Mass rally in Venice to call for independence from Italy

[dkf]

Two centuries after Napoleonic forces snuffed out the 1,000-year Venetian Republic, Venetians are once again aspiring to become an independent state.

Inspired by the nationalist aspirations of Scotland and Catalonia, pro-independence campaigners will hold a mass rally in the heart of the lagoon city on Saturday, calling for an urgent referendum to be held on the issue.


It may sound fanciful, and it will be fiercely resisted by Rome, but activists want to carve out a new country in north-eastern Italy which would comprise Venice, the surrounding region of Veneto and parts of Lombardy, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
The "Repubblica Veneta", as it would be known, would encompass about five million people.

Recent surveys show widespread support for independence among Venetians, who speak a distinct dialect and feel geographically and culturally distant from Rome.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9589732/Mass-rally-in-Venice-to-call-for-independence-from-Italy.html

[WCGreen]

1. Just on time to be underwater....

[Odin2005]

10. I thought the same thing.

[hobbit709]

2. EVERYBODY in Italy speaks a distinct dialect.

Wait until you get to southern Italy, where people in one town can barely understand someone from 20 miles away.
Especially in Alberobello, where the dialect is a mixture of Italian and Albanian.

[grantcart]

4. Then you have the Italians in Switzerland who look down on all of them.

[hobbit709]

5. Hell, the northern Italians look down on the southern Italians and Sicilians.

Last edited Sat Oct 6, 2012, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

[grantcart]

6. I know but you should see how the Italians in Switzerland talk about the people just across the

border, its hilarious.

[hobbit709]

7. 40 years ago when I was in Italy

The northern Italians were fond of saying that "Africa starts south of Rome"

[tama]

9. Ah, Ticino

Where Everything is even more beautiful than anywhere else...

[grantcart]

3. The rich north wants to ditch the poorer south.

50 years ago the people of Bare were still living in cave homes dug out of the side of the hills.

[Nevernose]

8. I was in Venice last year

I remember being struck by all of the pro-communist graffiti. In Rome it was lots of pro-fascist graffiti.