How incredible the other day, talking to the girls at the bakery shop, as the radio reported of a philippine woman living in Italy, just outside our city, who slaughtered her entire family later trying to kill herself. The girls were joking about it like people do with events that are so remote and inconceivable that one cannot identify with it.
"She killed her husband with a knife!" said one.
"And her sons!" said the other. They were using the usual half phony sympathy tone of the milanese trades, hypocrite imitation of badly evoked old times.
It was so funny to them, because a woman had done it, and women are supposed to be defenseless or powerless compared to men. It was also funny because she was not italian, and thus such kind of disgrace had nothing to do with us, and could be treated more easily, like the thought of a inundation in India or a earthquake in Guatemala.
I couldn't joke with them as a customer is expected to do. All I could come up with was a sort of depressed smile I was sorry for.
But c'mon. It's years that a week doesn't go by in my country without news of some husband killing his wife. Some father murdering his daughter or son. Some lover, some brother, killing a sister, a ex pregnant girlfriend, etc. Every week. Certain weeks many times. But the girls were bantering as if news of this sort were unheard of around here. "It took a chinese woman to do it!" It was yet another big illusion sold cheap to us by Immigration. Helping us to picture our country as if it was a completely different, innocent little thing. Well, at least for a minute or two of fake conversation.
"Aren't italian men usually killing italian women?" I asked in the end, as the girl handed me a paper bag with in it the bread I had just payed for. "With guns, no?" I pursued. But the girls fell silent and incredulous. Could it be I was the only one who was noticing all the killing of women in the italian newspapers? I had had that same feeling before. It seemed like if these were events that no one wanted to really consider. Consumed rapidly, even if they kept turning up again and again, they didn't mean anything compared to other events, much more abstract and conceptual, distant and showy, that were discussed forever.
But I had disrupted the pleasant atmosphere. Especially when I ended: "If there's a gun in a house, you can be almost sure it will end up being used by a man to kill a woman! Isn't it funny?"
"I'll never give my husband a gun then", the girl proposed after a short while (I was already halfway the glass door), bursting in a fake laugh which strangely moved me.
I remember that all I could think of in that moment was "What I can't believe is that someone married you." I am always amazed when I am informed that people are married. I don't expect them to be. But I didn't said that. I only gave the usual curt salute of the non customary customer and left, to the apparent relief of the street where actually nobody was laughing.

While in Paris the riots are still going on after eleven days (in picture: scene from the riots, from repubblica.it), in Italy the few voices that usually speak out on immigration turned even more burlesque.

Northern League coordinator and institutional reforms minister, Roberto Calderoli, speaking about the metropolitan guerrilla in Paris said that it was only the top of the iceberg of what would happen very soon in France, Netherlands and in the other countries that, after a colonial policy, had to accept a strong immigration. He said that it was necessary to stop the invasion of Italy made by irregular non-EU immigrants. Otherwise Italy would have to pay the same price. He said that irregular immigration was the bomb while the left wing political movements were the detonator and the lack of repression of these two forms of illegality was the hand that triggers the bomb. (from AGI)

Calderoli is a blatant racist and an obsessive opposer to any form of immigration to Italy (from poorer countries, doh). But there's something obviously true in what he says and that cannot be denied: things can only get worse in Europe in such matters. Netherlands and France are a lesson that Italy will never learn. Since this is a global unstoppable process anyway, Calderoli's idea of a forced stop to immigration is just ridiculous.

In face of the riots in France, anyway, a statement (widely attacked from the right) by Mr Romano Prodi, (sort of) leader of the left-wing opposition, proved that more politicians are beginning to worry. It sounded quite unheard, considering how our politicians usually (besides Calderoli) underestimate the problem.

"We should not believe to be in a so different situation from the one in Paris", he said: "it's just a matter of time. We have the worse suburbs in Europe. Our suburbs are a human tragedy and if we don't take some serious action, on the social and residential sides, we are going to have many [situations like] Paris. There are very bad conditions and unhappiness even where only Italians are" (from La Repubblica).

