Birdstorm Season in Rome (and in Italian Politics)

Fall brings thousands of small migratory birds to Tiber alluvial plain. They flock in dense clouds that cross the sky in eerie beautiful formations. They fill the branches of the trees along the river, and dust the streets along the river with …  well, you know.  The Italian word for it translates as: birdstorm. Tourists and squeegee men love them (unless caught underneath); car owners and terrazzo lovers, not so much.  (There is a video at the bottom of this post.)

 Another birdstorm of sorts is playing out with the Italian government. The governing coalition has just presented a budget –which caused a flurry of condemnation from all sides of the political spectrum. Both center right and center left -ie the governing parties, though they don’t act like it- denounced the budget for what it does not do, namely increase spending or cut taxes. Even the namby-pamby center, which usually thinks that any government that avoid being kicked out of Europe is doing fine, had a few unkind words. The unions called for street demonstrations and a general strike. The business association, for the umpteenth time, declared that it despairs for the future of Italian industry…

Sadly, they are all right, of course. The budget will neither generate new jobs nor put the country on a more solid financial footing. It is neither fish nor fowl, neither stimulus nor austerity. Even more sadly, Italians are going to have to get used to such budgets. The country’s debt amounts to over 130% of its gdp and interest rates are at all time lows. I can’t see the country getting out from under this mountain of debt in the next 10 years. Most sadly of all, politicians are not being clear with the Italian public about what realistically can be expected.

If they did... that would really generate a ****storm no little birds could match.

6 Immigration Lessons from Italy (What Not to Do)

The failings of Italy's immigration law were made painfully and embarrassingly clear last week after two ships packed with over 700 refugees went down off the Italian island of Lampedusa. So far over 300 dead bodies have been recovered. The drownings have shone a spotlight on the disfunctional Italian immigration system, its negligent and overcrowded refugee camps, and its punitive legal treatment of migrants. 

Immigrant must check in with police on a regular basis.

6 Immigration Lessons from Italy

Italy’s current immigration law is a hardline, enforcement first measure. Know as Bossi-Fini , after its co-authors, the 2002 law greatly restricts legal immigration, abolishes many social services for immigrants, makes it difficult for children born in Italy to non-Italian parents to become citizens, and generally treats immigration as a law enforcement issue. In effect, the law is an anti-immigration measure, based on the notion that criminalization and zero-tolerance will repel migrants (illegal and legal). 

  

The problems of this approach are plain to see:

1.  By making legal immigration almost impossible, Italy has ensured that it receives only that form of immigration that is born of desperation. All those with skills and options, are driven elsewhere by bureaucratic barriers and government hostility. Its hardline immigration approch has resulted in exactly the clandestine migration it feared. 

Punitive legal measures that criminalize migrants, Italy have NOT prevented inflows of people. What these punitive measures have done is to make sure that those immigrants that do end up in Italy, often by harrowing illegal journeys during which they are at the mercy of criminal human trafficking cartels, have greater needs, are torn from their families, and have fewer social and economic resources at their disposal to make a new life for themselves. Once they are in country, their 'criminal' status renders them more vulnerable to abuse and fearful of authority. 

Graffiti in an immigrant social squat in Rome.

2. In addition to restricting legal immigration, Bossi-Fini also makes gaining Italian citizenship difficult for children born in Italy, to non-Italian parents. The result of this measure is to create a class of people who are born and raised as Italians, but who don't have the legal rights of citizenship. Thus, long term immigrants are prevented from putting down roots in the country. The result is a class of "guest workers" who live in Italy but heve neither full rights nor a stake in the future of the country.

4. Although Bossi-Fini allow for the the granting of asylum to refugees, there is little provision for how to deal with their presence. The asylum system is so starved of funds to the point of shame. Refugees spend years in overcrowded and underfunded camps. The  camp in Lampedusa was built for 200. It houses over a thousand, including unaccompanied minors mixed with adults. 

