The Italian Government’s reaction to immigration does not surprise me.
Italy has been a fundamentally racist country at least since unification in 1861.
The first group to be othered were the Southern Italians, considered inferior in every respect.
Fascism sought to solve the problem of Southern backwardness by invading a series of African countries.
In the post-war era racism again reappeared in the North as Southerners emigrated there to find work.
Now the Italians have found ‘unity’ again, as they did during Fascism, by discriminating against non white or ‘other’ white foreigners.
The Lega Nord espouses social policies that are remarkably similar to post-Pact of Steel Fascism.
One should remember that the North of Italy was the heartland of Fascism and is still the region that has most to gain from keeping a population of discriminated foreign workers in a state of enforced clandestinity so that they will never be able to claim the same rights as Italian workers.
The Italian government knows full well that it cannot stop immigration flows, but its business orientated electorate has a lot to gain from the creation of a virtual Bantustan made up of poor foreigners.
