Chronicles of Ordinary Racism Second White Paper on Racism in Italy Edited by Lunaria, Rome, 2011
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Chronicles of Ordinary Racism Second White Paper on Racism in Italy Edited by Lunaria, Rome, 2011 www.lunaria.org with the support of English version of Cronache di ordinario razzismo, Secondo libro bianco sul razzismo in Italia, edited by Lunaria, Edizioni dell’Asino, 2011 English translation by Davide Di Pietro and Clara Marshall The book has been realized thanks to the support of Tavola Valdese and Fondazione Charlemagne Chronicles of ordinary Racism is the result of the collectif work of Paola Andrisani, Sergio Bontempelli, Andrea Callaioli, Serena Chiodo, Giuseppe Faso, Filippo Miraglia, Grazia Naletto, Maria Silvia Olivieri, Alan Pona, Enrico Pugliese, Annamaria Rivera, Ilaria Traina Table of contents Introduction SECTION 1. THE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT Annamaria Rivera Two years of racism in Italy. Main actors and secondary players, victims and rebels Enrico Pugliese Immigrant workers during the crisis and institutional racism Grazia Naletto Institutional racism in the welfare system Maria Silvia Olivieri Reception buckles under the weight of “emergency” Sergio Bontempelli The country of forced evictions (and detention centres). Local policies on Roma and Sinti communities in Italy Giuseppe Faso e Alan Pona Getting to know yourself. Language tests: turning a blind eye Filippo Miraglia The future of citizenship and participation SECTION 2. REGULATIONS AND CASE‐LAW Andrea Callaioli Emergency as the norm. Institutionalised racism in the legislation on immigration from 2008 onwards Ilaria Traina Discrimination and access to the welfare system: lower court rulings SECTION 3. MIGRANTS AND MEDIA Grazia Naletto Immigrants and the media: one step forward, two steps back Paola Andrisani Sanaa’s murder Grazia Naletto The Rosarno riots Grazia Naletto The creativity of the Municipality of Adro Grazia Naletto The death of Maricica Hahaianu Giuseppe Faso The murder of Petre Ciurar Grazia Naletto A cruel diary SECTION 4. CHRONICLES OF ORDINARY RACISM Lunaria Racism in official statistics Lunaria Chronicles of everyday racism: number crunching. Paola Andrisani A 360° view Paola Andrisani Facebook: racism on the web Paola Andrisani The death of Yussuf Errahali Lunaria The suicide of Nourredine Adnane Serena Chiodo Rome drives its Roma community out. An opportunity for acceptance wasted Paola Andrisani “Gypsyville” and the other new terms in the land of fear Lunaria “Forced overboard” in Montagnana Lunaria The murder of El Kaalouli Imad Paola Andrisani An inventory of intolerance The authors Bibliography 2 Introduction The global economic crisis is producing devastating effects on society; social and economic disparity between and within nations grows greater every day. More and more frequently, civil and human rights are predicated on a financial standing, the decline of the welfare system leaves wide swathes of the population without essential social services while politicians are unable to provide satisfactory responses. At such a time, many may consider racism to be an issue of secondary importance. There are, in fact, many reasons why we must not write off the tales of everyday racism as minor events or, at the most, as acts and forms of behaviour stemming from the imbalance that the crisis of the neo‐liberist system creates within nation states. Indeed, it is precisely this ongoing crisis that, by acting as an unequivocal reminder of the world’s interconnectedness, should lead us to finally acknowledge that it is impossible to fight inequality if we remain attached to ‘national’ ideas of rights and citizenship. However, the policies that target immigrants, non‐EU citizens and the Roma community are moving, sadly, in the opposite direction. In 2008 and 2009, institutional racism found its most explicit outlet in the so‐called ‘safety package’. In the two following years, it gained an ever firmer hold over the decision‐making process of local administrators, who combined creative decrees in the field of public order and safety with rulings aimed at limiting social rights for foreign citizens. These are dangerous decisions that could easily be used in the future to justify inequitable treatment among Italians themselves. The breaching of fundamental human rights in Identification and Deportation Centres, the treatment reserved for Tunisian immigrants in the prison‐vessels set up in order to “free” Lampedusa, the fact that the press and unaccredited associations are denied admission to Cie and Cara centres, should alert us to the dangerous regression that the guarantee of civil rights is falling pray to. The instances of exploitation in the work place experienced by many immigrants who work in our fields, in the construction industry and even in the family and domestic care sector (which has the appearance of a deceptively sheltered environment), reveal a vast portion of our country’s economy in