National Identity and Immigration: the Case of Italy
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenGrey Repository National Identity and Immigration: The Case of Italy Submitted by Eva Garau for the degree of PhD of the University of Bath 7 June 2010 Attention is drawn that to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with its author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purpose of consultation. __________________________________ Acknowledgments This thesis wouldn’t have been possible without my family, who supported me over the many years I have spent writing it. I would like to thank them for accepting my emigration, for encouraging me and for taking me seriously every time I called them to say I was close to submission. I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisors Anna Bull and Roger Eatwell, who have been fundamental in my understanding of the subject and supportive from the initial to the final level of this process. I would like to thank the Italian section, particularly my mentor Adalgisa Giorgio for her guidance and Jacqueline Andall for her comments and her inspiring work. I would like to show my gratitude to all the administrative staff, particularly Vanessa Callard. I am deeply grateful to Karoline von Oppen, for her generosity, patience and support while I was struggling to write this thesis and when I would rather go to the pub. Finally I need to thank Marina Falbo who emigrated first and convinced me to follow her, as planned during our evenings on my balcony, 15 years ago. This thesis is dedicated to my grandmother Laura Garau, who was my greatest supporter. Abstract The thesis sets out to examine the debate on national identity and immigration in Italy. It analyses whether Italy, in reacting to immigration, is following any classic model of integration of foreign citizens following the example of countries such as Britain and France, or whether it has developed an alternative long-term strategy more adequate to its own situation. It also questions whether the debate on immigration has triggered a discussion on the renegotiation of the meaning of national identity, in order to make it more inclusive of minority identities within the country. The thesis traces the debate as it emerges in the public sphere. It identifies the main actors involved, and analyses the rhetoric used by the leading voices to put forward their respective views and claims. It aims at providing a picture of the discussion within each group as well as investigating the relationship between different actors, their alliances and the dissent they express. The role of three main actors taking part in the discussion is explored in detail, namely Italian intellectuals, the Catholic Church and the Northern League. It addresses their role in shaping public opinion and influencing the state policy-making on immigration. Through the final analysis of Italian legislation, the thesis concludes that Italy is moving towards the construction of a highly exclusive identity, where the idea of integration does not feature. Table of contents Introduction.........................................................................................................................1 1. From a country of emigration to a country of immigration……………………………...1 2. The debate on identity and justice: liberalism v. Communitarianism..............................12 3. Assimilation and multiculturalism....................................................................................19 Chapter I: Italian intellectuals and the debate on National identity.............................26 1. Introduction…………………………………………...………………………………...26 2. The role and crisis of the intellectual……………………...............................................29 3. The revival of the discussion on Italianness…………………………………………….36 4. Military defeat and the Resistance: the end of a shared memory……………………….43 5. The ambiguity of political parties after the war…………………………………………52 6. The influence of political factors on the Italian debate on national identity …………...56 7. The role of political sub-cultures in the Northern League’s rise to power……………...59 8. The debate on the influence of immigration on Italian identity………………………...63 9. Italian journalists and the debate on immigration……………………………….……...69 10. Italian philosophers: unheard voices…………………………………………………..72 11. Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………75 Chapter II: The Catholic Church and the debate on national identity and immigration.........................................................................................................................80 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..80 2. The general debate on religion and its impact on politics………………………………84 3. Universal aspiration and its formal limits: the relationship between State and Church…………………………………………………………………………………..97 4. From Ratzinger to Biffi: a comparative analysis of the Catholic Church’s interventions on identity and immigration………………………………………………...................102 5. The first reactions to Biffi’s pastoral note……………………………………………..119 6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..133 Chapter III: The Northern League and the debate on identity and immigration.......................................................................................................................137 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………137 2. Ethnic identities in the era of globalization……………………………………………140 3. From local movement to national party: a brief account of the League’s rise to power…………………………………………………………………………………..146 4. A racist party?................................................................................................................149 5. Beyond traditional racism……………………………………………………………...155 6. The invention of Padania and a new exclusionary identity……………………………160 7. The League’s anti-immigrant rhetoric…………………………………………………165 8. The League and the Catholic Church, selective and long-distance solidarity…………180 9. The immigrant as a homo sacer and the permanent state of exception………………..185 10. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………195 Chapter IV: The Italian legislation on immigration.....................................................199 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………199 2. The pre-1990s legislation: ‘immigration without politics’……………………………201 3. The 1990s……………………………………………………………………………...210 4. The Turco-Napolitano law: a humanitarian and solidarist perspective………………..218 5. The years of transition: from a solidatist to an identitarian approach…………………222 6. Moving towards the Bossi-Fini law: the identitarian-legaritarian turn………………..225 7. The ‘security package’………………………………………………………………...232 8. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..243 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................246 Introduction 1. From a country of emigration to a country of immigration Since the end of WWII, the phenomenon of immigration and the presence of refugees and asylum seekers have begun to acquire relevance in the political and social life of Western European countries. The unprecedented waves of migration were characterised by a South-North movement, which originated mainly from Northern Mediterranean countries and were directed towards Northern Europe, particularly Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Sweden. The colonial legacy of some of these Northern European countries represented a further pull factor which attracted a considerable number of non-European nationals from the British, French and Dutch ex-colonies, who were granted special rights and preferential access to employment and citizenship. In times of reconstruction and economic development, the receiving countries often not only encouraged immigration but actively recruited a labour force through national companies and industries and through bilateral agreements with the sending countries (Triandafyllidou and Gropas, 2007: 1). Scholars and historians of migration movements tend to agree in indicating 1973 and the oil crisis as the watershed that marks the era in which Southern European nations, such as Spain, Greece and Italy, turned from countries of emigration into countries of immigration, final destinations for those seeking better living and working conditions. This was due to international events as well as to the reaction of Northern European countries to the economic stagnation and rising unemployment which affected the whole of Western Europe, when they stopped recruiting workers abroad and in fact decided to close their doors and aim at a „zero immigration policy‟ (Schain, 2008; Hollifield, 1992). Moreover, since 1989, the end of the Cold War, the Albanian crisis and the war in former 1 Yugoslavia contributed to opening new migration routes from the East to the West of Europe, making immigration increasingly visible in neighbouring countries such as Italy. By that time the first countries of immigration had developed long-term strategies aimed at integrating a foreign presence which had become permanent or semi-permanent. Such models of integration resulted from both theoretical approaches to integration of