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Italy’s unification is contentious because many people trace the country’s current troubles back to the birth of a nation that, they say, was misconceived. In the run-up to the anniversary an effigy of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the great hero of unification (pictured above), a sort of 19th-century Che Guevara but with better politics, was burned in the Veneto region. The Northern League, which governs in coalition with Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in Rome, objected to having a public holiday dedicated to an event that it regards as a catastrophe. Unification, the party argues, yoked the poor, corrupt, lazy south to the go-ahead north to the detriment of both. Garibaldi did not unite Italy, the Northern League is fond of saying he divided Africa.
From the other end of the peninsula the anniversary can look equally bleak. In the 18th century Naples was the third-largest city in Europe after London and Paris. Before being incorporated into Italy it was the capital city of a great monarchy now it is ruled by a clique of inept politicians. These days the city is almost as famous for its stinking mounds of uncollected rubbish as for the bay and the volcano that delighted Goethe and many other visitors before and since. Though the south of Italy benefits from transfers from central government, it does not show much gratitude towards the wealthier northerners, nor enthusiasm for commemorating unification. “Terroni”, a bestselling book by Pino Aprile published last year, compared the northern troops who supposedly liberated the south in the 1860s to the Nazis.

A. 어휘
contentious 논쟁적인. trace 추적하다. current 현재의.
misconceive 잘못 태어나다, 오인하다, 잘못 생각하다.
run-up 멀리 띄기의 도움닫기, 前段階(전단계). effigy 인형, 像(상).
coalition 연합, 提携(제휴), 합동. object 반대하다. dedicate 奉獻(봉헌)하다.
catastrophe 대재앙, 파멸, 破局(파국). yoke 멍에에 매다.
corrupt 부패한. detriment 손해. fond of 좋아하다. peninsula 반도.
bleak 쓸쓸한, 荒凉(황량)한. incorporate 통합하다. monarchy 군주국가, 군주제도.
clique 徒黨(도당). inept 무능한, 부적절한. stinking 惡臭(악취)가 나는.
mound 흙무덤, 산더미. rubbish 쓰레기. bay 灣(만).
delight 기쁘게 하다. transfers 交付金(교부금), 이동. gratitude 감사.
commemorate 기념하다, 축하하다.