The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could hardly contain himself after a string of electoral victories this spring. “We are the new Falange,” he crowed – a reference to the fascist party that helped General Franco seize power in 1930s Spain. Supporters of Gianni Alemanno, a former youth leader of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, celebrated his election to Rome’s mayoralty later in April by chanting “Duce! Duce!” – Benito Mussolini’s nickname – and raising their arms in the fascist salute. Arriving for a parliamentary session that same month, Umberto Bossi, a minister in Berlusconi’s government and the head of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, all but threatened the Italian opposition with violence: “I don’t know what the Left wants but we are ready,” he warned. “If they want conflicts, I have 300,000 men always on hand.”
Since Berlusconi’s victory, these echoes of the 1930s have been backed by a series of chauvinistic and discriminatory measures. Claiming to address crime by clamping down on immigration, the Berlusconi government has conflated these two phenomena, scapegoating the country’s Roma, or Gypsy, population as a major cause of its social problems. An impoverished and marginalized ethnic group, the Roma are particularly vulnerable to resentment by the rest of the population. Despite a presence on the Italian peninsula since the Middle Ages, Gypsies are poorly integrated and many live in rundown encampments on the outskirts of urban centers. Recent increases in immigration patterns – and public outrage over a series of violent crimes – have hardened the Italians’ hostility and transformed Gypsies into the far right’s ideal targets.
The Atlantic