which a significant percentage of employees have short term or no contracts. The ease with which a verbal disagreement between a native and a foreign citizen can spiral out of control tells of social system that is fractured, divided and selfishly wrapped up in personal interests. In these pages we deal with all this and other issues, in the knowledge that the inequalities experienced by migrants and Roma form part of a process of erosion of rights (or, should we say, of the cultural values from which they stem) that affects us all. Between 15 July and 31 August 2009 we studied 861 cases of racism reported by the media or on the internet; we offer a selection of them, inevitably incomplete, in the inventory at the end of this volume. It is a long chain of verbal and physical violence, damaged property and discrimination carried out by individuals, groups and political or institutional leaders. On the basis of this first work of collection and analysis, we have singled out some cases that appeared to particularly stand out for the way in 3 which they were reported by the press of for the gravity of the crimes committed. The murder of Saana Dafani, the 23‐year‐old Moroccan woman murdered by her father in September 2009; the Rosarno riot on 7th January 2010, brought to us in the form of articles, photos and images so that all we were left with were its more violent aspects; the Adro affair, where the municipality took a “firm stand” against the families who failed to meet the payment dealine for school meal fees in April 2010; the murder of Maricica Hahaianu, a 33‐year‐old Romanian woman killed after a trivial argument in Anagnina underground station in Rome on 8th October 2010; the murder of Petre Ciurar, a Romanian Roma of 20 shot dead in Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto on December 2010 and the sad tale of those who met their death on the Mediterranean between February and August 2011; all these events allow us to reconstruct communication strategies and practices that tend to provide simplistic and/or stigmatizing portrayals of immigrants and minorities. The death of Yussuf Errahali, a 37‐year‐old Moroccan man who was assaulted and left to die in the cold, in a fountain in a Neapolitan square on 12 January 2010; the suicide of Nourredine Adnane, a young Moroccan street vendor residing in Palermo who set fire to himself after the latest in a series of police inspections on 11 February 2011; the Roma settlement evictions carried out in Rome in April 2011; the racist propaganda that appeared during the campaign for the mayoral elections in Milan and the death of Abderrahaman Salhi who died in mysterious circumstances in Borgo di Frassine, near Padua, in May of the same year; the murder of Imad El Kaalouli, a Moroccan 19‐year‐ old boy killed by his former employer in Desenzano del Garda on 28 June 2011; these are among the most serious events that have occurred in the last two years, largely ignored by the high‐circulation press. Alongside the chronicle of the everyday racism are a number of contributions that try to reconstruct the political and cultural context, starting with the study of the main trends that characterised the public debate and institutional decisions, the development of legislation and jurisprudence, in the field of immigration in the last two years. The impact of the crisis on the foreign workforce, discriminatory policies in the welfare system, the bad management of the influx of immigrants from Tunisia and Libya, the disgraceful policies for the evacuation of Roma settlements, the use of the Italian language test as a further obstacle on the road to social inclusion have provided the material for propaganda but also for unfair, discriminatory and oppressive political choices that impact millions of people’s lives. However, the past two years have also yeilded some positive signals. Court rulings against discrimination show that institutional racism can be fought by offering the victims legal protection. The conclusion, after three years, of the trial on the case of Emmanuel Bonsu, the 22‐yar‐old Ghanaian who was insulted, kidnapped and beaten up by a group of eight local policemen on 29th September 2008, led to an important conviction for one of the most serious racist acts of violence ever reported in our country; for seven of the defendants, the judge accepted racism as an aggravating circumstance. Today, the promotion of a campaign, on the part of two citizens’ initiatives, for the reform of the law on citizenship and the recognition of the right to 4 vote in administrative elections to non‐EU nationals, are causes that have rallied a wider number of supporters than happened with similar campaign launched in the second half of the 90s. We can only hope that these signs foreshadow even greater changes in the future. 5 SECTION 1. THE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT Two years of racism in Italy. Main actors and secondary players, victims and rebels. Annamaria Rivera In memory of Mohammad Muzaffar Alì aka.