After the Regata, Today

Pattern and Setting: Out and About Today

13 Views of Two Different Kinds of Demonstrations from Yesterday's Anti-Cruise Ship Rally

The wall of police not only meant that demonstrators couldn't enter Piazza San Marco via the Piazzetta, but that tourists couldn't get out that way either

"Venice is just a series of stage sets!" declares nearly everyone at some point during their first extended visit to Venice, either to themselves, silently, or to their co-travelers, or, often enough, in print.

Yesterday's rally calling for the end of cruise ship traffic anywhere in the already-strained ecosystem of the Venetian lagoon ultimately came down to a question of who would be allowed to act in the city's most famous, and historically significant set: Piazza San Marco.

Thousands of anti-cruise ship activists outfitted themselves for their role, with flags, banners, placards, and printed T-shirts, and Venice's law enforcement (over 200 of them, according to local reports) came dressed for theirs, with helmets, shields, and body armor. Dressed to impress, some might say--or suppress, as others might put it.

It was a lively but peaceful rally; I saw no indication in the lead-up to it that anyone was planning for it to be anything else. There were no reported conflicts or incidents, nor any hint of vandalism. City authorities were obviously determined to demonstrate a certain point by preventing the march from concluding in Piazza San Marco with such a show of force. But in their sheer numbers demonstrators made their own point by filling the space made available to them along the molo at water's edge. 

A nearly 180 degree panorama of the waterfront between the Biblioteca Marciana (at far right) and the Palazzo Ducale (far left)

"Galan, Zaia, Brugnaro: Unworthy,"

Police in Full Riot Gear Block an Anti-Cruise Ship Rally from Entering Piazza San Marco, This Afternoon

Given the fact that there have been a few reported instances in the last year or two of a solitary painter (who was only painting, not displaying or trying to sell work) being told by local police to pack up his easel and vacate Piazza San Marco, there was little chance that what turned out to be thousands of demonstrators against the continued presence of cruise ships in the Venetian lagoon would be allowed to conclude their planned procession this afternoon in the city's most famous public space. 

But that didn't stop the immense and very vocal crowd from trying.

Their march began late this afternoon near the San Basilio Cruise Terminal, at the western end of the Zattere, where an out-of-control 60-ton cruise ship rammed into a moored (and much smaller) river boat cruise ship last Sunday. Chanting and singing, the demonstators made their way through the city, then past the Giardini Reali to the molo, where they were met by a line of blue: scores of polizia and carabinieri in full riot gear arrayed shoulder-to-shoulder from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, to the columns of San Teodoro and San Marco, and on to the Palazzo Ducale.

Prevented from entering Piazza San Marco, the rally calling for an end to all cruise ship traffic in the lagoon took place in front of the Palazzo Ducale, as you can see in the image above.

Venice's Questura (or police) estimated the crowd of demonstrators to be 5,000. Considering there are now less than 53,000 residents in Venice--25% of whom are elderly--that would be in itself a huge number. But I think that photographs and film taken along the path of the march will show that the actual number of participants was much larger. Perhaps much much larger. One news outlet puts the number of demonstrators at 8,000. Another has estimated 10,000.

I'll post more images tomorrow.

Water and Shade

The Wedding Is Off: Cruise Ship Crashes into River Boat and Dock, This Morning

Long-delayed near the mouth of the lagoon while crews addressed this morning's first cruise ship crash, a second cruise ship on its way to dock at Tronchetto passes the wreckage of the riverboat in the Giudecca Canal this afternoon

Today the traditional Festa della Sensa was scheduled to be celebrated: a re-enactment of the ancient annual ceremony in which the Doge, standing aboard his golden barge the Bucintoro and surrounded by dignitaries in other boats, threw a gold ring into the Adriatic, symbolizing Venice's marriage to (and dominion over) the sea.

Of course, Venice ain't what it used to be way back when, and its relationship to the sea has also changed. Long gone are the days when the Republic's fleet of merchant ships and galleys ventured far out to sea and returned from far-flung ports with treasure; gone, too, are the more modest fleets of fishing boats which in much more recent times plied the Adriatic.

These days, Venice is a much more passive recipient of crude oil and, of course, tourists, and it was one of the massive cruise ships carrying the latter which caused the cancellation of today's planned festivities when it plowed into a docked river boat alongside the western reaches of the Zattere, injuring five people.

