On August 5th Rome’s Mayor Gianni Alemanno has proposed that all graffiti artists should remove their own work from the walls of the city. He’s also in the midst of urging the Italian government do pass a law to do the same across the country. Italy aren’t exactly known for their well behaved governance, apart from the widespread corruption, and we’re not talking British standards of corruption, some of their leaders have screwed over the country for millions, then there’s the Mafia, I mean if there’s anything that Italy should be cracking down on in the 21st Century it has to be the Scorcese-inspiring crime syndicate that has there fingers in just about every political pizza pie.

Still, if they can keep the walls clean then the tourists won’t realise exactly what’s going on and they can continue on marching around the Vatican, punting along the filthy canals of Venice and dropping their jaws at the prices of fashion in Milan. The fact is that graffiti is usually indicative of a social problem, or in the case of Italy a vast network of social problems. If you don’t stamp out corruption in business and government, and if you stop graffiti artists telling the people how it is, then the people, eventually, suffer. Political graffiti has a long and respected tradition in much of Europe and the world at large. In Italy you can find ancient "scratchings" on most of their most famous of monuments.

Right from the word go much of big business and political organisations have been in cahoots, they share a common goal and that is simply to pull the wool over the yes of the people. If the government says we’re coming out of an economic recession, and business agrees with them, the fool on the street is more likely to shell out more of their hard-earned money on crap. That’s how the economy runs, that’s just how the plutocracy rolls, they need stooges to do their bidding, and their prepared to spend every minute of the day making sure the lies they tout become the accepted truth amongst the majority of their customers/citizens.

Strangely enough in March 2009 the graffiti in Siliguri, India was banned by their Election Commission. Communist/Marxist leader of the CPM party was quoted as saying "With this type of ban, I think they are trying to curtail the democratic rights of the people who want to express their thoughts through wall graffiti. So I think this is not fair from their part because this is also one way to express the thoughts of the people".

The Italian Parliament amended its Public Safety Bill earlier this year, because of course graffiti is physically dangerous for all passers-by, their new law states that graffiti writers caught for a second offence face a possible jail term of between 6 months and 2 years and fines ranging from 1500 to 10000 Euros. Now, let me think about this, In the UK it costs approximately £37,500 per year to keep a prisoner locked up, then there’s the cost of building new prisons which reaches into the tens of millions at the very least. If Italy find themselves with hundreds of thousands of graffiti writers in jail it will probably ruin their economy for good, because after all, for the most part, imprisonment doesn’t solve the social problems that engender most crimes. Still it’s cheaper than building social housing, schools and other facilities needed for a decent standard of life for many of those left stranded by the 21st century Capitalist system of greed and avarice. If the politicians didn’t enter the arena for the sake of money and power we might all feel our respective countries are being led by decent people, perhaps even role models. But this won’t happen, decency and power don’t mix, in fact as the old saying goes, "Power Corrupts".

Italy’s Youth Minister Giorgia Meloni said recently she has started talking to the most important figures of Italian ’street art’ on how to solve the problem and differentiate between artists and vandals. The provision of public spaces will go some way to improving relations, however think about it, how often will the government allow subversive political street art and graffiti to be viewed by the public? It’s a whitewash, in more ways than one. The fact that she needs to ask shows she’s the wrong person for the job, why not try electing someone who knows jot about youth culture, or even culture for a start? Surveys have shown that for the majority of Italian youngsters graffiti represents a form of art and not an act of vandalism. So here’s her dilemma, first off some street art in Rome and next some political graffiti.

Street Art in Rome

Political Graffiti in Rome

First off the visual differences are striking, the examples of street art have some artistic merit, the graffiti has none. However badly written the graffiti, there’s no getting away from the fact that it is indeed graffiti. But beyond the surface there’s the message, the street art is slightly subversive in two of the images, but in general the message is rather vague. Whilst the examples of graffiti shown are citing political opinions in a medium and manner uncontrolled by any governmental body. If a corrupt party is elected into government and the people have no power to oust them they will vent their frustrations, they will urge others to vote for the opposition, or worse.

Street art can achieve this too, and far more effectively in many cases, but to use the criticism of art technique to differentiate reduces the power of democracy to little more than a corporate sideshow. I can understand why many would rather the walls were clean, the people content, and the government incorruptible, but being one who lives in the real world, I can assure you society doesn’t work that way. Those in power enforce their individual and for the most part extremist views under the guise of reform, the wealthy want nothing more than to protect the value of their assets, and the poor, well the poor have no say at all, they are little more than political fodder, fed lies as and when required to make up the numbers.

I’m not advocating vandalism, or inane tagging, I’m simply pointing out a powerful correlation between street art and graffiti and the right to freedom of speech. Perhaps the Italians and all of us will need to lose this most fundamental right before a majority of us realise just how important it is.

Tags: freedom of speech, graffiti Rome, political graffiti, street art Rome

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