In Sicily, many people openly display their Christian belief by putting up images or statutes of Jesus or Mary next to their front door:
The neighbour at number 59 counters with a completely different but equally public profession of faith:
(Both photos were taken in Syracuse in Sicily.)
The Happy Hermit 
LMFAO! Down with trousers and up with skirts! Up the workers!
That is the most poorly sprayed hammer and sickle I have ever seen.
It’s the thought and the intention that count.
Very true. In fact, a poorly sprayed Hammer and Sickle clearly eschews bourgeois demands for decent art.
Avanti o popolo, alla riscossa
bandiera rossa, bandiera rossa
one can not deny that the communist movement inspired some song writers and composers to write good music.
regards Michael
That is very interesting…
‘Hooray hooray the first of May, outdoor loving starts today,
the working class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the foreman’s job at last
and when I get my annual pay, I’ll take a Spanish holiday.
Hooray hooray the first of May, outdoor loving starts today!’
Up the workers!
To be sung to the tune of The Red Flag.
(‘Loving’ wasn’t the original word used…)
I heard this as a child in the East End of London and have never forgotten it lol!
If anyone knows more lyrics please post.
Being from India, I’m always used to seeing niches filled with paintings and statues of various local deities. What stumped me was when I was visiting Pompeii and I saw that the walls of the ancient houses there had campaign slogans for elections such as “Vote for X” painted on the walls- 2000 years ago! I am sure this is a basic human tendency that has persisted down the ages!
And it’s also interesting that there was at least a basic form of democracy in Greece and Rome 2000 years ago and that it then disappeared and only took root again in the 19th century, and in Italy even interrupted by Fascism.
I have not yet been to Pompeii, but I will visit it soon because I will move from Sicily to mainland Italy next month.
Absolutely- I was completely astounded when I was reading about the mechanism of government in Republican Rome- it was quite sophisticated (maybe not adapted to governing the ever larger state it was becoming). And then things went down and back up again. Of course their definition of democracy extended only to a certain segment of the population- namely elite citizen male.
Pompeii is magnificent! You can spend many days just wandering about. Herculaneum is great too though much more compact (and in some cases better preserved).