New and better residences are certainly a good project. Also working on the social side (which means roughly trying to give the immigrants welfare protection, a legal job, not a "black" one as for the majority is today) is important.
After all, one person over ten in Italy migrated here from another country in the last years. In 2004, italian population grew of just 574,100 units. Of these, 558,200 were immigrants. Believe it or not.

But not Calderoli nor Prodi won't ever have the courage to fight illegal immigration with the only possible mean: by legalizing it.
Consider that Ndrangheta and Mafia this way won't make a penny out of illegal immigration. Plus a legalized immigrant hardly falls into criminal organizations. Legalization is right and good. And why immigration should be illegal anyway?

I say, give them a decent boat to cross the sea from Africa (not a sinking one). Identify them. Give 'em the damn papers. Give them a permit of stay and to travel across Europe. Later, when they find a job, let them bring their families too.
A part of the fact that this way the problems should be easier to face (there'd be a past deal between the institution and the immigrant) and less people would go underground: this would also be the only right thing to do.

Because they're free people, like us, aren't they. Well, until we put them all in detention, of course.

Beautiful, compelling writing by Marco Rovelli on Nazione Indiana. Not long ago we covered the vicissitudes of Fabrizio Gatti, who posed as an illegal alien and got detained. Now Rovelli pieces together the story of runaway 'illegal' immigrant secluded in a detention camp in Bologna. It's Sahid's story, "Dark into the eyes" (Il buio dentro gli occhi).

You can read it here, but since it is in Italian, once again Italy is falling provides you with the best free bits of translation on the Italian blog market. Some lines have been stripped because of the lazy translator. Blame him.

Please be warned that the story you are going to read it's a violent, unjust, tough story. It's not recommended for the ones who do not want to admit, for example, how much racist and violent and abusive Italian security forces can be.

You meet Sahid at the library. You want me clandestine, but you are not going to cut me off the world. He reads newspapers, talks, argues. As he always did, in Morocco too. You have to keep your sight, to save yourself, to avoid being drowned by the non-existence to which they condemned you.(...)
It happened at the CPT¹ in Bologna, his city. It's been his city for fifteen years already. It was his city before March the 2^nd, and still is.

It's Sunday (...) At ten Pm Sahid is in the TV hall... in the intervals among words, the sound of rain against the cells' roof. Then a rumble. Not a thunder, but cries. Shutting up, snapping, running to see. A stronger beat, more irregular.

Across the fence the carabinieri took two boys that just tried to climb over. On that side of the fence there are Red Cross' rooms, the police's hut, the infirmary. But it's the only possible way out. They drag them towards the hut, shoving them, insulting. Sahid and the others scream, Leave 'em alone. They already know what is about to happen. They also know, though, that the cries won't stop them. And this just make them scream even more.

The two boys are a Russian and a Tunisian. They became buddies, learned to trust each other. To run away you have to trust your buddy, you must turn into a single body with him. If he stumbles, you stumble. You must be coordinate. Not that it would be enough anyway. It didn't worked for them. The carabinieri handed them over to the police (...)
And the speechless hear, not being deaf, the cries of their comrades, of the Tunisian and the Russian one, coming from the hut, they are being beaten. Thus someone climbs on the roof, untwists the light bulbs and throw them across the fence. Others go in front of the entrance and throw garbage bags. Then others go all the way back to the courtyard, detach a piece of gutter, throw it on the other side of the fence.

Demonstrative actions, policemen keep doing their job, and for the speechless there's only but to scream even more, and who is in charge cannot stand this. Policemen come out of the hut with the two boys, who have blood all over them, and that blood wasn't there when they got in. They bring them to the entrance, behind the gates there's Sahid who's resisting along with the comrades, they don't want retaliations. They duly open the gates enough to let the Russian and the Tunisian in, then they close them back.

