Echoes of Mussolini?

[nino_savatte]

One of the first actions of the new Berlusconi government is to compulsorily fingerprint all Roma children. The reason for this, according to government sources, is 'crime prevention'. What it really amounts to is a form of ethnic surveying.

The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the rabble-rousing Northern League – close allies of Silvio Berlusconi on the government benches – has explained his next step in his assault on the "emergenza di sicurezza", the "security emergency": fingerprinting all Gypsies.

Security, my arse.

Jews had lived in Italy for centuries without persecution. The community in Rome, though confined to the historic ghetto area for many centuries, has the longest uninterrupted history of any Jewish community in the world. In Mussolini's Italy, upper middle- class Jews continued to live and prosper without persecution – until 1938.

In that year Mussolini introduced his Manifesto of Race, closely modelled on the Nazi Nuremberg laws, which stripped Jews of their Italian citizenship, the right of Jewish children to go to school and of adults to work in the government or the professions.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/plight-of-the-roma-echoes-of-mussolini-855436.html

Italian Jewish groups have condemned the move.

Jewish groups also attacked the plan. Amos Luzzarto, a former leader of Italy's Jewish community, said: "There is a latent form of racism which manifests itself in cycles in Italian culture.

"I remember as a child being stamped and tagged as a Jew and as such could not be trusted. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23934906-663,00.html

 

[frogwoman]

nice to see the government is taking firm action to apprehend the culprits of the recent troubles in italy eh ...

 

[ViolentPanda]

If the want to do "crime prevention", they'd probably be better off fingerprinting the entire Carabinieri than Roma kids.

 

[frogwoman]

And then there is Napoli ... it isn't the roma doing the crime there ...

i remember reading an article ages ago about schools over there which were taken over by the mafia, kids running guns, drugs, etc ...

truly fucking horrifying ..

 

[isitme]

Scary stuff

It looks to me like an incredibly obvious attempt to distract people from the failing economy, what with everywhere's economy seeming to be getting worse and worse, this could also get worse and worse

One thing that the article didn't point out was that unlike Germany, Italy was never de-Nazified, and to keep order during the post war years, many of the fascist Carabinieri, Officials, Judges etc etc were kept in their job, so that culture has survived very strongly there

 

[nino_savatte]

And then there is Napoli ... it isn't the roma doing the crime there ...

i remember reading an article ages ago about schools over there which were taken over by the mafia, kids running guns, drugs, etc ...

truly fucking horrifying ..

Napoli has a pretty nasty history...it is, or was, a hotbed of fascist politics.

 

[nino_savatte]

If the want to do "crime prevention", they'd probably be better off fingerprinting the entire Carabinieri than Roma kids.

Yep...and the chamber of Deputies may also want to reconsider the immunity from prosecution that they're about to give Berlusconi.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/28/italy1

 

[nino_savatte]

Italy expells 38 Egyptians

The Roma were once referred to as "Gypsies" because it was believed that they originated from Egypt. It would seem the new Italian government isn't bothered by the veracity of that story and has expelled 38 Egyptians.
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL28377349.html

Editorial from The Graunaid.
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=7697846

 

[Barking_Mad]

If the want to do "crime prevention", they'd probably be better off fingerprinting the entire Carabinieri than Roma kids.

ACAB! hehe first in.

 

[ViolentPanda]

ACAB! hehe first in.

It's more MICAT (many Italian coppers are tea-leafs).

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/10/race.humanrights

 

[isitme]

The EU should really have a word with him, surely one of the reasons that the European Community exists is to keep this sort of stuff in check

I can't believe that they banned muslims praying in the street. Milan has a massive muslim population, and they aren't hurting anyone praying in the street

 

[frogwoman]

innit

 

[mk12]

Has Rome turned into a fascist dictatorship yet?

 

[frogwoman]

it is a sad fact that discrimination against gypsies/roma has never been confined to fascist regimes

weimar germany began instituting laws against them before the nazis even had a chance of getting into power

 

[frogwoman]

Has Rome turned into a fascist dictatorship yet?

the average italian probably has very very little to worry about

 

[nino_savatte]

it is a sad fact that discrimination against gypsies/roma has never been confined to fascist regimes

weimar germany began instituting laws against them before the nazis even had a chance of getting into power

Quite, all one has to do is look at examples in this country of discrimination and attitudes towards the Roma and other travelling folk.

 

[poster342002]

The EU should really have a word with him, surely one of the reasons that the European Community exists is to keep this sort of stuff in check

Unlikely with the assortment of rightwing nutjobs running a lot of the EU states, now.

 

[nino_savatte]

Recently Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome praised fascism and Mussolini. The defence minister has also praised fascism.

Italy's defense minister paid homage to pro-Nazi troops on Monday, the second senior conservative in two days to voice sympathy with fascism.
Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa was speaking at an event marking the anniversary of Rome's resistance to Nazi occupation in 1943.

Rome's mayor, former neo-Nazi youth leader Gianni Alemanno, caused controversy on Sunday by saying he "does not and never has" considered fascism to be "absolute evil", Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government has faced accusations of racism and fascism since coming to office in May, mostly for its tough stance on illegal immigrants and crime.

Berlusconi's main allies are the National Alliance - heirs to Benito Mussolini's fascists, who now present themselves as mainstream conservatives - and the anti-immigrant Northern League. Alemanno and La Russa are from the National Alliance

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019857.html

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Unlikely with the assortment of rightwing nutjobs running a lot of the EU states, now.

That could be where European law comes in though. If there are lawyers prepared to fight the case.

 

[nino_savatte]

Edit

 

[nino_savatte]

Berlusconi accused of stoking racism.

Silvio Berlusconi was today accused of helping to create a "climate of racial hatred" after an Italian man of African origin was beaten to death in Milan for stealing biscuits.

However Robert Maroni, the Interior Minister, who is a Northern League leader, said that the left was using the murder to "falsely accuse the right" of racism.

Mr Maroni said that the law and order package adopted by the Government after it took office, including the fingerprinting of Roma gypsies and the deployment of troops on Italian streets alongside police, was intended to "give our citizens greater security".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4757643.ece

"Greater security" when it's unpacked reveals something altogether more sinister. Maroni helped to draft the recent Roma fingerprinting law.

 

[chilango]

Went to a protest against racism in Milan on Sat (by accident, didn't know it was happenning ).

Not many there. A couple of thousand tops. Mostly hard left and immigrants.

 

[Dhimmi]

One thing that the article didn't point out was that unlike Germany, Italy was never de-Nazified, and to keep order during the post war years, many of the fascist Carabinieri, Officials, Judges etc etc were kept in their job, so that culture has survived very strongly there

Good and pertinent point. I'd add to it in saying that once German citizens had achieved "de-nazified" status, often a rubber stamp job, plenty of them heavily associated with both party and state were allowed to continue their business.

Distasteful as it seems the main concern was being able to continue managing the countries under occupation, of the Axis powers Japan was very likely the one least effected, being neither occupied, "de-emporered", nor facing any war crime trials.