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What’s Going On In Italy?

Posted by JEB KOOGLER in Uncategorized.
Jun 9th, 2008 | Comments

Blogger Matt Eckel writes about a disturbing shift in Italian politics:

Anyone taking a passing glance at European political trends in the past few months might be prompted to ask, along with Alex Harrowell, ‘what’s going on in Italy?’ Harrowell amplifies the considerable angst expressed by the Guardian’s Martin Jacques over some of the cultural touchstones that accompanied recent Italian elections. Rome, which has not had a conservative mayor since Italian fascism collapsed in 1943, has elected Gianni Alemanno, a Berlusconi ally who ran on a vociferously anti-immigrant platform, to lead the city’s government. At Alemanno’s victory rally, his supporters gave the Roman salute while evoking Mussolini, shouting, “Duce! Duce! Duce!”

The shift to the nationalist – detractors would say xenophobic – right played out nationally as well, putting Berlusconi in power at the head of a coalition that includes the regionalist and virulently anti-immigrant, as well as the National Alliance, which descends directly from the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement.

Read the full article here.

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Lynx

Reading the article it seems that the author is willing to lay blame on anti-immigrant feelings pretty much everywhere BUT the immigrants themselves.
I grew up in the US and know how hard it is to come to terms with the fact that there really are groups that act different, no matter how afraid teachers told you to be of saying so out loud. The Romanian gypsies that are the target of Italian ire are not so because of the color of their skin, but the content of their very-lacking character. Criminality is sky-high with this populace; drug running, arms dealing, petty theft, grand theft, violent break-ins at homes, kidnapping, beatings and the staw that broke the camels back, baby snatching.
The violent uprising after the attempted baby theft wasn't an overreaction to an isolated incident, it was the release of long contained anger and frustration at feeling helpless before people who just arrived and seem determined to make life impossible.
In a way there IS a lot of blame to lay at the feet of government. The romanian gypsies (called gitano-rumanos in Spain, to differentiate them from our own gypsies, who are almost saints by comparison) act the way they do because of a deeply ingrained culture and an unstructured homeland. But the Italian (and other European) governments should know better. Instead of being hard on crime and understanding with the frustrations of citizens, they declared the groups pitiful victims and anyone objecting a vile racist, and through their inaction allowed the problem to get bigger and bigger.

If the far right comes back in Europe and makes a total mess of things it will be the fault of more moderate governments not having the testicular fortitude to do what was necessary in time.

runasim

Lynx.
Are you saying that crimes are not investigated and procecuted if they originate with or entail these gypsies?
If so, then I would agree.

If not so, then this woudl be an example of trying to preserve core principles (a system of laws and individual protections) in the face of threats to stability and order.
Can you punish the whole group and still preserve core values?.
In the US, such thinking led to torture and warrantless wiretapping., still hotly debated topics.

It's not so easy to find the right place where to draw the line.

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