Meanwhile more policemen open the hydrants against the ones on the roof. Some of them start to come down, but someone resists. One does not want to stop yelling, he just cannot be silent once again: he lived in Italy for years, he comes from Morocco but his children were born in Italy, they're italian, and he's now supposed to be quiet and let them deport him, leave his family behind, his life, no, this cannot be done without resisting. He goes on screaming. The foreman of the Red Cross convinces him to come down, one should trust his word. Come down, he tells him. It's all over. We are not going to do you no harm. He comes down, on the other side of the fence, and instead there, fists and kicks from the guards. Onto another one, who resisted with him up till the end, pours down a piece of cement, one that was thrown from the other side, a policeman decided to give it back to him.

A load of fists, then it seems over. Everybody gets back to the rooms, someone to the TV hall, but the TV is off now, some other attempts to have a coffee trying to swallow his rage. (...)
Sahid sees them as he comes out from the room. Policemen with the anti-riot outfit, harnessed with shields, helmets, truncheons. Punitive expedition. Woe to the vanquished. Along with them Sahid sees the foreman of the Red Cross, the only one who has all the keys of the camp. Sahid runs to the coffee room, They're coming, cries, Let's lock ourselves in. (...)

Policemen are before the door now. They begin to hit the door with the truncheons. One of Sahid's comrades gives it a try, Inspector, he says, there's no need to break through the door. We open it and we talk about it, he says. (...) The Inspector does not agree to the deal. No, he says, I am going to break through the door, and to break through you too. The Inspector is a man of his word. The moment he gets in he hits him with his truncheon. Then twelve more guards get in. Twelve, as the apostles. It may sound as a made-up detail for a story. But it's all real. The clubbing, besides, it's even more real. As it is the blood scattered all around, on the coffee machine, on the chairs, on the TV. Sahid gets his head ripped open and a finger broken.
When it's all done, and nobody keeps is legs, they go. They throw teargas in and close the door. There are no windows in the room, they're suffocating, but the boys have not the courage to get up and out. They hear screams from the other rooms. Everybody gets it, nobody has to be unaccounted for. It has to be written on their body that they are the speechless.

At the end of the roll call they are all gathered in the alley, in a row. They have been all written on cautiously, but it is quite clear that it takes a seal now, a neat and indelible signature. The seal goes on for three hours. All standing, exposed to clubbing, slapping, fists. A particularly creative policeman breaks his shield on Sahid's head. Spits in the face, insults yelled in the ear. And you have to stay put, motionless, if you don't want to make it worse. At Sahid's side someone faints. A policeman put a foot on his chest, as a hunter with the killed beast, glances with a satisfied look to his colleague, The bastard it's a three cylinders engine, he keeps working.

There's also the officer, Sahid recalls, going around with his mobile phone taking pictures. Who's the cutest? Then he stops in front of Sahid and takes a picture. Sahid stands still, as it should be for a souvenir picture. He looks at the lens, keeps his eyes wide open. And he sees the Red Cross' Foreman, the one who opened the fence, the one that should be humanitarian, heading the police, pointing with his finger the detainees, the good and the bad, doesn't leave anybody short. And policemen gain by his instructions. Two of them stand on the door, when the doctor arrives they warn, the doctor should not see the beating happening, it's risky, he could talk. The doctor arrives, one by one folks go to the infirmary, he gives them stitches, send them back. He doesn't see anything, but he doesn't want to see either. As many, too many in the italic borderlands of the European fortresses.

- Here the police is in charge, don't you see? That this is a land separated from Italy? That they made the law for us? Don't you see it, that we can do whatever we want? If you don't want to go to your country in flesh and bones, we will forward you in pieces, pieces of shit...

This is the guards' litany as Sahid remembers it. (...)
He says: to me, it's been an action planned in the slightest details, to give an essay to the CPT's guests on how the place is cut off from the rest of the world and that in that place police rules. We clandestines, as they call us, have only to endure it because, as the police tells us, we have no right to denounce them. We are cannon fodder, just that.

