South Tyrol: a Model for All? the Other Face of Minority Accommodation

DRAFT – NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION Title of the paper: South Tyrol: a model for all? The other face of minority accommodation. Author: Andrea Carlà Abstract: South Tyrol, an Italian province with a German-speaking population and a sophisticated system to protect its cultural characteristics, is generally consider a model to deal with national minorities and accommodate ethnic-linguistic diversity in contexts ranging from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Iraq and recently Ukraine. Most academic works on South Tyrol provide legal descriptions of the South Tyrol system to protect minorities and/or analyze the degree of protection awarded to the German speaking population. This paper, instead, aims at providing an analysis of the South Tyrol model from the point of view of the Italian speaking population living in the territory. Italian speakers represent one quarter of South Tyrolean inhabitants and in the past have shown a so-called “uneasiness” with their status in South Tyrol. Using various indicators, including voting patterns, demographic trends and surveys, the paper will investigate how the Italian speaking population has experienced the South Tyrol system to protect minority and to what extent South Tyrolean policies have been successful in accommodating ethnic- linguistic diversity and promoting a multicultural society. In this way, the paper brings a new perspective for our understanding and evaluation of arrangements for the accommodation of national minorities and their cultural diversity, in contrast to a prevalent tendency to discuss minority rights and minority protection from the point of view of the minority. In particular, the findings on the South Tyrolean experience will be used to ponder on the protection of the Hungarian minority and interethnic relations in Romania, especially in Szeklerland. 1 DRAFT – NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION South Tyrol: a model for all? The other face of minority accommodation By Andrea Carlà1 South Tyrol, an Italian province characterized by the presence of a German-speaking population and a small Ladin-speaking minority, a sophisticated political autonomy and various specific measures to protect their linguistic and cultural characteristics, has often been referred to by both practitioners and scholars as a model to deal with ethnic diversity and resolving ethnic conflicts in contexts ranging from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Iraq and Tibet.2 More recently, the Italian Prime Minister M. Renzi has suggested to the Russian president V. Putin to look at South Tyrol as an example to find a solution to the tensions in Ukraine.3 Similarly, political scientist Roland Benedikter has proposed a regional autonomy and political mechanisms following the South Tyrolean model for the Eastern Ukranian areas of Donetsk and Lugansk as the best option available to start reducing the conflict.4 Various scholars have analyzed and explained the South Tyrol system to deal with ethnic tensions and protect minorities. Many of these works follow a juridical approach and/or focus on the specific characteristics of the policies and institutional mechanisms elaborated to protect the German-speaking population.5 Other scholars have described the conditions present in South Tyrol that allowed for the peaceful resolution of ethnic tensions.6 In some cases, critical accounts are 1 Senior Researcher, Institute for Minority Rights – European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano. E-mail address for correspondence: [email protected] 2 Roland Benedikter, “Overcoming Ethnic Division in Iraq: A Practical Model from Europe,” The National Interest, 11 February 2004. The Dalai Lama often visits South Tyrol. In April 2013, he restated that South Tyrol “is an example to resolve the problems of a minority.” See “Il Dalai Lama a Bolzano: ‘Modello Alto Adige per il Tibet’”, Alto Adige, 10 April 2013, http://altoadige.gelocal.it/cronaca/2013/04/10/news/il-dalai-lama-a-bolzano-modello-alto-adige-per- il-tibet-1.6858252. 3 “Renzi a Putin: ‘Soluzione altoatesina per l'Ucraina’,” Alto Adige (June 10, 2015), http://altoadige.gelocal.it/bolzano. 4 Roland benedikter, “East Ukraine’s four perspectives. A solution According to the south Tyrol Model,” Ethnopolitics Papers 37 (2015). 5 Jens Woelk et al. (eds.), Tolerance through Law (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden – Boston, 2008). 6 Stefan Wolff, Disputed Territories: the Transnational Dynamic of Ethnic Conflict Settlement (Berghahn Books, New York, 2003). 