The Youtube videos of the crash are remarkable, with people screaming and trying to flee the docked riverboat before the immense cruise ship crushes it: BIG SHIP CRASH

There is even one taken from onboard the cruise ship itself as it bears down upon the idle riverboat: VENICE Cruise ship crashing into pier in Venice

For many many years opponents of the ever-increasing number of cruise ships coming into Venice have warned of just such an accident, imagining the damage that could be done to the Palazzo Ducale, for example.

But the cruise industry, and those politicians who do its bidding, have consistently assured worried Venetians that each monster ship is leashed to two stout tug boats as it makes it way along the historic city. With one such tug in front of it, and another following it, they assured us--in spite of instances to the contrary--that a cruise ship could never possibly stray too far toward the fondamente of the city. The mighty tugs would always be there to keep it in line.

The two video links above demonstrate this claim was nothing but a false assurance, a useful fiction; quite simply, a lie. The two tug boats in the video appear completely powerless to alter the course of the cruise ship.

Predictably, the cruise ship industry and those who do its bidding, such as Venice's mayor--in other words, the very same people who assured us that no such accident could ever possibly happen in the first place--have seized upon this accident as proof that the controversial re-dredging of a deep water channel through the lagoon that would allow cruise ships to come to Venice's port via Marghera (rather than through the city center) must start immediately.

Or, in other words, now that the danger and damage of which those opposed to cruise ships in the lagoon have long warned has actually come to pass, Venice has no choice but to immediately begin to dredge a canal whose dangers and damages have also been well-documented by the same people who warned against the possibility of an occurrence like today's.

This rather shocking argument (in which deceit and incompetence are put forth as virtues) is surprisingly common these days in both my native land of America as well as in Italy (not to mention the UK). The basic absurd thrust of which is as follows: Yes, we have lied to you and we have failed you; the things our opponents have warned against have actually come to pass; which is precisely why you should give us full authority to incompetently and greedily pursue our next even more dubious endeavor.

In truth, cruise ships are not only a problem for Venice and its lagoon. Yes, in Venice their 24-hour emissions while they are in port are partly responsible for the city having particularly bad and unhealthy air quality, and the proposed deep water channel to be dredged for them will, among other ill effects, lead to more frequent and more intense acqua alta.

But they are actually a disaster wherever they go, dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of fecal waste into the Mediterranean sea each year, and emitting more black carbon than any other big ships (see graphic below, measured in tons).

from the International Council on Clean Transportation report on black carbon emissions in global shipping, 2015

Indeed, as the short film entitled "Apologia Mediterraneo" by artist Newton Harrison in the current show Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society Has the Capacity to Destroy: Mare Nostrum (Complesso della Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Penitenti, Fondamenta di Cannaregio 910) makes abundantly clear, humankind's own "marriage" to the Mediterranean Sea has become an abusive one, which is quite literally killing it (among the facts cited: total fish population has dropped 65% and is still dropping; in the course of their 9,000 annual trips across its surface, tankers legally release 40 million gallons of oil into it each year in tank washing operations).

As long as Venice's authorities continue to ignore the damage their policies inflict upon not only upon the lagoon but upon the Mediterranean, maybe it's time to entirely discontinue the traditional "marriage to the sea." The marriage was always one-sided anyway, with the Venetian Republic offering neither to love nor cherish its "betrothed," but simply to exploit.

We know the effects of such irresponsible exploitation now, just as we know the damaging effects of cruise ship travel, both in Venice and on the Mediterranean--and those who continue to support such exploitation and such travel might more accurately represent their relationship to the sea, and to Venice itself, with a funeral rather than a wedding.

Out and About at Noon Today: 5 Views

A gelato in one hand, a GPS app in the other--in Venice only one of these is worth bothering with 

Of the trio of pests which are prone to suddenly swoop down upon a formerly pleasant lunch outdoors in Venice, certain street musicians are every bit as disruptive, and much more persistent, than the hungriest pigeon or seagull

"Discover a new point of view" it says--but I actually preferred the old one, without the huge gaudy advertising billboard in Campo San Salvador obscuring the facade of the Scuola Grande of San Teodoro, not to mention the billboard (not pictured) that has become a permanent fixture of nearby Campo San Bartolomio (ie, the degradation of Venice continues apace under the admirable guidance of its mayor G. Brugnaro)