Yet Sahid, along with other comrades, didn't stand it. That writing of beatings on the flesh wasn't enough to make memory of their mutism. They went on talking. And they denounced their torturers. Not all of them did though. Some of them were repatriated right away. Among them, the Tunisian boy who tried to escape.

The moment I am writing this, Sahid has the appeal pending. His Stay Permit was not renovated by the police department, but the tribunal emitted a suspension, thanks to which if he's arrested he's not sent to a camp. Sahid keeps on walking in the streets of Bologna. To work illegally. What's more important he will keep to exercise his eye on the world. And he will resist until they will tear is eyes away, his tongue.

I was writing this only a few days ago. Today, October 20 2005, everything is changed. They tore Sahid's eyes away.
Simone, his lawyer, just called me, Sahid is on the line. Tomorrow I'm leaving, I'm going away from Italy. I'm scared. They won't let me live. They caught me again, the beat me again. It's been the same one, the chief of the camp, the one that broke through the door.
They caught him again, few days ago, while he was helping a friend to bring his bags to the railway station. He had the suspension of the tribunal... Instead they brought him at the police department, and from there, disregarding the tribunal's decree, they sent him back to the CPT at Mattei Street. Four days.

It's worse than it was. Much much worse. There are bars everywhere, over the head, aside, it's like staying in a hen house. There's not the courtyard anymore, just few meters outside the cells (...)
After four days the revocation of the incarceration arrived, Sahid cannot stay at the CPT, has to get out. As he went to the police department to get the revocation, there was the Inspector waiting for him. He took him to the bathroom. He slapped his face. He spat on his face. You have to understand that we are in charge here, he told him- No use to scream, we are at the police department here, nobody hears, nobody sees.
There was the revocation, but they took Sahid back to the CPT again. Not even there they could believe it when they saw him. The lawyer talked to the judge, and with his intervention he managed to get out again.

I have to run away, I'm leaving Italy tomorrow. I'm scared. They know where I live, they can come and get me whenever they want. And if they put drugs in my house... who's gonna believe me? I go. Where are you going, I ask him, Do you already know where to go, do you have friends that can give you hospitality? No. Only thing I know is that I have to get away from Italy. The only link he will keep, from tomorrow, will be the phone wire to the lawyer. For the rest, nothing. Bologna won't be his city anymore.
Before me is darkness, Sahid says.
Finally they managed to tear his eyes away, the dogs.

As the author tells us, this story is part of a book that will come out soon, all about the stories of the CPT detainees. Looking forward to the reading. Egoistically, I don't want to wake up ten years from now and ask myself: what, why didn't I figuered this out? What was I thinking? Were my own business so important in face of all that?

1.CPT, "Centro di Permanenza Temporanea" (Center for temporary stay): It is in fact a detention camp, where italian and international laws do not apply and everything is ruled out by security forces.

The Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been arrested near Brescia, in Italy.
He was strolling among courtyards and condos in the city, looking for his roots. One of his parents is supposed to be from Brescia (I don't know the story exactly).
Well, as it happens, the police spotted him, conspicuous old bearded man, mistaking him for an illegal immigrant, and turned him in.
He took it rather well, considering that after the incident he posed for a picture with the policemen. This short story is told in Italian by Ansa.
I would like to comment something sarcastic and cynic about the stupid Italian police and its fixation with immigrants. About the new global order of random persecutions and fear.
I would like to comment how it is all so ironic, anyway. After all, what Ferlinghetti was looking in Brescia, were the possible remaining traces of the past immigrations of his family.
Well, instead of prolonging this, I'll just end quoting few lines from a 2004 Ferlinghetti's poem.
It's part of the coda of "Totalitarian Democracy". Its entire version is readable on Citylights website.