2 DRAFT – NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION presented that point out that South Tyrol institutions preserve ethnic divisions.7 Regardless of specific differences, literature on South Tyrol, tend to focus on the point of view of the minority, namely explaining how the South Tyrol system protect the German-speaking population and/or why it has been successful.8 This tendency characterized also most of the literature on minority rights and minority protection, where the departing point is usually the needs, history or claims of a minority. This paper, instead, takes a different perspective: that of the majority at the national level. It will provide an analysis of the South Tyrol model from the point of view of the Italian speaking population living in the territory. Italian speakers represent around one quarter of South Tyrolean inhabitants. Whereas most of the Italian-speaking community support today South Tyrolean political autonomy, it has also shown, especially in the past, a so-called “disagio” (uneasiness) with its status in South Tyrol, which founds various manifestations. Using different indicators, including demographic trends, voting patterns, and surveys, the paper investigates how the Italian speaking community has experienced the South Tyrol system to protect minority, investigating the reasons of this uneasiness. I explore to what extent South Tyrolean policies have been successful in accommodating ethnic-linguistic diversity and promoting a multicultural society from the point of view of the national majority. In this way, the paper brings a new perspective for our understanding and evaluation of arrangements for the accommodation of national minorities and their cultural diversity, beyond what is the prevalent focus on the minority of literature on minority protection. 7 Andrea Carlà, “Living Apart in the Same Room: Analysis of the Management of Linguistic Diversity in Bolzano,” Ethnopolitics, 6:2 (2007): 285-313. 8 An exception was a conference organized by the South Tyrolean political science association, on “Il disagio degli Italiani in Alto Adige” (The uneasiness of Italians in South Tyrol), whose proceedings were published in Politika 13 (Bozen: edition raetia, 2013). 3 DRAFT – NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION The paper is structured in five parts. After providing an historical overview of South Tyrol and of the presence in the province of the Italian-speaking community, the main elements of the South Tyrol system to protect of minorities will be highlighted. Then I present four main manifestations of the uneasiness the Italian-speaking population, followed by an analysis of its main rooted causes. In the fifth section, I discuss aspects of the South Tyrol system that are embraced and supported by the Italian-speaking population. In the conclusions, I stress future development of South Tyrolean society and discuss how the findings on the South Tyrolean experience can be used to ponder on the issue of minority protection, in particular, the protection of the Hungarian minority and interethnic relations in Romania, especially in Szeklerland. Historical Overview: South Tyrol and the Italian-speaking community The presence of the Italian-speaking community in South Tyrol dates back to the end of War World I, when the territory became part of the Italian state as spoil of war, together with neighboring Italian-speaking Trentino. Previously South Tyrol, a mountain area, has been part of the Habsburg Empire for centuries and was mainly inhabited by German-speakers (and a Ladin- speaking population in few valleys), although there were also in some areas some Italian-speaking Trentino-Tyrolean families.9 Few years later, Mussolini had taken power in Italy and the fascist government started to implement policies for the Italianization of South Tyrol, for example firing German-speaking public officers and forbidding the teaching and the use of the German language in public spaces and for toponyms. Moreover, the Fascism regime created industrial zones in the biggest South Tyrolean towns, i.e. Bolzano, Merano, and Bressanone, in order to encourage Italian immigration. In the new industrial factories, the German-speaking population could not find jobs, 9 O. Peterlini, Autonomia e tutela delle minoranze nel Trentino Alto Adige (Bolzano and Trento: Ufficio di Presidenza del Consiglio regionale del Trentino Alto Adige, 1996). 4 DRAFT – NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION and in this way lost control of the most vital economic sectors and were excluded from the process of modernization. Instead, Italian families from the rest of the peninsula received incentives to move to South Tyrol to work in public administration and the new industries. Finally, Mussolini and Hitler agreed on the so-called ‘options’, the choice given in 1939 to the German-speaking South Tyroleans between German citizenship and expatriation or Italian citizenship, accepting being ‘Italianized’. As result of the options, around 70,000 South Tyroleans left Italy. As result of Fascist policies, the Italian population grew

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