O jornal britânico The Observer publica matéria sobre a ascensão da discriminação contra imigrantes na Itália. Citando Jean-Léonard Touadi, membro do parlamento italiano, a matéria afirma inclusive que o espectro do fascismo está assombrando o país.
Black MP in warning to 'racist' Italy
19/10/2008
The spectre of fascism is 'haunting the country' after a spate of attacks on African immigrants
Italy's only black MP has warned of growing racism after a surge in attacks on immigrants across the country.
'Immigrants are becoming the enemy,' said Jean-Léonard Touadi, 49, who was born in Congo and went to Italy in 1979. 'With an economic crisis under way, Italy has found a scapegoat to blame its woes on.'
Touadi, a member of the opposition Values party, spoke out after a spate of assaults on immigrants. In Milan last month Abdul William Guibre, 19, originally from Burkina Faso, was beaten to death in an attack which made headlines across Italy. After accusing Guibre of stealing a packet of biscuits, a bar owner and his son called him a 'dirty black' and set on him with a metal pole.
A Senegalese man selling handbags in a Milan street market was beaten with a baseball bat after stallholders reportedly accused him of 'stealing work from Italians'. Outside Naples, six African migrants were shot dead recently by the local mafia, while in Rome a Chinese immigrant was beaten up by boys as young as 15. A Somalian-born woman claimed that at Rome's Ciampino airport she was strip-searched and verbally abused when going through customs. The government's response to the alleged airport incident was swift. The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, said he would personally sue the woman for lying. 'Between her version and that of the police I would have no doubt about believing the police,' said Senate leader Maurizio Gasparri.
The attacks have come as Italy begins to come to terms with a new generation of black Italians, born to African immigrants who began to arrive in greater numbers towards the end of the 1980s. Milan residents expressed astonishment to reporters when the young blacks who demonstrated after Guibre's murder shouted slogans in thick Milan accents.
One emerging black Italian hero making a name in Milan is 18-year-old Mario Balotelli, tipped by many as a future star of the national football team. Born in Palermo to Ghanaian immigrants, Balotelli is on the books of Inter Milan, champions of Serie A, and is one of the first role models for black Italians. Last week he scored two goals for the Italian under-21 side in a 3-1 victory over Israel.
'There are now Italians here with non-Italian horizons and this is our future,' said Touadi. For the MP, who forged a career in journalism and local politics in Rome before entering parliament this year, the rising number of incidents is linked to the increasingly strident tone of Maroni's party, the anti-immigrant Northern League, which is a linchpin in Silvio Berlusconi's governing coalition.
'The League is pushing discrimination, separation and xenophobia and dragging the government, and with it Italy, towards the systematic violation of human rights,' he said, citing proposals tabled this month by the party which call for the expulsion of legal immigrants who commit a certain number of offences, restrictions on mixed marriages and a new obligation on doctors to report illegal immigrants in their care. Previous moves to expel vagrant Romanians and jail illegal immigrants were challenged last week by the EU.
'For the League, the real problem is not illegal immigration, it's immigration. They need to stop while there is still time,' said Touadi. With legal immigrant numbers rising 17 per cent last year to 3.6 million, Touadi said the spectre of fascism was returning to haunt Italy. 'We've seen Rome taxi drivers chanting "Duce, Duce" at the town hall when the new right-wing mayor was elected this year and now fans with swastikas are following the national football team. Italy will need millions of immigrants to maintain its workforce if birth rates continue to be low, and entire sectors of the economy, like hotels and agriculture, would go under now without them, but the government prefers demagoguery.'
For Touadi, Italians are being led astray by their leaders. 'Italians are better than this, starting from the Catholic tradition of giving support, to the constitution, which emerged from fascism to focus on individual rights, to Italy's own history of emigration.'
The brutal murder of an Italian woman in a Rome back street last year, allegedly by a Romanian immigrant, sparked a backlash against immigrants. 'There has been an increase in crime by immigrants - to ignore that would be false political correctness,' said Touadi. 'But how can the government focus only on them when four regions in southern Italy are controlled by the mafia?'
The mafia, in turn, has become an enthusiastic employer of illegal migrants, using them to sell pirated CDs, fake Prada bags and cocaine.
Touradi said the demonstration for Guibre in Milan brought together second generation Italians from different origins and religions for the first time.
'They will now look for a political role,' he said. 'Their voice enriches Italian culture.'
Pushing Italy towards multiculturalism may not, however, win over Italy's politicians, he warned. 'After the 7/7 bombings in London, politicians claimed the UK was paying for being too tolerant.'
