Migrants and Policy in Italy

I had the good fortune to meet on several occasions Don Andrea Gallo, the libertarian priest (strange oxymoron) who founded in Genoa, the Community of St. Benedict to the Port and that for at least a half-century struggled to spread the culture of peace, solidarity, and welcome. Every time I left enriched. Of life, humanity, and a healthy desire for rebellion. In 2005 I reviewed his first autobiographical book - Angelicamente anarchico- which, with merciless clarity denounced the injustice of our time, told the daily suffering of the desperate, and drew in simple but extraordinary impact of the masterful example of Fabrizio de André, the cantor of those who do not conform to the laws of the flock and travelers - with all their weaknesses - in the direction obstinate and contrary. Now I just finished reading in one breath Just in heaven and on earth, a second volume of autobiographical reflections. The same intensity, the same extraordinary strength, the rabid xenophobic terror against the excesses and paranoid hypertrophy in which we are painfully dumped. Curious coincidence. My reading has been completed on the day on which the "barbarians" have won. The regional elections of May 2010 have delivered almost all of northern Italy to the right and - what is more surprising - the Piedmont to the Northern League.
But because I speak without hesitation of barbarians? Is it not a defeat - and that the center of the "Empress" which led him in the Savoy lands - largely deserved, the result of a government not so incisive, lost identity, a self-sighted and even a certain arrogance (say that in Val di Susa we had noticed for some time ...)! Probably, the responsibilities are many, and the search for an undefined "consensus in the center" has not helped at all. But this we do not make us forget who was on the other hand, and which is now called upon to govern for the next five years.
I do not think the place to refer to the classic distinction between fundamental political categories of left and right will certainly be reconsidered in the era of global iper-liberism, and which continue to strive qualified political scientists. You should probably call into question the alternative - yet dramatically effective - between civilization and barbarism, in fact.
Stick to the facts. End of January 2010, Reggio Calabria. I'm still open to the terrible wounds left in the minds of anyone who is not fallen below a minimum threshold of humanity from the pogrom against migrants. Rosarno brutally expelled from the places of their miserable lives, our Chairman of the Board issuing confusing statements. The slogan is simple and direct: "Fewer immigrants, less crime." It matters little that those lands which are rife the 'Ndrangheta, and where the state always shows all its weaknesses. The problem is not the Mafia (also well represented in high places), no, the problem is that desperate pick oranges and tomatoes, according to the seasons, for a few euro a day and intolerable working conditions, without rights, without protection, without a voice. In a word, Servants, as he rightly called them in his excellent book, the author Tuscan Marco Rovelli, after the shame of the cpt (actual detention centers, with a completely unfounded legal legitimacy) is dedicated to study the phenomenon of the exploitation of migrants, particularly the so-called "irregular".
Allow me here to recall the words of an effective passing the written appeal and signed by a network of associations of foreigners and anti-racist reality Alessandrian "Rosarno today is the most raw of the logic that guides the policies of this government and is the result most accomplished of these years of immigration policies. Men and women without the slightest hesitation devoured by the desire to create new and smarter forms of slavery, blackmail people in the same way the mafia violence and the Law, held hostage and then tested on Legal-stripping criminals of every law, dignity, of the word. Men are treated as mere labor power. (...) Rosarno this country is afraid to Italy, who suffers from vertigo because the edge of the ravine and moves at random '
Good, for once, the response to the utterances of the Prime Minister from the parliamentary opposition, which the mouth of one of its biggest careful, Anna Finocchiaro, he promptly replied: "Other than immigrants. Premier not say, less crime. " Yeah, because we almost forgot the escort of the State organ of power staged at Villa Certosa (a brief respite, indeed, given the scandals of the next few weeks, as they affect the image of a key figure in the our political landscape, the super-head of Civil Protection Bertolaso) is not much more carefully to delegitimize the judiciary openly and wreak havoc to justice, including quick process, and such failure worrying bipartisan temptation to reintroduce parliamentary immunity. (...)
It is true that there are no immediate solutions entirely convincing. That the situation is particularly complex. But what we can do is remain silent in the face of the destruction being perpetrated against the basic values of our society. The temptation may be to avoid the ugliness that surrounds us. To turn in thinking only in private to the problems of our daily lives. But the only thing really wrong at this moment I think it is just indifference.
In Italy, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants living in intolerable conditions, exploited, isolated, surrounded, stigmatized, by no means guaranteed. And the difference - however debatable, to put it mildly - between those who have the "Papell" in good standing and who don’t will be blurred. Alien and evil are too often seen as synonymous. Xenophobia strip dangerously. And the power supplies. Whether the prime minister that nods to the landing of beautiful girls from Albania, reaching heights of machismo and rude idiot, or are election posters of obscure candidates who openly praise racial hatred. "Woman or terrorist?" Was the word that stood beneath a photo of a veiled woman on one of these sheets in the recent elections at the city valley in which I have the good fortune of living. There are no adequate words to comment on such stupidity. And discouragement is likely to prevail if we take the knowledge that our country, but gradually slid down a slippery slope to racism deployed - now under constant observation and criticism of international institutions -, by no means an isolated case. Just think about the xenophobic right recently rewarded by a large electoral success in Hungary, but also the attention and consent that are beginning to get xenophobic slogans and political alignments in one of the most civilized of Europe like the Netherlands. A clear signal - Marco Revelli writes in his latest book, significantly entitled Controcanto - "the increasing difficulty of relating to others in the era of de-localization" and "a return of brutal, fast, largely unconscious, but devastating, to the logic of a society of caste hierarchy and separate social worlds overlap. Lords and serfs. Elected, and pariahs. Men and mice“. The result of a global crisis, which seems to put the corner of the classic responses of progressive movements, as in Italy and perhaps more than elsewhere.
But when we realize, at last, that men are really the same? That we are all poorer without migrants, not only from the economic point of view? That the difference is wealth, and that isolate you live badly? Nice, very nice, the embryonic attempt at self-organization of migrants, March 1, 2010 have declared a strike, strong, symbolic, and very useful to reflect on what I said earlier. More immigrants equals more work, more culture, more openness, more human and economic wealth. Without foreign workers, our economy would collapse. To give an idea, almost two million Romanian citizens working for Italian companies in our country or at home. And if any day there were no more? But above all, what they enjoyed all of the rights and protections? Quite simply, why those who produce and pay taxes should have no say in the use and distribution of public resources? Observations of common sense, but distant from the common sentiment in a country like ours, as that path by a growing hostility toward the other, the foreigner, the stranger, with major direct responsibility of a political system increasingly rotten.
Sure, makes demagoguery. But it is false, fragile, dangerous. Who flutters in defense of micro-exclusive and exclusionary identity really just trying to build an easy consensus, relying on the fears and the worst instincts of people. Are we still remember, to take one example among many possible, the fees of MPs and MEPs leaguers dizziness, which they perceive, like all others, thieving Rome and the European Union traitor of the Po people? Or the sea of consultants hired by the green shirts and racks of control and governance, including the son of the head, good Renzo Bossi, who has to repeat the state exam three times before graduating, and eventually became the most Young Regional Council of Lombardy?!
Populism seems to actually make good (in all senses). At least for a while '. Then the people, the real one, usually begins to understand. And the wind changes. Perhaps words like solidarity, hospitality, sharing, will soon have an awakening in the minds of many, and the righteous anger against injustice and inequity will find new ways to express themselves and organize more community free, cohesive, joyful. We must roll up our sleeves and never stop "dare to hope," as Don Gallo stubbornly reminds us in his books, from whom we got the moves: "I know not to be omnipotent," he wrote in 2005, and we all know we are not be, but he immediately added: "But I will not give me the excuse of impotence." That's the point. We can not resign ourselves to the thought that never change anything, that the last will always be the last. Instead, you must multiply our efforts to finally make the breakthrough idea of "liberating solidarity" that combines the freedom, the needs and rights of individuals and of society as a whole, and win the indifference, hypocrisy, selfishness, the intolerance and racism. We face a long and perilous journey together in defense of civilization, which is a mestizo society proud of the richness of its hybrids, its meetings, its trade and its ties of solidarity. There is no alternative, at least if we share the objective of establishing a barrier against barbarism triumphant. I do not want to live in a xenophobic country. I will not resign injustice inequitability or exploitation. Should I emigrate? Or there is still a hope?

