The US may treat European visitors like vermin (see previous post) but we’re hardly spotless in our attitude towards immigrants, as events in Naples show:
Residents of the former communist stronghold on the northern outskirts of Naples have been raising hell about the camp since Saturday, when a woman claimed a Gypsy girl had entered her flat and tried to steal her baby.
The first Molotov cocktails descended on the improvised huts and cabins on Tuesday evening, after which the 800-odd inhabitants began moving out of the area in groups. On Wednesday the fire-raisers, said to belong to the Camorra, the Neapolitan equivalent of the Mafia, burnt the camp in earnest, watched by applauding local people and unchallenged by the police. When firefighters showed up to douse the blaze, local people taunted and whistled at them. The last Roma moved out under police protection.
Only then did local politicians shed a few crocodile tears: Antonio Bassolino, governor of the Campania region, declaring: “We must stop with the greatest determination these disturbing episodes against the Roma.” Rosa Russo Iervolino, the Mayor of Naples, chimed in: “It is unthinkable that anyone could imagine that I could justify reprisals against the Roma.”
More…
I don’t know enough about the state of Italian politics to say that we’re seeing a surge of modern Mussolini-ism with the reaccession of Berlusconi to the presidency – but it doesn’t half look like it. Crimes committed by Romanians are a hot political issue in Italy:
Since Romania’s accession to the EU this year, the authorities say that over 1,000 Romanian immigrants have arrived in Italy each month.
Since June last year 76 murders have been committed by Romanians.
The mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, says that 75% of arrests for murder, rape and robbery in his city this year can be attributed to Romanians.
Mr Prodi believes Italy is not alone in facing this new wave of crime and he has called on Europe’s home office ministers to meet and find a solution.
The Romanian prime minister has responded by sending police liaison officers to major Italian cities to help.
Of course this is Naples and there’s more to this particular outbreak of violence than just politically organised hatred; Naples is well-known to be a stew of corruption, crime and poverty and the local mafia don’t like rivals. Times are getting harder too, for the worried poor and worried-about-getting-poorer middle classes – where Berlusconi sees his support – who are looking for scapegoats for their troubles. The Roma fit the bill, as has been depressingly usual throughout their peripatetic, outcast history in Europe.
As is also depressingly usual in European history concerted government and police action intended to pander to the political base is fostering a culture of tacit approval for mob violence.
Police in Italy have arrested hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants in raids across the country.
Expulsion orders were issued for several dozen of those detained. More than 100 Italians were also arrested.
One raid was on a makeshift camp housing Roma (Gypsies), on the edge of Rome. Italian concern about immigrant crime has tended to focus on the Roma.The police crackdown was part of a week-long operation in Rome, Naples and northern Italy.
It is an apparent sign of the change of policy promised by the new right-wing government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
.
(Except it isn’t new policy, it was his predecessors’ policy too.)
What is important to remember is that this isn’t a case of plucky litle Italy repelling invading criminal gangs from Fortress Europe’s borders: after all, Romanians are our fellow EU citizens, with theoretically equal status to all other EU citizens, including the right to reside in other EU countries. If other EU member countries were to follow Italy’s example, in light of the spread of the mafia EU-wide we’d be expelling Italian criminals from the capitals of Europe by the planeload and Berlusconi would be complaining about ethnic cleansing – which is essentially what this is, but because it’s Roma, it’s OK.
But the first act of ethnic cleansing in the new Italy passed off with little fuss. Flora Martinelli, the woman who reported the alleged kidnap attempt on her baby, said: “I’m very sorry for what’s happening, I didn’t want it to come to this. But the Gypsies had to go.”
Wasn’t that the refrain of the Good Germans, and the Hutus too?