For Touadi, a compromise is in order. 'We need to prevent communities becoming too isolated. In Rome we worked to stop Chinatown becoming wall-to-wall Chinese stores, leaving room for the old Roman shops like the bakery.'
Black MP in warning to 'racist' Italy
19/10/2008
The spectre of fascism is 'haunting the country' after a spate of attacks on African immigrants
Italy's only black MP has warned of growing racism after a surge in attacks on immigrants across the country.
'Immigrants are becoming the enemy,' said Jean-Léonard Touadi, 49, who was born in Congo and went to Italy in 1979. 'With an economic crisis under way, Italy has found a scapegoat to blame its woes on.'
Touadi, a member of the opposition Values party, spoke out after a spate of assaults on immigrants. In Milan last month Abdul William Guibre, 19, originally from Burkina Faso, was beaten to death in an attack which made headlines across Italy. After accusing Guibre of stealing a packet of biscuits, a bar owner and his son called him a 'dirty black' and set on him with a metal pole.
A Senegalese man selling handbags in a Milan street market was beaten with a baseball bat after stallholders reportedly accused him of 'stealing work from Italians'. Outside Naples, six African migrants were shot dead recently by the local mafia, while in Rome a Chinese immigrant was beaten up by boys as young as 15. A Somalian-born woman claimed that at Rome's Ciampino airport she was strip-searched and verbally abused when going through customs. The government's response to the alleged airport incident was swift. The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, said he would personally sue the woman for lying. 'Between her version and that of the police I would have no doubt about believing the police,' said Senate leader Maurizio Gasparri.
The attacks have come as Italy begins to come to terms with a new generation of black Italians, born to African immigrants who began to arrive in greater numbers towards the end of the 1980s. Milan residents expressed astonishment to reporters when the young blacks who demonstrated after Guibre's murder shouted slogans in thick Milan accents.
One emerging black Italian hero making a name in Milan is 18-year-old Mario Balotelli, tipped by many as a future star of the national football team. Born in Palermo to Ghanaian immigrants, Balotelli is on the books of Inter Milan, champions of Serie A, and is one of the first role models for black Italians. Last week he scored two goals for the Italian under-21 side in a 3-1 victory over Israel.
'There are now Italians here with non-Italian horizons and this is our future,' said Touadi. For the MP, who forged a career in journalism and local politics in Rome before entering parliament this year, the rising number of incidents is linked to the increasingly strident tone of Maroni's party, the anti-immigrant Northern League, which is a linchpin in Silvio Berlusconi's governing coalition.
'The League is pushing discrimination, separation and xenophobia and dragging the government, and with it Italy, towards the systematic violation of human rights,' he said, citing proposals tabled this month by the party which call for the expulsion of legal immigrants who commit a certain number of offences, restrictions on mixed marriages and a new obligation on doctors to report illegal immigrants in their care. Previous moves to expel vagrant Romanians and jail illegal immigrants were challenged last week by the EU.
'For the League, the real problem is not illegal immigration, it's immigration. They need to stop while there is still time,' said Touadi. With legal immigrant numbers rising 17 per cent last year to 3.6 million, Touadi said the spectre of fascism was returning to haunt Italy. 'We've seen Rome taxi drivers chanting "Duce, Duce" at the town hall when the new right-wing mayor was elected this year and now fans with swastikas are following the national football team. Italy will need millions of immigrants to maintain its workforce if birth rates continue to be low, and entire sectors of the economy, like hotels and agriculture, would go under now without them, but the government prefers demagoguery.'
For Touadi, Italians are being led astray by their leaders. 'Italians are better than this, starting from the Catholic tradition of giving support, to the constitution, which emerged from fascism to focus on individual rights, to Italy's own history of emigration.'
The brutal murder of an Italian woman in a Rome back street last year, allegedly by a Romanian immigrant, sparked a backlash against immigrants. 'There has been an increase in crime by immigrants - to ignore that would be false political correctness,' said Touadi. 'But how can the government focus only on them when four regions in southern Italy are controlled by the mafia?'
The mafia, in turn, has become an enthusiastic employer of illegal migrants, using them to sell pirated CDs, fake Prada bags and cocaine.
Touradi said the demonstration for Guibre in Milan brought together second generation Italians from different origins and religions for the first time.
'They will now look for a political role,' he said. 'Their voice enriches Italian culture.'
Pushing Italy towards multiculturalism may not, however, win over Italy's politicians, he warned. 'After the 7/7 bombings in London, politicians claimed the UK was paying for being too tolerant.'
For Touadi, a compromise is in order. 'We need to prevent communities becoming too isolated. In Rome we worked to stop Chinatown becoming wall-to-wall Chinese stores, leaving room for the old Roman shops like the bakery.'
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