Giorgio Barberis
(Alessandria)

Solidarity for Marco Camenisch

Marco Camenisch, known for his active participation in the antinuclear movement of the seventies, was imprisoned for nearly twenty years as a political prisoner. during all these years has been a member of struggles, campaigns and protests inside and outside the prison as an anarchist environmentalist fighter. He is currently detained in prison Poeschwies / Regensdorf near Zurich.
In two years (in 2012) will be the date of his conditional release, which should be granted in principle, because the conditional release is the rule in the prison system in Switzerland.
But the situation is special for Marco. All the facilities and measures to prepare for the release are categorically rejected. The measure of health, he needs because he is sick with cancer, remains insufficient. The license from the usual prison is rejected with the reason that he does not deny his faith and politics that has too many friends all over the world who could help him escape. At the same time having good social relationships outside the jail is a condition of conditional release, one of the many conditions which Mark will have to garantee dedicated ourselves.
One gets the impression that the courts only do grant the conditional freedom from jail to inmates which are bent  and/or adjusted. This trend can be seen from almost all the prisoners and political deteinees that are in the jail. Held defending their political identity are buried alive in prisons, even if they have the sentence. They want to weaken the progressive movement to which they belong - and to keep the fear of imprisonment as a weapon of the powerful. As a few examples among many may serve the situation of Leonard Peltier in the United States, that of the prisoners  and Action Directe in France or that of prisoners and Basques in the Spanish state.
For these various reasons we do an appeal, together with the International Red Aid, a campaign of international solidarity for Marco Camenisch, who wants to unite with the struggles for the freedom of others and prisoners and political and with the long sentences in other countries or continents. We do not want to lose sight of the prospect of a society without prisons, we started the campaign on June 19, which is the day of action for the prisoners and antagonists against the prison.
We ask you to sign the appeal of the International Red Aid. Please forward the information on your website or other information channels. Get involved with your main points and with politicians "your and" prisoners. join the international day of action on 18 and 19 September.
Solidarity is a weapon.
friends / comrades, of Marco Camenisch
Write to Mark (do not forget to put a sender): Marco Camenisch, Postfach 3143, CH-8105 Regensdorf.
Support Mark's account 87-112365-3 (PAN-IG, CH-8000 Zuerich)
Contact: marco_camenisch@yahoo.de

Translation and summary by Enrico Massetti (Web site on "The other Fabrizio de Andre")