A dark day indeed has passed in Italy, where a new law has been passed obliging doctors to inform on their patients if they’re immigrants. So, if an immigrant, legal or not, goes to public services for health treatment, healthcare staff will be allowed to report the patient to police, thus turning doctors into copper’s narks. Plainly this will have a major impact on the health of migrant workers, legal and “clandestini“, who are not going to attend clinics if they’ll be grassed up to the authorities and possibly suffer imprisonment of up to 4 years then deportation. Which in turn is bound to have an impact on public health, as diseases such as HIV and TB will go untreated and thus spread further amongst the ‘indigenous’ population. A commentator in La Repubblica denounced the measure in unflinching terms:
“QUEL che è accaduto al Senato con l’approvazione delle nuove leggi per la sicurezza è elementare nella sua barbarie. Per un atto di ossequio politico ai desideri xenofobi della Lega, si sono dichiarati inattuali e fuori legge i diritti degli uomini, delle donne, dei bambini che non sono nati qui da noi, che non sono cittadini italiani” [1]
Other beauties in this new law include:
- the legalisation of the Northern League’s neo-fascist greenshirts (camicie verdi). The ‘Padanian patrols’ (ronde padane), the paramilitary neo-fascist ‘greenshirts’ who’ve been acting for years as anti-immigrant and anti-crime vigilantes on the streets of towns in the North, particularly in the Veneto, are now given legal status. That’s like signing up Millwall fans as ‘community police’.
- registration of the homeless. All clochard in Italy, that is anyone who’s homeless, will have to be put on a national registry. It’s difficult to know where to start with the stupidity and impracticality of this measure, but it will give the cops carte blanche to deal with homeless people, which will undoubtedly include gypsies and Roma, as they see fit, surely a green light for repression.
- payment for residency. Legal immigrants who wish to work and remain in Italy will have to pay a tax of 80-200 Euros for the privilege. Considering that most extra-EU immigrants will be coming to Italy to earn money because they’re skint, they’re unlikely to be able to find that sort of money and will end up being thrown out.
- separate school classes for Italians and foreigners, so even schoolchildren will be exposed to the practical reality of racism
“Fascism” is a word that’s misused and overused these days on all sides of the political spectrum (eg Peter Hitchen’s tendentious and inaccurate “islamo-fascism”) and as such has unfortunately lost much of its meaning and punch. This is a shame, because what’s happening in parts of Italy now is by the true meaning of the term “fascist”. Rome is under the control of a far-Right mayor, Alemanno, whose followers openly make ‘Roman salutes’, and the capital’s second football club, Lazio, is under the control of fascist fans. Although much attention has been given to the “post-fascist” Allianza Nazionale being in power, and its leader Gianfranco Fini being President of the Camera (Italy’s upper house of parliament), the AN is these days a standard ‘respectable’ Right-wing party. The real fascists inside the ruling coalition are the Lega Nord under the leadership of the gravel-voiced demagogue Umberto Bossi. The Lega and the leghisti have all the hallmarks of fascists: uniforms, virulent xenophobia, extra-legal violence and vigilantism, a membership drawn largely from the petit-bourgeoisie, a mythical patriotic ideology claiming descent from an ancient Celtic race (so similar in tone to the pseudo-religious Aryan history that the German Nazis manufactured), a ‘national socialist’ philosophy (social welfare for ‘padanians’ only), and of course a charismatic and demagogic leader. It’s the Lega that’s driven this law into the statute books, and the leghisti who regularly come out with blood-curdling statements on immigration and crime (such as Bossi’s suggestion that boats with immigrants should be blown out of the water).
Italy is a dangerous place to be right now if you’re non-white, as it’s been taken over by a racist hysteria which sees all immigrants as criminals, drug dealers, prostitutes, terrorists and disease carriers (not so different from the Daily Mail view, then). The irony, of course, not lost on some Italians, is that Italy has traditionally been a country of emigration, and Italian immigrants abroad suffered the most appalling racism and discrimination and were seen in exactly the same terms as Italians now see clandestini : as criminals, terrorists and disease carriers.
On the plus side, the Left outside of parliament – the Left within has been reduced to an impotent rump in both houses – is very active and militant, in stark contrast to the Left in the UK, and the chances are good that the current state of fascism is a temporary madness which will be brought to a close by the determined activism of the Left, if it can get its act together. Keep an eye on the excellent Indymedia Italia site [2] run by and for activists for news of anti-fascist activities.
PS: there are some chilling photos of supporters of the neo-fascist mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, giving the fascist salute after his election in April 2008.
References:
Statewatch article on the new laws (iffy translation into English, but readable)
Clandestini denuciati dai medici: Sì del Senato alla norma contestata. La Repubblica Online, 5/2/09. See also links on the right of the page to related articles.
[1] “La nuova civiltà dell’odio“. La Repubblica Online, 6/2/09
[2] The ongoing article “Sicurezza per chi?” lists past and future actions and demos against the new law.
