Italy’s Creative Approach to Counterterrorism

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi speaks to the media after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Germany, on July 1, 2015. The two leaders discussed the Greek debt crisis and Europe's refugee situation, among other issues. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The announcement earlier last week that the Italian government will match any new spending on new counterterrorism measures with spending on arts and culture seems to have come and gone by without much comment. This is a pity, for the initiative is noteworthy both for its originality and for the justification that lies behind it.

The money, just over 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), will be focused on cultural initiatives in fringe and immigrant neighborhoods in large urban centers. Additionally, every 18-year-old in the country will be given a voucher of 500 euros ($550) to spend on cultural activities such as concerts and theatrical productions. It is thus targeted at what are perceived to be the demographic and geographic centers of anti-Western sentiment within Italian society.

They imagine terror, we answer with culture.

— Minister Matteo Renzi,
prime minister, Italy

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi justified his decision by declaring, “What happened in Paris signaled a step-up in the cultural battle that we are living. They imagine terror, we answer with culture. They destroy statues, we love art. They destroy books, we are the country of libraries.”

His argument was reminiscent of a well-known Internet meme that quotes Britain’s war-time leader Winston Churchill’s response to a proposition that arts funding should be cut in favor of the war effort against Nazi Germany. Churchill’s retort was, “Then what are we fighting for?”

As it happens, this quotation is a fake. But the fact that it continues to be circulated on social media suggests that for very many of us, it expresses a sentiment that we nevertheless hold to be true. When it comes down to it, it is our cultural life, not our technological, economic, or military prowess, that defines, inspires, and unites us, essential although the former aspects of our society may be for our quotidian existence.

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