Over the long weekend, at the start of this month, Gianfranco Fini (the intelligent and increasingly acceptable face of fascism), declared that no-one should ‘exploit’ the murder of Giovanna Reggiani last week. Fini IIAFFtm said this from the railway station where Ms Reggiani was last seen alive, and went on to blame various members of the centre-left coalition for being weak on crime and immigration.
From the moment that a Romanian vagrant was arrested as the prime suspect for the murder of Ms Reggiani, politicians from both left and right, government and opposition have been falling over themselves to establish their ‘law and order’ credentials. The government had already been developing a decree to give more power to local authorities to crack down on petty crime, and hastily added clauses allowing local prefects to authorise the expulsion of EU citizens considered a threat to the community.
The only voice of sanity came from Emma Bonino, a marginal figure in the government – though a hugely popular politician throughout Italy. Bonino, speaking at the annual congress of the Radical party had the following comments:
“In this case, it’s said, that a crime has been committed that causes social alarm. But who sounds that alarm, and why does it sound in some cases, and not others? What creates the alarm: the murder, the method, or the fact that the suspect is a Romanian? Isn’t something wrong when the massacre of an entire family in Erba produces alarm mainly on ‘Porta a Porta'(late night talk show); and a brutal crime – but committed by a Romanian immigrant – sends the whole country in tilt? In this case the only big lesson to be learned comes from the victim’s husband […] who was quick to stress that what happened ‘could have happened with an Italian as well'”[1].
It was, though, a voice in the wilderness. The pressure was on to approve a special decree on security giving wide ranging powers to local authorities in the face of a supposed crime wave. The various parties involved in government and opposition varied solely in the severity of the measures – with the more left-wing parties looking to hand over powers of expulsion over to the courts (which, as Fini IIAFFtm and cohorts pointed out – given the state of the Italian court system – would be the same as not having expulsions at all), while the extreme-right* Lega Nord called for the borders to be closed and for a ‘cleaning’ operation to get underway (whatever that may mean)2.
All this at a time when, according to the annual crime statistics serious crime levels have fallen over the last number of years. And yet, week after week, surveys are published and debated that suggest that the public feels increasingly threatened and unsafe. It’s the chicken and egg scenario, as massive media coverage of ‘security’ has been the norm for as long as this monkey can remember.
The main left-wing parties, spearheaded by their elected mayors (Bologna’s mayor Sergio Cofferati in particular), have for at least two years identified ‘security’ as an achilles heal for their electoral chances, and have been taking steps to remedy this by introducing a wide rang of measures on a local level that hit sharply at petty crime – a disproportionately high level of which is committed by immigrants, in particular Romanian gypsies.
Journalist Marco Travaglio, in his characteristically caustic manner drew parallels with the current political class and Rudy Giuliani’s zero tolerance policy in New York. The big difference, pointed out Travaglio, was that Giuliano also chased the big guns of Wall St. and organised crime in this sweep. Zero tolerance for the current political class in Italy starts with the smallest offences, and remains there. Pickpockets, shoplifters, and the unfortunates who spend their days harassing motorists at traffic lights with sponges. These are all subject to arrest and in the case of immigrants a possible expulsion. Meanwhile prominent politicians have their sentences commuted for association with the mafia…
The interesting angle to all this, though, is that while yet another difference between left and right gets swalled up (why bother voting at all, given that the main parties economic and social policies are increasingly identical), the vast majority of parties (with the exception of Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale and Bossi’s Lega Nord – loathe as I may be to give them credit)in 2006 voted for the ‘indulto‘ – a general reduction of sentences across the board for Italy’s prison population (with a number of specific crimes exempt – terrorism, mafia etc – but not manslaughter). So, while they spend every available media-minute scaring the electorate with tales of crime, the honourable members of parliament opened the gates of prisons across the country releasing thousands of petty (and not-so-petty) criminals. A sure-fire way to increase the citizen’s sense of security. It was, presumably, incidental, that a number of high-profile politicians benefitted from the ‘indulto‘
Justifying the recent introduction of expulsion orders, Walter Veltroni, the new leader of the new Partito Democratico, outlined how the influx of romanian gypsies since Romania’s entry to the EU earlier this year, had become intolerable – and various official voices criticised the Romanian government, openly suggesting that they had allowed much of their domestic criminal population to leave the country in January (a bit rich this, given the aforementioned ‘indulto’ here in Italy).
The main question this monkey has is, would similar expulsion orders have been possible in the absence of a brutal murder like that of Ms Reggiani? Many, I’m betting, would baulk at the idea of introducing almost-arbitrary expulsion powers to combat shoplifting and pick-pocketing – crimes that few could deny are committed by a disproportionately high number of Romanian gypsies. Statistically speaking the women of Italy have more to fear from their spouses and neighbours than Gypsies – but perhaps issuing barring orders and stiff penalties for domestic abuse isn’t as catchy vote-wise as expelling the ‘other’.
It remains to be seen what economic effects the decree eventually passed will have. One effect it may have is to diminish severely the capacity of citizens from Romania, Poland, and elsewhere from the Eastern part of the EU to arrive in Italy looking for work. This in turn will allow for a greater downward pressure on wages, and force ‘guest-workers’ to depend upon their employers for the right to stay and work in Italy. Exactly the situation that pertained to Romanians before january 2006.
Notes:
*Another pet hate of this monkey is the cast iron rule employed by Italian tv journalists to describe all the smaller left-wing parties as ‘estrema sinistra’ or extreme left, while the Lega in particular are simply described as part of the right wing coalition. Take a brief look at any of the public declarations of the Lega, and tell me they don’t deserve the ‘extreme’ tag…
[1] VI CONGRESSO DI RADICALI ITALIANI: INTERVENTO DEL MINISTRO EMMA BONINO: “In questo caso, si dice, é stato commesso un reato di quelli che creano allarme sociale. Ma chi suona l’allarme, e perché suona in certi casi e non in altri? Cosa crea l’ allarme: l’omicidio, le modalità dello stesso, o il fatto che il sospettato sia rumeno? C’é o non c’é qualcosa che non va, se il massacro di un’intera famiglia ad Erba crea allarme soprattutto a “Porta a Porta”; e un delitto altrettanto efferato – ma perpetrato da un immigrato rumeno – manda l’intero Paese in tilt ? Guardate in questo caso l’unica grande lezione ci viene proprio dal marito della vittima – al quale desidero esprimere, anche da questo palco, tutta la mia solidarietà e vicinanza umana – e che non ha mancato di sottolineare come ciò che è accaduto “poteva capitare anche con un Italiano”.
[2]Roberto Calderoli speaking in Rome on the 4th of November:“I rom e i crimini da loro commessi rappresentano solo la punta dell’iceberg di milioni di stranieri che al posto che lavorare vengono qui e delinquono. Per fermare l’orda c’e’ un unico sistema: chiudiamo le frontiere e facciamo pulizia all’interno del Paese, solo dopo le si potra’ riaprire applicando la legge Bossi-Fini, ma anche ai cittadini comunitari”. Lo afferma Roberto Calderoli, Vice Presidente del Senato e Coordinatore della Lega Nord, che aggiunge: “al di la’ dei permessi per turismo, lavoro o studio, nessuno, cittadino comunitario compreso, potra’ venire se non con un contratto di lavoro certo. L’Europa ha fallito, restituiamo agli Stati membri la sovranita’ dei loro confini”.(AGI) – Roma, 4 nov”