immigrants

The stick and the small carrot
by Maria Matteo
photo by Paolo Poce

The possible bond between the struggles of the Italian workers and of the immigrants, the government's strategy, the days and nights on the cranes.

Arun, Sajad, Jimi and Rachid decided to get off the crane where he had gone up on Oct. 30. It is eight and a half Monday, Nov. 15: rain, pitiless, pelting for hours. Arun's first words are for the Egyptians deported that same day: "we have not done anything for them, we failed. " Dignity and strength in the words of a man who was on the crane for 17 days, while the siege was tightened in the rain, cold, for 48 hours without food or water. It was ending in this way the long resistance on the crane.
The government has charged, arrested, beaten, deported migrants in combat and those who supported them. Who is fighting for the dignity and freedom is scary. It's scary the slave who lifts his head, saying no, and who that is resisting for himself and for all.
It is the key moment of a long autumn of struggle and resistance of immigrants. We are at Brescia, where initiatives against " scam amnesty " of 2009 have become a reference point for those who are fighting to break the legislative system that is crushing the lives of immigrant workers in our country.
Let's step back

Underground Malaise

In September 2009, the government approves in a hurry an amnesty for illegal immigrants. The amnesty, which is reserved only for domestic helpers and caregivers, is not the result of a sudden and unexpected regurgitation of "feeling-good" stage but closes a very big hole opened by the new security package adopted in July 2009. Under the new law who takes an illegal immigrant risks jail, since it favors those who commit a criminal offense. Domestic helpers and caregivers, due also in part to the increasingly pronounced erosion of the welfare system, are in the homes of thousands of Italians. They are cheap and work as much as you want, simply because a protest can cost them the job.
When the government realizes that the security package also touches on the good and honest Italian citizens it rectifies the issues. The first time in many years. For many people, including builders, streets, tannery workers, seasonal harvesters of fruit and vegetables it is an ideal opportunity to stand out, to leave the limbo of illegality, to make their lives less fragile and dangerous. For many small lawyers, brokers, business and a good opportunity to pocket some easy money without risk (almost) anything. Hundreds of immigrants take out a thousand to seven thousand euro to lodge applications. Next summer - after months of payment of contributions to the Italian State - begin flocking the discards. In some cases immigrants defrauded by brokers are then charged with fraud and risk losing forever the chance to be regularized.
In many places starts the fight against the amnesty scam, for a permit to put an end to the limbo of illegality. Not only that, because immigrants are tired of paying, getting in line, knocking on a thousand doors, stooping to get the pay earned by hard work. They are tired of racism discrimination, insults, controls, continuous, suffocating in the street, on trams, trains. And they fear, more and more fear. A woman living in Italy for almost thirty years, that I meet at an anti-racism banquet, said to me "What happened to this country? Once it was not so now for the first time in years I'm afraid. " Fear of hatred that grows in the suburbs, fear of the patrols of good citizens who go around their night to hunt for "blacks", fear of a tomorrow that fades at the horizon. The crisis that bites everyone's life has hit immigrants like a hurricane. Many who live here for many years, who had managed to settle down, set up house with his family lost their jobs and, with work, are losing even the documents that guarantee them the right to legal residence in our country. There is a subterranean malaise that gurgles quietly but that could explode at any time, at the first opportunity that now face a jar filled with overflowing.

A threat to government and masters

This fall, the fight against amnesty scam has moved, albeit briefly, the front of fear. The government responded with violence to the struggles of immigrants, without any discounts. In Brescia they have deported almost all the immigrants rounded up in the streets during the permanent garrison under the crane. They also deported "Mimmo", Mohamed, who was arrested while in the prefecture to seek an agreement that would block the forced expulsion of others. In Milan, they threw out Abder the last of the immigrants who protested on the tower of via Imbonati for almost a month. Not to mention the complaints of extortion, of man-hunt unleashed in the cities where the wind has blown most of the fight. The message is loud and clear: do not raise your head, because those who raise it will lower with a stick, do not complain, because those who protest will pay. A lot.

A government who based its fortunes on cruelty to illegal immigrants - are the words of Interior Minister Maroni, could not afford to appear weak, could not impair the consent of a loyal constituency due to unfair policies toward immigrants. He could not risk the tide that was growing on the example of immigrants on the crane tower in Milan and Brescia to increase. The chain reaction was investing a lot of cities and towns, especially in the north of the peninsula. But not only. The fight on the crane has highlighted a banal fact that propaganda can no longer hide: the immigrants who live here are workers, workers oppressed and exploited more than others, workers held in slavery to blackmail everyone, Italians and immigrants. The bond between immigrants and Italians in the field of work is a danger to the government and employers, because they know that the chain is one. If the break at one point threatens to jump from the rings that lock the throats of all.

The beatings, deportations, the total closure to all but a very small request are an unequivocal sign of fear, fear that the fight against fraud amnesty extends, fear that in the fields of the south, in the warehouses of the north, in the yards of the great works in factories and markets in general, someone looks up to a crane, to a tower and face courageously. Fear that the Italian workers side with migrant workers in the knowledge that the enemy, the real ones, sit on the boards of companies, on the banks of the government and parliament.

The 2011 Flows Decree

Unfortunately, the reaction of solidarity, the struggles have not been extensive enough: the defeats of Brescia and Milan have dragged with them the movement in the autumn, leaving a free hand to the action of government. In the coming months and years will play a game you win or lose if those who fight not only remains, if you multiply the crane, if support for more radical struggle getting stronger. It is worth noting that the government has not only beaten, but quietly, without fanfare has distributed its small carrot. On 30 November the government issued the flows decree for 2011. The Order provides over 80 thousand entries - of which about 50 thousand for employees from countries which have cooperation agreements on migration with Italy - and will allow the conversion of 12 thousand permits issued in another form, permission to work. The flow order is a disguised amnesty. In our country they will come regularly if they have already the employment contract, but no one enters it, because no master will hire you without ever seeing you. In 2011 it will not reach anyone but those who manage to land on a cart, or pretending to be students or tourists. The others, those of the decree, are already here. They work illegally on building sites, workshops, fields. Who will find a master willing to stabilize - provided of course you pay the cost - submitting the application. Then starts the wait. It can take months and months before being cleared. At this point you just leave Italy on tiptoe, illegally, you go to the Italian embassy in your country to collect the document that allows you to (re) enter to adjust. A scripted as stupid as vulgar

So the government maintains its image of hard against illegal immigrants. The price, in money, time, risks is paid by the immigrants. The Berlusconi government, which on immigration enforcement has established a significant part of his fortune, for almost three years, was careful not to make the flows order, which indicate, as required by law, the number of immigrants allowed to enter regularly in Italy the following year.
Pointless to ask why, just this year - despite the crisis - the government has made the decree. A seemingly odd choice for a government that may have to close early in his adventure and introduce you to the polls, throwing its inflexibility. Who governs us is a criminal but not a fool. See also understand and know: he knows that for many people, immigrants or not, the future is uncertain, precarious, closed.
They know they live on a powder keg.
A flows decree that comes out without much noise is a way to lengthen the fuse designed to detonate it.