Two years ago in Rosarno, southern Italy, thousands of migrant agricultural workers rose up in open revolt against the grotesquely obscene living and working conditions imposed upon them by a mafia-linked network of farmers and the local state.
It was all legitimated by the conniving silence of the Italian trade union movement.
Now the brutal face of Italian racism reveals itself again on the island of Lampedusa, where thousands of desperate people fleeing Libya and its borders sought refuge, hoping for the necessary conditions to help them rebuild their shattered lives.
But the government of Berlusconi had no intention of turning back on its ruthless determination to exploit racism — for that has played a major part in the prostration of the working-class movement before the systematic assault on jobs, welfare, education and political rights in general.
Led by the odious Maroni, Northern League member and Minister of the Interior, it was announced that “a biblical exodus” of refugees was on its way to Italy, deliberately inflaming the already ignorant and hostile perceptions widespread in the country. The same Maroni announced that among the exodus would be not only those “illegally” seeking work, i.e. not “real” asylum seekers, but also followers of al-Qaeda bent on sowing terrorism across the country.
What happened was predictable, an example of the putrid depths to which Berlusconi’s regime has taken this country, undermining basic human decency and humanity.
Thousands did begin to arrive to find that not one single act of preparation had been undertaken — no toilets, no water, no food. A population of frightened, famished and deracinated masses was left to forage for itself in conditions of indescribable and mounting degradation.
All grist to the mill of the racist media, fomenting hatred and igorance in equal measure, here, in one of the richest countries in the world, about the impossibility of finding accomodation for 20,000 people.
Finally Berlusconi arrived on the island, as he had done in the refuge crisis in Napoli and the earthquake in Acquila, addressing himself excusively to the islanders.
He never once made reference to the reality surrounding him other than to reassure everyone that the refugees would be taken back to where they came from. He promised a new golf course, a casino and freshly painted homes — guaranteed to make the natives proud of the prospect of another Las Vegas in Italy.
Let no one be in any doubt that what has happened here underlines the profoundly critical depths of the political crisis in which the Italian radical left and trade union movement finds itself.
Nothing could express it more eloquently than the fact that as the above events unfolded, the latter were devoting most of their time to organising protests about the no-fly zone and intervention in Libya. That, I believe, says it all.