5. The idea that refugees, who are fleeing abject poverty of political violence will be deterred by the threat of a monetary fine is absurd and delegitimizes the justice system that has to prosecute helpless victims.  The magistrate charged with prosecuting the wretched souls who survived the shipwrecks last week spoke of his shame at enforcing the law. 

6. Italy itself is the victim of a European Union measure that required refugee seekers to stay in the country they first set foot in. Thus Italy, and Greece and Malta and Spain, poor countries by EU standards, are forced to carry a disproportionate share of refugees seeking entry to Europe. The last irony of Bossi-Fini is that most of the refugees and immigrants in the Italian anti-immigration system want to leave the country.

When Survival is a Crime

Two outrageous developments about the ship packed with refugees that went down off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy: 

In published interviews, some of the first rescuers, tourists boats and fishermen, describe a nightmarish scene in which the water was full of people calling for help and clinging to pieces of wood. They claim that the Italian coast guard ordered them back to port only to then to wait for "instructions" before beginning to rescue the drowning people. The coast guard deny this.

Under Italy's harsh immigration law, the survivors of the shipwreck, will be prosecuted for illegal entry into the country and face punitive fines. The magistrate's office has stated that they are ashamed of having to prosecute, but that they have no flexibility.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior are making noises about modifying this "shameful" law. Meanwhile divers continue to bring up dead bodies from the sunken ship, 300 so far.

"The Mediterranean is a graveyard."

Ruined watchtowers dot the easternmost point of mainland Italy. 

A crippled ship weighed down with over 500 refugees caught fire and sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. A hundred or so were rescued alive, thanks to the unstinting bravery of Lampedusa's fishermen. But divers have filmed horrifying underwater images of the sunken ship, still packed with dead bodies, above and below deck, perhaps over 300.

The tragedy has set off a needed debate on how Italy, and Europe, treat the thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Africa and the Middle East. In Lampedusa, which is 70 miles off the Tunisian Coast and which has the largest refugee relocation center in Italy, the people held a moving candlelight vigil in remembrance and solidarity. The refugee relocation camp on the island has space for 250 people. It currently houses 1,200. The majority of refugees, including unaccompanied minors, sleep on the open ground for want of space. Other refugee centers in Italy are also overcrowded, and are reluctant accept more. Asylum requests can take years to process.

Sunrise over San Giovanni in Laterano, the Pope's Basilica.

Pope Francis, who has been a strong voice in favor of making immigration policy more humane, is offering the use of monasteries to house the refugees. The xenophobic right is calling for the use of the military to intercept and prevent refugees from approaching Italian shores. (The European Union already has a military border interception force --but it is housed in Warsaw, far from the Mediterranean.) 

But the tremendous scale of this tragedy has forced the Italian government to take action. They are ordering other refugee centers in the country to take more of the load. And they are calling on the European Union to change some of its more dysfunctional policies.

By European regulations, asylum seekers must remain in the first European point where they apply for asylum. This is to prevent migrants from moving about Europe, but the consequence is to put a tremendous strain on a few countries: Italy, Greece, and Malta, in particular.

Italy is calling on other European countries to accept to receive their fair share refugees. Currently three European countries receive a disproportionate amount of resettled migrants: UK, France and Germany. The smaller countries accept almost zero.

The tragedy has also opened debate over Italy's own highly restrictive immigration laws. (A magistrate has already announced that the survivors of the tragedy will face prosecution under the harsh Bossi-Fini immigration law in the books.) The law makes legal immigration to the country almost impossible, thereby exacerbating the use of desperate and dangerous illegal routes. Italy's immigration levels are higher than those of the small, exclusionary countries of Europe, but very low compared to the big three.

The vast majority of those who died this week were from Eritrea and Somalia -- the former a poor one-party state, and the latter a famously failed one. Both were once Italian colonies. Eritrea officially became an Italian colony in 1890, after Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia. Somalia followed later. In 1936, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland were declared provinces of Italian East Africa. In 1941, when the British expelled the Italians from the Horn of Africa, almost 10% of the population of Eritrea was Italian.