The ancient magnificence of the Coliseum, the exquisite beauty of the Trevi Fountain, the lights of Rome at Christmas, the kindness and generosity of the Sicilian people, the beauty of the Amalfi coast, the Aeolian Islands and the Florence, where the stones breath life and history embraces you, these are the things that made me fall in love with Italy. Italy, where the ambulance, anesthesia, cloning, glass mirrors invented by the Romans, the radio, the first working telephone, all Italian inventions, are used in America and around the world. While I agree, Italy is mired in bureaucracy, something they have been perfecting for two-thousand-years, this is a country that also gave us the genius of Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Galileo, Socrates. I have read comments calling Italy backward, a third-world country, presumably by people who have never had the opportunity to experience the world beyond their windows. The Renaissance awakened the world. It saddens me that the supporters of Amanda Knox, mainly Americans from a country barely five-hundred-years-old, spew vitriolic as hot and poisonous as the lava that flows from Mount Aetna, against Italy, its judicial system, its people. These are misinformed people that clearly know little of Italy, of its customs, its treasures, perhaps little of the world in general.
I lived in Italy for five years and called Palermo, Rome, Florence and other places home and I embraced the Italian language, Italy. There is no anti-Anglo here. At least I never experienced it. I always found the police to be as calm, patient, tolerant and as respectful as is possibly imaginable. Aggression and rudeness is just not their modus operandi. That’s why, when I read that Knox claimed the police hit her in her head, I laughed. Not likely. Reportys of twenty-five police officers tag-teaming her. Ridiculous.
The Amanda Knox saga saddens me, on all fronts. A beautiful, clever young woman, Meredith, came to this magnificent country, to embrace it, and lost her life in the most horrific of ways, and her family suffer that loss every day. Amanda Knox and Raffaelle Sollecito and their families suffer, but it is the destiny of their doing. The lies perpetuated in Knox’s and Sollecito’s book saddens me. All the misinformation about the trials, the prosecutors, plucks at my heart. I question why these gullible people believe the words of a convicted liar and murderer? What kind of people take this at face value, what kind of people never take the time to read the documents? Why? Is it easier to jump on the bandwagon or are these people of such low I.Q. that they cannot process the information? This case is one massive jigsaw puzzle, most of which the pieces have not been revealed to the US public, each piece fitting together and pointing directly at Knox and Sollecito.
Now they turn on each other, as I always predicted they would. Now, in light of her ‘new evidence’ and pointing the finger at Sollecito, she at the very least has committed herself to being an accessory to murder. It’s also a crime in Italy not to assist someone in need. So, being there and doing nothing to assist her ‘friend’ does not fare well for Ms. Knox. The little matter of her DNA on the knife puts holes in her accusation but at least she is cracking. Only a matter of time before the entire house of cards comes tumbling down.
From what I know of Italy and the extradition treaty, I predict, without doubt, that Ms. Knox will be extradited. Italy and Perugia would have been better off if this young woman had never set foot on its shores.
R.I.P Meredith. Gone, but never forgotten.