Racism is a Boomerang

ROME, Italy – The poster is all over Rome: “Ci chiami sporco negro e lesbica schifosa. Ma ti offendi se ti chiamamo Italiano mafioso—You call us dirty black man and disgusting lesbian. But you are offended if we call you Italian mafioso.” A bald black man and grey-haired white women are depicted smiling and looking straight ahead. Both appear to be naked, though only their top halves are showing; they have crossed arms (a signal of strength, or perhaps a way of concealing the woman’s breasts?).

The poster is the brainchild of Associazione Ricreativa e Culturale Italiana (The Italian Recreational and Cultural Association), a non-for-profit organization that promotes tolerance. It represents the launching of their new campaign against discrimination of all kinds. The first time I saw it, I smiled. This was the “screw you, Lega Nord” that I had been waiting for, that I had been wanting to shout out loud since the very beginning of my stay in Rome. Let me explain.

The second day I was in Rome the EU and municipal election results were announced in the papers. I was shocked by what I read: The Lega Nord (the Northern League), a party whose platform is based on the federalization of Italy and has, at times, suggested that the north of Italy secede, managed to get 10 percent of the vote. I knew that the Lega made up part of the current government, but I had always thought that it was simply one of those flukes of a parliamentary system. (An attempt to build a coalition sometimes involves including tiny—and occasionally crazy—political parties).

A quick glance at the papers told me, however, that I was stuck in the past. The Lega Nord no longer simply spelled federalism and social conservatism. No, this right-wing-populist party had taken a different direction: anti-immigration policy. In fact, in 2002, a politician associated with the party had gone so far as to suggest that immigrants and native Italians should take different trains. And not long after that, Giancarlo Gentili, a Lega member and, at the time, mayor of Treviso, proposed that Italians shoot immigrants like rabbits.

Suddenly, I wasn’t shocked, I was sick. How could it be that this clearly xenophobic party had won 10 percent of the vote? Some dismissed the ballots cast for the Lega as “protest votes,” but I don’t agree. Italy has plenty of tiny parties that those who feel disenfranchised could support instead of the Lega. Yet the suggestion that 10 percent of Italians are just plain racist also seems too simplistic. I have decided that my mission this summer is to understand what has happened in Italy’s psyche to bring it to this point. So far, the answer I’ve come up with is twofold.

Firstly, Italy is having a bit of an identity crisis. The country isn’t quite certain if it is the globe’s museum or a world power. Walking through the streets of Rome, you see a mélange of ancient ruins, renaissance churches, and fascistic structures. Even the people are old. “Look,” it all seems to say, “once we were powerful; once it was great to be Italian.” Now, residents of the eternal city hardly seem to know what it means to be citizens of their country. The Tangentopoli corruption scandal of the ‘90s branded Italian politics as full of inept bureaucrats and smarmy opportunists. The current sex controversy adds to the country’s image as a paradoxical place: It is both the epicenter of the Catholic world and yet its citizens seem to display a chauvinistic and shameless licentiousness. On top of that, a land that was previously thought of not simply as ethnically homogenous, but as a country of emigrants, Italy is more and more a country of immigrants (with 3.7 million documented immigrants and between .8-2 million undocumented immigrants).

Yet, Italy’s identity crisis has been going on for at least 15 years, if not more. Why would anti-immigration sentiment become increasingly popular and widespread now? To understand the second aspect of this xenophobia, I draw upon a lesson I learned from Ec10 (words I thought I would never write): Times of crisis, in particular slow economic growth, are bad for democracy. William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy Professor Benjamin M. Friedman’s April 6th lecture, “The Economic and Financial Crisis: Also a Moral Threat,” suggested that anti-immigration policy in the U.S. was correlated with times of economic downturn. Italy is certainly facing a rough economy. Just two weeks ago the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development released a report stating that the organization did not see an end in sight to the Italian recession. Following Friedman’s hypothesis, it would make sense that xenophobic tendencies might rear their ugly heads right about now.

While I am certain I have only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to understanding this complex socio-political issue, I want to emphasize that I am seeking to explain, not to condone. This xenophobic strain of Italian politics is a danger to the country. Finding a scapegoat in times of economic instability never solves anything, as the past century has made Europe well aware. Furthermore, in difficult times nations should be cooperating, attempting to find a global solution. This is not the time for fruitless and misguided nationalism.

There is much to learn from ARCI’s anti-discrimination campaign, not simply from the poster, but also from its powerful and somewhat eerie slogan: “Il razzismo e un boomerang, prima o poi ti ritorna—Racism is a boomerang, sooner or later it comes back at you.”


Sofia E. Groopman ’12 is a Crimson news writer in Currier House.