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Beggars, Buskers,
Hookers & Street Traders
Here she is ladies and gentlemen!
Rome's richest woman.
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Being fortunate enough to be born in
England, it’s hard for us to know how to react to such widescale
scenes of begging and poverty as there are in Rome. It’s
not in our cold self-righteous Protestant culture to easily find
a place for beggars in our heart. It’s difficult to know
what to do. Sometimes it is morally heart-rending to see these
people, yet statistically, while many are genuine cases of poverty-stricken
cripples and aged unemployables without pensions, many of them
are merely rogues and opportunist ne’er-do-wells who prefer
begging and stealing to working.
There is a terrific range of style and technique amongst beggars,
ranging from the comic to the tragic. The woman pictured above
is a hard-working beggar, a real pro, keeping on the move all
day, conscientiously working the streets in and around Piazza
Navona. Though her clothes are old and simple, they are not bad
quality and appear quite clean. She does not smell. She is conscious
of her image as the classic Mediteranean beggar with almost Biblical
overtones and presents herself with just as much style as a street
performer; She is really a bit of an actress and it has to be
admitted that she contributes greatly to the local colour. She’s
good value.
There are other beggars who simply lie across the pavement, haggard
and filthy, looking at death’s door. These are the most upsetting
- Are they really dying?
Others take up regular stations around the city; On my way to
work every morning I pass a middle-aged gentleman who stands in
the doorway of a church passively holding his begging-bowl under
the noses of priests and early-morning mass communicants. He is
quite well dressed, looks clean and cultured with well-groomed
hair and has the manner of a librarian or civil-servant to him.
Remove his begging bowl and you would never suspect that this
is how he makes his living. Yet he stands quietly staring down
at his feet with an expression of utter self-hatred. Surely this
presentable and intelligent looking man can find something less
demeaning and soul-damaging to do with his life?
If I approach my place of work from the other side of the block
I pass an equally well-dressed middle-aged woman in a smart summer
dress every morning, who sits on a low wall, wailing loudly and
weeping real tears holding both arms outstretched with her bowl
to passers by. How can she find strength to go through this strenuous
theatrical routine every day?
The most annoying beggars are on the subway. There seem to be
no public transport bye-laws prohibiting begging and busking on
the trains as there are on London Underground, and if there are,
then like every other law in Italy short of the prohibition of
murder, they are not enforced. Beggars and buskers work the subway
trains, getting on at stops, working their way through each carriage
before alighting to catch another train. One woman in particular
claims to be a Bosnian refugee (she displays her passport in her
begging bowl). She gets on the train with one or two small children,
flings herself to her knees, and with her face drawn and lined
in bottomless grief, bewails her hunger and misfortune. The children
pass through the carriage collecting coins in a McDonalds paper
cup, or slouch on the floor picking their noses. What kind of
childhood is this? They’re obviously not in school.
As this tragic woman gets off the train and onto the platform,
the granite mask of grief suddenly leaves her face as she notices
a couple of guys who appear (by their uniforms) to be railway
employees . She goes up to them and they all have a good laugh
together. She’s probably throwing it to them behind the ticket
office in return for a blind eye turned to her begging exploits.
But who knows? - I thought only high-class hookers made the time
to share a joke with their johns. From my own sheltered corner
of the world I'm either naively wrong or else this woman is a
real pro.
Feel sorry for her if you like. Or praise her for her diligent
resourcefulness in providing a crust of bread for her kids. And
be happy for her that she was able to escape from the horrors
of war-torn former Yugoslavia. Me? I just get angry at the uncaring
hypocrisy of a system of civic government which allows, constrains
and even encourages people to live this way within its 'hallowed'
walls: One might expect such savage negligence of government in
cities of more eastern longitudes and southern latitudes, but
it rather appears that Rome, while lauding itself as the geographical
and spiritual centre of Christianity, is more truthfully to be
found at the demographic and geographical extremities of that
faith's European dominion, where grace, truth, charity, human
dignity and liberty of conscience lie in as ever sparser deposits
as water lies at the geographical extremites of a monsoon belt.
Rome makes plenty of room for beggars but affords them no dignity,
lasting assistance or anything resembling 'a leg up'. Rome and
the Church of Rome make themselves look good and feel better about
themselves by opening their arms and welcoming helpless dependent
refugees, migrant workers and beggars into the community; But
by providing no real assistance and taking no responsibility for
such, it can make this grand gesture of refuge and asylum on the
cheap.
As all Machiavellians have discovered, a little philanthropy yields
the greater monopoly.
