Italian hospitality for the visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has stretched to covering up nude statues.
Mr Rouhani and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi spoke at Rome’s Capitoline Museum after Italian firms signed business deals with Iran.
But several nudes there were hidden to avoid offending the Iranian president.
So would the Iranians adopt a similarly sensitive approach to visiting Italian dignitaries?Answer on a pinhead, please. If the Iranian president is offended by statues of unclothed human bodies, that is his problem and he should get over it, sharpish. He is in Italy and should expect to adapt to Italian ways, after all. But, no, the Italians have gone all dhimmi and appease these backwards arseholes.
Italy also chose not to serve wine at official meals, a gesture France, where Mr Rouhani travels next, has refused to copy.
Oh, well, at least the French are showing some backbone. Rouhani is not obliged to drink the wine. If the locals do and he doesn’t like it, then too bad.
Of course, it is entirely possible that he isn’t offended and the offence is being taken on his behalf, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
yawn….
Nothing could hold a candle to Muammar Ghaddafi’s last official visit to Rome which I watched on Libyan state TV. I got tea all down the front of my T-shirt.
He had a bunch of white tents, his girl bodyguards in fatigues / sunglasses and a truly operatic white uniform festooned with gold braid + medals + sashes that simply out-Italianed any Italian evah…
It was epic – the bit that made me spray my tea and hoot was when there was a buddy-up photo-op in the encampment with Silvio – who looked utterly terrified / scared rigid + eyeing escape routes.
The Italians always were surrender monkeys.
Yep, it’s a little known fact that the Roman Empire armies did not contain a single Italian. Or did they spend 800 years surrendering?
They’re Italians. This is not a country that’s big on giving a shit what others think of it, hence Berlusconi and his many hangers-on. They’ve also had over sixty-odd years of coalition governments, so compromise and pragmatism are much more common.
It’s like the USA, only without the power, influence and politics of ignorance, so nobody cares that they’re setting up oil deals with Iran. Which is what this farce was all about.
Italians are also not big on that whole multiculturalism / melting pot thing, but their politicians are more than happy to pretend to be into it if it helps them put some deals together. Getting cheap oil is a lot more important than highlighting the fragile the minds and lack of self control of visiting dignitaries who also happen to have you over a barrel.
Diplomacy: it’s war without all that messy bloodletting.
To a certain extent I agree with Sean about diplomacy. The problem is that when it comes to this kind of thing it is always a one way street. The story has also been covered by the Freethinker.
http://freethinker.co.uk/2016/01/27/have-we-got-nudes-for-you-no-mr-president-rouhani/
I wrote this yesterday but for some reason it didn’t appear. I lived in Iran until the revolution and they had a great wine and vodka industry, it was never a dry country before Khomeni. The wine was very good too and the vodka, I remember asking for two vodkas in a restaurant and we got a bottle and two glasses. Then is was only 70p a bottle.
It’s there. Just on a different post.