to any Madoff types (we put the one we had in jail several years ago and introduced new laws that have protected our financial system in these months). Or mention of the successes Italian authorities are scoring against mafia and organized crime (the recent arrest of mobster Giuseppe Setola) or that our Homeland Security activated a toll-free anti-racketeering and anti-loansharking number that operates 24/7, a measure that has proven quite useful.
But nowhere did I find mention of any of this. I have no comments about the article’s one-sided content, the description of a despicable and tragic phenomenon. I wonder, however, if your readers would not have also benefited from just a word about Italy’s commitment or success in fighting it? What idea would my countrymen have of America if they read an article on the Bush Administration that interviewed only Noam Chomsky or a piece on climate change that cited only Rush Limbaugh?
I doubt that Walter Cronkite would have concluded Mary Jordan’s article with “that’s the way it is.”
Giovanni Castellaneta
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