Their are numerous buskers who also board the trains - accordion
players, guitarists or Peruvian nose-flautists doing their Paul
Simon world-music bit. There’s even an Asian gentleman who
does conjuring tricks (with English commentary) He’s so bad,
he’s a scream!
Concerned to reach an ever wider audience, most busking musicians
now carry electric amplifiers cunningly built into rucksacks to
give true concert-hall sound to their performances. It’s
a thoroughly aggravating din. They play a couple of numbers before
passing through the commuters with the mandatory McDonalds cup.
No matter what the act of the day is, everyone always puts something
in the cup.
I am astounded at the lack of public resistance to these tiresome
opportunists. An occasional busker can be a charming embellishment
to the hustle and bustle of city life, an oasis of art in a concrete
jungle, yet it must be acknowledged that the busker is operating
outside of the system. Much of the enjoyment of art and music
lies in its being a passive experience for the imbiber; From the
rich spectrum of art and music, we can choose what we wish to
view or listen to. If I am to pay to listen to music, I will buy
a CD, and it’s okay on the radio ‘cos you can turn it
off.
But the fact that the source of music heard in the street or on
the train is a live performance by the musician himself makes
it no more meritorious than if it were coming from a ghetto-blaster
at inappropriately high volume in a public place; it is a nuisance
to either you, me or a fourth party, and as such, unless I am
enjoying it, I am not morally obliged to subsidise its continuance.
Prostitution is also rife, and not restricted to one particular
area or even the hours of darkness; There are roads on the outskirts
of Rome where girls will stand in broad daylight plying their
trade. To be fair to Italian women though, most street-girls are
immigrants.
Next on the list are the unlicensed street-traders, usually Africans
or Asian and far-eastern-looking types who carry little portable
stalls in a sack or a large folding wooden tray. The Africans
usually sell the big stuff like African wood carvings or hats
and handbags. The Asian and eastern guys prefer to deal in trinkets,
watches and jewellery.
They all pitch out on the sidewalk wherever they can until someone
spots a policeman and they all run off with their wares. I can’t
see how they can make a living off this, but I suppose it’s
better than risking their lives everyday living in some of the
politically murderous holes in they’ve come from (Ruanda,
Somalia, etc) so I’m happy for them that they’ve at
least escaped that. Some of them sell quite nice stuff as well
and most of them are usually jolly decent chaps.
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But some street-traders seem upsettingly
unimaginative and unproductive - There are guys who go around
all day with nothing to sell but a tiny bag of garlic heads which
they wave in your face, or a handful of plastic cigarette lighters,
or folding umbrellas if it’s raining. Okay, so they don’t
have overheads - They live in large squats or sub-letted apartments,
ten families in one room, taking it in turns to go out on the
street with the merchandise each day while someone else stays
home to mind the children.
But what a waste of energy! How many heads of garlic is he gonna
sell each day? Ten maximum? (I never see him sell any) For what?
50 cents each? Five dollars a day? Three quid? Twenty quid a week?
What’s the point? What a waste of manpower! Don’t they
get depressed, frustrated by such a way of life? Surely there’s
a higher paying job than that somewhere in Rome? How can someone
just piss their life away walking around with a bag of five garlic-heads
all day every day! It would hurt my very soul.
I know that I’m privileged, and that but for the grace of
God, I would be in their shoes (and probably will be one day),
but from where I’m standing now I can’t comprehend the
mindset of these people.
There are other more industrious street people. For instance,
most petrol (gas) stations are closed by seven or eight in the
evening, leaving open only self-service pumps which accept five
or ten thousand lire banknotes. Gas-station owners will allow
one of these immigrant street-people to stay at the pumps all
night to change customer’s money (if he has the correct change)
for the machines or pump the gas for them. He is not paid for
this, but makes a few dollars a night in tips.
Migrant worker sleeps it off in the shadow of Caesar's statue
On the Isola Tiberina (the island in the middle of the river in
Rome) is a little old man who is the self-appointed parking attendant
on Sundays. He has one of those iron riot-barriers that cities
line up along pavements to hold back crowds whenever The Queen
or Bruce Willis is in town. His is painted red, and he will fence
off a vacant parking space with his little barrier and open it
up for you in exchange for a couple of thousand lire (about 50p).
For a couple of thousand more he will ‘keep an eye’
on your car. Or not, if you decide not to pay the extra two thousand.
At supermarkets there are also people who will ‘keep an eye’
on your car for you, for a small fee while you shop. Or they will
stand at the supermarket exit and offer to push your trolley to
your car for another small donation. I mean, do I look that stupid?
Do I look like I have no arms to push it myself?
