[INDEX | NATIONAL | WORLD | PERSPECTIVE | COLUMNS | MONEY | ENTERTAINMENT | HEALTH | TECH | LETTERS | SUBSCRIBE]

FinalCall.com News

World News
Italy race problems come to forefront with first Black government minister
By Nicole Winfield Associated Press
Updated May 10, 2013 - 1:03:47 PM

ROME (AP) - It was hailed as a giant step forward for racial integration in a country that has long been ill at ease with its growing immigrant classes. But Cecile Kyenge’s appointment as Italy’s first Black Cabinet minister has instead exposed the nation’s ugly race problem, a blight that flares regularly on the soccer pitch with racist taunts and in the diatribes of xenophobic politicians - but has now raised its head at the center of political life.

One politician from a party that not long ago ruled in a coalition derided what he called Italy’s new “bonga bonga government.” On May 1, amid increasing revulsion over the reaction, the government authorized an investigation into neo-fascist websites whose members called Ms. Kyenge “Congolese monkey” and other epithets.

Ms. Kyenge, 48, was born in Congo and moved to Italy three decades ago to study medicine. An eye surgeon, she lives in Modena with her Italian husband and two children. She was active in local center-left politics before winning a seat in the lower Chamber of Deputies in February elections.

Premier Enrico Letta tapped Ms. Kyenge to be minister of integration in his hybrid center-left and center-right government that won its second vote of confidence April 30. In his introductory speech to Parliament, Premier Letta touted Ms. Kyenge’s appointment as a “new concept about the confines of barriers giving way to hope, of unsurpassable limits giving way to a bridge between diverse communities.”

His praise and that of others has been almost drowned out by the racist slurs directed at Ms. Kyenge by politicians of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, an on-again, off-again ally of long-serving ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, and members of neo-fascist Internet groups.

In addition to his “bonga bong” slur, Mario Borghezio, a European parliamentarian for the League, warned in an interview with Radio 24 that Ms. Kyenge would try to “impose tribal traditions”  from her native Congo on Italy.

Ms. Kyenge on April 30 responded to the insults, thanking those who had come to her defense and taking a veiled jab at the vulgarity of her critics. “I believe even criticism can inform if it’s done with respect,” she tweeted.

Unlike France, Germany or Britain, where second and third generations of immigrants have settled albeit uneasily, Italy is a relative newcomer to the phenomenon. France has several high-ranking government ministers with immigrant roots, and few French had a problem with the appointments: Former President Nicolas Sarkozy named a justice minister and urban policy minister, both born in France to North African parents, to his cabinet, while his minister for human rights was born in Senegal. Francois Hollande’s government spokeswoman was born in Morocco and raised in France, and his interior minister was born in Spain. He also has two Black ministers from French overseas territories - one from Guyana and one from Guadeloupe.

Italy is another story. Once a country of emigration to North and South America at the turn of the last century, Italy saw the first waves of migrants from Eastern Europe and Africa coming to its shores only in the 1980s. In the last decade or two, their numbers have increased exponentially, and with them anti-immigrant sentiment: Surveys show Italians blame immigrants for crime and overtaxing the already burdened public health system. Foreigners made up about 2 percent of Italy’s population in 1990; currently the figure stands at 7.5 percent, according to official statistics bureau Istat.

Some of the most blatant manifestations of racism occur in the realm of Italy’s favorite sport, soccer - which for Italians and others has shown itself to be a perfect venue for displays of pent-up emotions. In the case of a handful of Italian teams, soccer is a way for right-wing fan clubs to vent.

Mario Balotelli, the AC Milan striker born in Palermo to Ghanaian immigrants and raised by an Italian adoptive family, knows all about it. Perhaps Italy’s best player today, he has long been the subject of racist taunts on and off the field: Rival fans once hung a banner during a match saying “Black Italians don’t exist” while the vice-president of his own club once called him the household’s “little Black boy.”

The race situation is almost schizophrenic in Italy. In the same week Ms. Kyenge was made a government minister and Mr. Balotelli was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, AC Milan’s rival Juventus was fined 30,000 euro ($39,372) for fans “racist” taunts during a game against Milan in which Mr. Balotelli wasn’t even playing.

La Repubblica newspaper on April 30, meanwhile, cited the vile insults directed at her on fascist Internet groups such as www.ilduce.net. Repubblica said the antagonism was born from the League’s basic opposition to a minister who tends to favor immigrant rights. “But the racist origins had to explode. And here they are. True, they’re consigned to the stupid transience of the Web, but they’re a sign of the widespread climate of hatred” in the country, the paper wrote.

Coming to Mr. Kyenge’s defense was Laura Boldrini, the president of parliament’s lower chamber, who for years was the chief spokeswoman in Italy for the U.N. refugee agency. In that role she frequently defended the rights of immigrants - and squared off with Northern League leaders after they pushed through a controversial 2009 policy to send back would-be Libyan migrants without screening them first for asylum.

“It is indecent that in a civil society there can be a series of insults - on websites but not only there - that are being hurled against the neo-minister Cecile Kyenge,” Ms. Boldrini said. “Like many people, watching her take her oath of office I felt that Italy was taking an important step forward, and not just for ‘new Italians.’”

Sociologist Michele Sorice at Rome’s Luiss University said Italians have long harbored racist attitudes, stemming from the nation’s colonial past in north Africa, but that they stayed hidden until the Northern League “legitimized” xenophobic political rhetoric after entering the government in the 1990s. The League denies it’s xenophobic and says it is merely protecting the interests of Italians.

Italy has since become more sensitized to the issue, Ms. Sorice said, but it still lags behind its European and North American partners. Changing the law on citizenship, as Ms. Kyenge wants, “wouldn’t do anything more than to bring Italy into line with the great European traditions,” he said.

But he was doubtful that this particular government, made up of longtime political rivals, could pull it off when even previous center-left governments had failed to do so.

“It remains to be seen how this can be done on a practical level with a coalition government,” he said.

(Tricia Thomas in Rome and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.)

FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright 2012 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.