Suicide of an Italian Lecturer Hits Hard
In November, Sigrid M. killed herself.
She taught German at the University of Trieste. She, like I, was a member of a small group of about 1,400 foreigners who teach languages at Italian universities.
When I taught in Italy, every non-Italian language lecturer in the country was on a fixed-term contract. Then, a few years ago, the Italian government summarily reclassified all of the non-Italian foreign language lecturers as language technicians. The legislature did this in response to a lawsuit brought by a lecturer named Pillar Allué. She sued the Italian government for issuing native Italian foreign language lecturers open-ended contracts while forcing non-natives to accept fixed-term contracts. Thanks to the reclassification, foreign lecturers’ pay (already low) was slashed and their earned seniority disappeared, among other humiliations.
I adore Italy; I consider it my second home. I have my famiglia italiana (Italian family) who wait for me and my family to visit them in Rome every few years. In between times, we send e-mails, letters and phone at those odd hours when someone should really be asleep. They joke and quiz me about American politics, and I rib them mercilessly about their Prime Minister and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi.
In my opinion and experience, Italians strive to be incredibly accommodating and fair-minded. This is why I just can’t understand why the Italian Education Minister hasn’t simply accepted the findings of the European Court of Justice (that Italy does, indeed, discriminate against non-Italian language lecturers). It is so utterly unItalian. Italians are phobic about making a brutta figura (bad impression). If sending a big che ce ne fregga (picture pad of thumb against bottom of top front teeth and said thumb flicked out) to the European Court of Justice isn’t a brutta figura, nothing is.
If I am perplexed, I am so from a distance. Sigrid had worked for many years in the middle of a system that was patently unfair and unjust. The lecturers had won every one of their court cases. The Rectors (Presidents) of several Italian universities, in response, had decided to award their lecturers back pay, open-ended contracts and the lecturer title. The Rectors of other institutions, Sigrid’s included, opted to play major league hardball along with the government, and have refused to budge.
According to an open letter Sigrid’s husband sent to the Rector of her university, the injustice of her employment conditions weighed heavily on her mind. In the end, the humiliation was just too much to bear, and Sigrid killed herself.
Her death has hit the community of foreign lecturers in Italy extremely hard. At the University of Palermo, in Sicily, a lecturer there planned to distribute 500 copies of the open letter.
Giorgio, Sigrid’s husband, wrote that Sigrid loved her job and her students. He also wrote to the Rector that, even though Sigrid was incredibly depressed at times, she never let it interfere with her teaching. That is what Italians call making a bella figura (good impression). Maybe Sigrid’s death will be the push Rectors at universities throughout Italy need to make their own belle figure. Magari (One can only hope).—P.D. Lesko
