Roma in Italy: "We are not maggots"

Submitted by martin on 22 April, 2009 - 10:29 Author: Hugh McWilliams

“Rome and Italy today are responsible for a racial segregation unique in the west” (La Republica).

On 30 March the Guardian carried an editorial “Italy Fascism’s Shadow”, commenting on the merger of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia with Gianfranco Fini's ex-neo-fascist Alleanza Nationale party, pointing out how, alone of the former axis powers, post-war Italy had never completely confronted its fascist past and concluding that despite the efforts of Fini to distance it from that legacy it remained tainted by that tradition.

But it takes a remarkable dose of liberal naivity — or cynicism? — to imply that Berlusconi’s part in this exercise was some kind of fall from some hitherto democratic credentials. He is the notoriously ruthless billionaire monopolist of a lying propaganda empire, a convicted criminal associate of the mafia and a one time member of the secret post-war “shadow goverment” of the masonic P2, responsible over three decades for “counter insurgency” murders and bombings, including the massacre at Bologna railway station in 1981!

The real cause for shame in Italy today is much more to do with the fulminating cancerous growth of racial intolerance, abuse, and orchestrated violence by the forces of the state, fascists, and the rash of vigilante committees which have sprung up among larger sections of Italian society, aimed particularly at Romanian immigrants, the Roma population, Africans and foreigners in general.

Such a situation is a potential disaster for the working-class struggle in Italy at the moment, when in the depth of economic crisis, the fight to unite all workers against the system that breeds inequality, can be the only road to salvation from an even worse outcome.

Although the first signs of open expression of racist sentiment emerged around the turn of this century, it had been a relatively unfocused xenophobic staple of Northern League propaganda against foreigners in general (including Italians!) who physically or “spiritually” didn’t belong to the fantasy land of Bossi’s “Padania” — a deranged confection of the northern Italian provinces along the Po river valley.

But as the early effects of the approaching economic crisis first manifested themselves, the League abruply changed register, tone and focus, demagogically and violently singling out the immigrant population as a threat to law and order of their towns and cities... places that historically have been the most prosperous regions of an otherwise enfeebled capitalism.

Thousands of immigrants had found work there, legal or illegal, in the thousands of small and medium sized enterprises. With the abject performance of the Prodi government, the scene was set for what has been described as the most racist election campaign since the war (Italian elections were held in spring 2008).

The outcome was inevitable, and the massive increase in the vote for the Northern League among the working class voters of the northern and eastern regions signalled the extent of the defeat. A feeling of paranoia pervaded the country, with centre-left strongholds like Florence, Genoa, Bologna joining in the racist frenzy to cleanse their cities of the threat of the “mounting crime waves”. More and more vigilante committees appeared, and the demands to drive the Roma population and other immigrants from the makeshift “homes” these persecuted poverty stricken peoples have been forced to build under bridges and flyovers.

Following a horrific rape and murder in Rome by a Romanian (many Italians have been duped into believing that the latter and the Roma people are the same i.e. all “gypsies”), a crazed crowd of locals attacked and set fire to a camp of the Roma; a pitched battle ensued, resulting in hundreds of families once more fleeing in search of shelter further and further out in the desert of the periphery of Rome.

The newly elected ex-young-fascist mayor of Rome announced a hue and cry campaign to clean up the city and empty the camps, forcing the immigrants into one of the 53 enclosed camps that dot the Roman littoral. (There are 340 in all in Italy. Italy is the only country in Europe that, in spite of the persecution and annihilation of the Roma in the Nazi camps, still demands the enclosure of a people 70% of whom are Italian citizens descended from people living in Italy from the 13th century.)

The camps to which they are condemned to exist are like army barracks, surveilled 24 hours a day, with exit and entry controlled by resident permit, work permit, passport, identity card. The gates are locked at 10pm for everyone. Many have no heat or light, none have drinking water nor sewers. Many are not accessed by bus routes and those that are require long walks. Many schools are only accessible by special coaches, requiring long journeys and late arrival in school with early departure. The cold and stark language of statistics speak of the consequences of the inhuman condition the Roma and other Slav immigrants suffer.

In Rome, the epicentre of Roma life in Italy, there are 16,000-20,000 Roma. Only one of those registered is over 80. Of the 13,000 Roma children in Rome, 2,500 attend school. Only two go to a high school, none has ever graduated, nor has any member of the Roma ever been offered a normal house of bricks and mortar.

The onset of economic crisis makes matters worse. Without income one cannot renew the residency permit, nor guarantee the children’s citizenship. The price of scrap iron has fallen drastically, and to beg is now a crime.

But the Roma have had enough! “We are not maggots, though they treat us as such” says one of the organisers of a demonstration in Rome. The support and solidarity of the Italian left and workers’ movement is the best way to demonstrate that the rot that has led to the present critical situation is over and that a united working class fightback can begin in Italy.

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