Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [190]
Much of his presentation appeared to be both an acknowledgment of the social injustice involved in the proposed eviction and an indirect but unmistakable attempt to throw the moral responsibility at the bank. Recognizing that the population of the historic center was changing, he remarked, "It is unthinkable that even a-how should I put this?-a landlord's mentality should be brought to the point of throwing out of her own home a person who has advanced to the hundredth year of her age." Thus, he suggested, the first goal was to appeal to the Bank of Rome to annul the eviction at least of the nonagenarian, as "an act that is even more of a symbolic than of a political nature." He then called on the bank to sit down with the city administration to resolve the problem; he was careful to recognize the legitimate interests of the bank as well and emphasized the long history of cooperation between the city and the bank. The difficulty, however, lay in the bank's intransigent refusal to discuss the matter with anyone. He declared, as a matter of general principle, "In any case the city administration has a duty, which it is carrying out, to make available all the available means for shoring up and rescuing the situation as far as possible." He then spoke about the various competitions for municipal housing, and about the creation of incentives through city tax [Ici) reductions for proprietors who offered low rents to needy families.
Then he invited Loredana to speak as the spokesperson of the residents; after she made a brief statement, Councilor Galloro spoke about the lack of response from the bank and more generally about the difficulty of getting any reasonable reaction where the now valuable properties in the historic center were concerned. Then the residents began to complain of the bank's cynical neglect of their building and its failure to respond to the tenants' concerns.
One of these concerns was especially revealing of the social solidarity the bank either ignored or hoped to smash: "We would like to mention that our building is also a closed building, and there are no speakerphones [connecting the main entrance with the apartments], which [means] that if some elderly person is ill we don't know what has happened." The speaker also pointed out that the bank's perfunctory repair work of some three years earlier could have included the installation of speakerphones, but that it did not. I then spoke of the bank's responsibility, not only to its investors but also to the society at large, of the need to get the bank to explain its actions; and of its cynicism in offering unsuitable housing in compensation and in trying to evict the nonagenarian woman despite having announced that they would not do so. Tozzi then, with an ironic but kindly smile, took the opportunity to say of my intervention, "He is the only person from the Anglo-Saxon community I know who has not espoused free-market notions; and for that, I thank him!" The Alleanza nazionale ensured its ideologically very different presence in the person of Councilor Marco Marsilio, who spoke about the historic center as a whole. And then, with the formal press conference concluded, the journalists rushed to interview the various key actors. One of them, the old lady's son, reiterated familiar themes: "In practical terms it [the building] is the last historic nucleus of residents of the Monti district, because virtually everyone else has left." And he pointed out that if his mother were kicked out along with the daughter who looks after her, another family who depends on this daughter would also suffer-another example of the residents' communal concerns.