These are just some of many extraordinary ways in which Italy’s
people are co-erced into helping make some provision for the poor
in their midst, without the State having to lift a finger. And
the State doesn’t, for it is happy to let the well-meaning
civilians of this superstitiously religious culture continue in
their primitive methods of barter and charity or else believe
themselves to be damned.
For instance, everyone is quietly afraid of gypsies, for they
are believed to possess black-magic powers, and will curse you
with ‘the evil eye’ if you do not give them a handout.
Thanks in great part to such ancient superstition and fervent
fatalistic religiosity, beggars and buskers can make a decent
(if degrading) living in Rome at the expense of gullible citizens
and visitors hoping to avoid supernatural retribution or to lessen
their time spent in purgatory.
If the authorities outlawed and properly policed beggars, then
they would be obliged to provide employment or financial aid and
housing for them. So it is cheaper to let them remain on the streets,
trusting to the superstitious generosity of a tax-paying public
which for centuries has been emotionally blackmailed by the Mother
Church of Rome into never sending a beggar away empty handed,
while the church itself receives tax immunity from the State.
It’s a cosy relationship.
A lot of vagrant street-life is caused by political problems: When I first visited Rome in 1980, the streets were also full of beggars then, as well as much rubbish and scruffy buildings. When I returned in 1987 the beggars had all but disappeared and the city looked cleaner and smarter. However, ten years later in 1998 the beggars are back, more numerous than ever, although Rome is currently swathed in scaffolding and intense road-works and renovation as the city pours in billions of lire to its massive smartening-up program in time for the big millennium bash in 2000, when millions of people from around the world will descend on the Vatican to celebrate two thousand years of organised Christian religion. This fluctuation in numbers of beggars is clearly indicative of successive changes in local government administration.
Sleeping rough in the
porch of the Pantheon
The problem lies with the City of Rome
itself: The beggars well know that Rome is a magnet for devout
Roman Catholics wishing to visit the Vatican and all its associated
historical sites of interest. They know that a good Catholic tourist
is a soft touch for charity. The civic authorities of Rome also
know this. Therefore, rather than set up an effective system of
social-security benefits and cheap lodging and help for down and
outs and other unfortunates, it turns a blind eye to the homeless
and disadvantaged on its streets, relying instead on you and I,
the tourists to subsidise it’s underprivileged citizens.
If tourists in their millions suddenly stopped coming to Rome,
most of the beggars (that tourism supports) would either leave
Rome or get jobs. If they remained in Rome but continued to beg,
the City authorities would then have to do something to support
them out of it’s own coffers. But of course, this is unlikely
to ever happen.
The Church itself (ie, the Vatican) enjoys a most profitable relationship
with the city authorities. For as far back as anyone can remember,
Rome and the Vatican are one and the same and indistinguishable
in terms of who is really running Rome.
The Priestie Boys. As
it has done for a thousand years, Rome continues to draw countless
thousands of seminarists, nuns and pilgrims of all types through
its hallowed streets each year - a soft touch for beggars and
souvenir sellers.
Though the church no longer exercises the power it had a few hundred
years ago to extract vast amounts of money from every individual
in the western world, (on pain of excommunication or death), today
it still wields the power to attract a no lesser amount
of revenue from tourism to Rome together with rents and leases
on some of the most fabulous residential and commercial real-estate
on earth.
Yet the church wears a weary face. It claims to have no money.
‘How can we have money, when we are just a church, sustained
only from charitable donations from good Christian souls?’
it will surely cry when pressed on the subject.
Thus, such institutions that the Vatican puts it’s name behind
and calls charitable missionary endeavours, such as The Hospital
of the Infant Jesus, (Rome’s equivalent of London’s
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children) are shabby, clamorous,
understaffed affairs, where children’s parents are instructed
to stay overnight with their children because of a lack of nursing
staff, and must provide their own knife and fork from home, because
the hospital is too underfunded to purchase any cutlery! Crap!
The City and the Vatican combined make
Rome the richest city on earth. But corruption in high places
has milked public funds dry, and as has always been the case,
the City lets the Vatican play front-man as the bleeding heart
mother church who can offer nothing certain in this life to tourist,
beggar or pilgrim but a benediction from The Man himself, a cup
of cold water from the marble fountains and a little ‘indulgence’
courtesy of the whores on the Lungotevere San Paulo.
Meanwhile the begging, the sleeping rough, the busking, the pick-pocketing,
the prostitution, the obstructive and impotent bureaucracy, the
half-hearted policing and the lousy public services continue.
And the fat cats running the City of Rome quietly pocket the cash
which should be earmarked for public services and welfare, turn
their backs on the situation, and instead run a guilt trip on
hard-working citizens of Rome and you the tourist to dig
into your pockets to solve the city’s unemployed and homeless
problem.
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