Chronicles of ordinary racism 2011 - Cronache di ordinario razzismo

The Rosarno riots
Grazia Naletto
Rosarno, 7 January 2010. It is around 1.30 PM and two young African men are walking
along state highway 18 that connects Rosarno and Gioia Tauro. A dark Volkswagen
jeep approaches with two people on board, shots are fired from an air gun: one of the
youths, an asylum seeker from Togo, is wounded in the chest. Around 2 PM another,
identical, attack occurs: a 25‐year‐old man from Guinea is shot in the left hip while
walking along the street with some friends, near the decommissioned factory “la
Rognetta”. Once again, a dark car is involved. These are the facts leading up to the
immigrants’ riots in Rosarno, but few will take the trouble to reconstruct the details, by
interviewing the victims, for example. 250
On 7 January, the first news bulletins, lifted almost entirely from the websites of the
main national newspapers, focus their attention on the various signs of “urban
warfare”: bins capsized, windows smashed and cars destroyed by immigrants:
“Armed with iron bars and sticks, the immigrants, mostly from Africa, invaded the
main road that passes through Rosarno, wreaking havoc in some of the most important
streets. The outbursts of violence left no stone unturned; they fell upon whatever was at
hand: cars, some with people still inside, houses, vases and rubbish bins emptied onto
the road.” (Ansa, 7 January 2010). 251
These are the images that spring to mind when we think of Rosarno, partly due to the
videos and pictures that are still available online, 252 even though something far more
serious occurred in the days to follow: violent or aggressive attacks with, as their
targets, not objects but people, namely the entire group of African immigrants, giving
rise to a true instance of ethnic cleansing.
We remember the broken cars and smashed windows, although the reports dedicated
to this case by all the newspapers inform public opinion of what most of them,
including local and national institutions, already know. In Rosarno and the
surrounding area, every year during the citrus fruit‐picking period, between 1500 and
2000 foreign farm hands are employed and exploited in inhumane living conditions: 20
euros a day for 12‐14 hours of work, completely in the black economy with no help
towards accommodation; Piana workers are forced to live in crumbling structures such
250 Il Manifesto, which devoted several articles to the Rosarno riots, and Human Rights Watch are among those who do. Cf R.
Cosentino, La caccia al nero con i fucili a pallini ‘Come animali’, (Black men hunted with shotguns ‘like animals’) 10 January
2010. Victims are immediately joined in the hospital by volunteers from the immigration observatory Africalabria.org who have
been supporting immigrant workers in Rosarno and surrounding area for years.
251 The press bullettin “Africans shot spark urban warfare in Piana Gioia Tauro” is reiterated the very same day in: “A Rosarno la
rivolta degli immigrati” (Immigrants riot in Rosarno), Corriere.it; “Rosarno, immigrati in rivolta centinaia di auto danneggiate”
(Rosarno, immigrants riot, hundreds of cars damaged), Repubblica.it; “Immigrati in rivolta, caos a Rosarno” (Immigrants riot,
chaos in Rosarno) lastampa.it; “A Rosarno immigrati in rivolta: scene di guerriglia urbana” (Immigrants riot in Rosarno: scenes
of urban warfare”, ilsole24ore.it.
252
See for example the photo gallery still available on the Corriere della Sera website:
http://www.corriere.it/gallery/cronache/01-2010/rosarno/1/rivolta-immigrati-rosarno_f63a92de-fbd6-11de-a955-
00144f02aabe.shtml#3
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