Chronicles of ordinary racism 2011 - Cronache di ordinario razzismo

private organizations against foreigners, but also the countless local decrees issued by
so‐called “creative mayors”.
Among the most frequent cases of verbal violence, even if they do not feature
prominently in the inventory, we must bear in mind those that occur in the world of
sport, reported with relative accuracy by the media, whether they involve players or
supporters. A special mention must be reserved to the racist incident concerning the
black Italian footballer Mario Balotelli, who was, on several occasions, the butt of
serious insults, online and on the part of supporters of opposing teams (“Balotelli is still
African”, “Is he dating a white woman It’s disgusting!”, “If his skin is black, he can’t be
Italian…”, “A nigger in the national squad marks the end of the Italian football”, and so
on…). We also come across a fair number of xenophobic banners: those directed against
Jewish people 327 are decreasing while those against migrants are becoming more
popular, particularly on the part of extreme right‐wing groups. 328 The immigrant
Muslim population is also an easy target of discrimination and violence, as well as of
xenophobic slogans: in particular, we draw attention to the increased number of cases
concerning insults and attacks against women wearing the veil. 329 Islamophobia also
inspires the decrees issued by a number of mayors belonging to the Northern League,
as well as other parties: for example the Northern League Mayor of Azzano Decimo,
Enzo Bortolotti, launched an “Islamic census” in November 2009, effectively keeping
files on all Muslims resident in the municipality; in September 2010 the illustrious
mayor of Adro established that the children attending the Gianfranco Miglio primary
school will no longer be offered an alternative to pork, unless their families can provide
“a valid doctor’s note”, thus effectively discriminating against all the Muslim children
and excluding them from school meals. Conversely, in February 2011, it is the centreleft
majority of the town council of Sesto San Giovanni (MI) who approve a motion
proposed by the Northern League banning the wearing of burqas in public places. The
violation of the human rights of Roma and Sinti minorities, already noted in the past,
shows no sign of abating: emergency decrees and countless evictions go hand in hand
with racist rulings 330 and xenophobic statements issued by politicians (see the most
famous cases of Aliprandi, 331 Lombardi, 332 Maiolo 333 and Lussana 334 ) so as to give rise to
327 We find an increase in the production of anti-Semitic graffiti every year in January in the days approaching the Giorno della
Memoria (International Holocaust Remembance Day).
328 Worthy of note is the execrable graffiti which appeared on Roman walls the day after the tragic death of four Roma children
in the fire in the Tor Fiscale settlement: “Roma -4” and “Roma Raus”, spray-painted and rounded off with swastikas, 13 February
2011, “La Repubblica”.
329 For instance: a client complains because a woman is wearing a burqa in a supermarket in Pieve di Soligo (TV), 24 September
2009, “La Repubblica”; the case of the so-called “black teacher” in a Sonnino (LT) nursery school, 18 September 2010,
vitadidonna.org; the young Moroccan cultural mediator in Padua whose veil was ripped off by a fifty-year-old lady, 27 May
2011, julienews.it; and, lastly, two more veils ripped off Muslim women in Milan, 7 August 2011, “Corriere della Sera”.
330 Two sentences, one issued some time after the other, are truly shocking because they use stigmatisation of the Roma people to
justify the verdicts reached. There's the case of Angelica V, a 17-year-old Roma girl, accused of having attempted to kidnap an
infant in Ponticelli in May 2008. After a year and a half in prison, she was refused house arrest on the grounds that "she's a
Rom": for the judges prison is the only answer because Roma people refuse to follow rules. The ruling rejecting house arrest
states: "it is clear that the person appealing is fully ensconsed in typical Rom culture. And it's because of this total integration in
that lifestyle that someone like her - ie lacking the wherewithal to analyse her own way of life - is likely to commit the same
crime again." Apcom, 3 December 2009. Then there's the much-discussed case of the sentence from the Bologna appeals court in
July 2011 in which it was decided not to order a 12-year-old Roma girl to attend school and to leave her in her camp because
"this is a normal way of life for someone of her standing and her origins. Her nomadic lifestyle and the culture she has grown up
in mean that we can see no possible harm to the child from this decision." La Repubblica, 8 July 2011.
331 December 2010, a Northern League Town Councillor in Padua, Vittorio Aliprandi, already infamous for his racist tendencies,
posts some extremely insulting statements against Roma people on his Facebook profile, to the point of advocating a return to
“concentration camps”. January 2011, still on his Facebook page, he remarks: “Best Wishes for a 2011 without those disgusting
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