Cut down cut down the alien corn
Cut down the crazy introverts
Tongue-tied lovers of the subjective
Cut down cut down the wild ones the wild spirits
The desert rats and monkey wrenchers
Easy riders and midnight cowboys in narco nirvanas
Cut down the wild alienated loners
Cut down cut down all those freaks and free thinkers
Wild-eyed poets with wandering minds
Soapbox agitators and curbstone philosophers
Far out weirdos and rappers
Stoned-out visionaries and peace-niks
Exiles in their own land!
O melting pot America!

* * update:
Ferlingetti tells this story to the NYTimes (November 6 2005).
After all he wasn't arrested. He was "only" kept standing for three quarters of hour by the policemen, after "very hostile" folks called them after him.
People from Brescia. What do you expect.
Here's a couple of lines from the interview:

They mistook you for a burglar?
There's a climate of fear and paranoia since 9/11, and in this country it was generated by Bush.
But you can't possibly blame President Bush for fear and paranoia in northern Italy.
It's the same with Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. Is it true that Bush believes that anyone caught reading books should be banned from government?
That's such a flaky, California thing to say.
I made it up.

Dear Ferlinghetti. Oh, I'm sorry so much. That hostile rudeness you endured has nothing to do with 9/11, Bush and Berlusconi - although 9/11 made everything worse-
That's just us, the Italian province, our pitiful stinking ignorance and mistrust.
I wish I was one of those policemen to read your name on the papers. I would have looked gravely at the hostile folks from Brescia and said to them: "This is a very important person. You are so screwed. I hereby order you to go and buy his books. Immediately! Get Pivano's translations! Marsch!".

On september the 15th one of the leaders of the Northern League Mario Borghezio, leading a delegation of Members of the European Parliament, said that the center of Lampedusa is a five star hotel and that he'd live there: that same day, the Ministry of Internal Affairs let him find only 11 recluses in the center, and that same week the smugglers deviated the barges route up to Sicily. Who knows, maybe in Mr. Borghezio apartment it's normal to have floors covered by sewage. But the most part of the immigrants confined in here comes from clean houses where you even have to enter with bare feet.
Original story here (temporary link)

Following a fourth disembark in few hours last night, the number of illegal immigrants in the detainment camp of Lampedusa is around 550 people as of Today. The maximal capacity being of 190 persons.

The carabiniere with the leather gloves... establish himself in strategic position and whips the ears of whoever is called by the interpreter. Someone has to pass in front of him again to get his bag back with few things. And there goes another blow. The carabiniere laughs, glasses and pale complexion. And his colleagues laugh too. Another whip. For them it's just a game. The interpreter and the policemans ignore him. But among the rows [of detained immigrants] sat on the ground, boys and men mumble with rage. "Italiano, puttana, cornuto".

"Italian, whore, cuckold". The first insults they learned, thanks to the honorable corp of the Carabinieri. They always keep high the flag. Funny you don't hear such words in all the boring phony TV fictions about them.
Original story here (temporary link).

More sources are covering the story of the journalist Fabrizio Gatti, who posed as an illegal immigrant and got detained in a camp, getting back with the most squalid stories.
The Guardian has more on the issue.
Episodes of abuses, and some astonishing detail turn up, like the "fascist-style straight-arm salutes being exchanged between carabinieri" (for incredible that it may seem, I heard already, as many Italians did, about such stories of exposed fascist behavior (which is forbidden by the Italian constitution) among Italian security forces, often in linkage with the mistreatment of immigrants, or in the dealing of hooligans or extra-parliament leftist political groups).
In my opinion, the account of Gatti shows a picture which comparable in bleakness and squalor to the episodes of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Yet after all there is a war in Iraq. The only war in Europe instead is the one between the slave laborers coming from the "third" world and the privileged citizens of Europe who vote for hypocrite political forces "tough" against immigration, turning their heads in front of the abuses.
About the political reactions, the government right now is acting like if Fabrizio Gatti's account was false. A very reliable, encouraging pose indeed.
Since the story comes from a left-wing newspaper, they say, it's just a bullet aimed at the government.
But they should know better, because in the story of Fabrizio Gatti, who remained seven days in the camp (not few hours like their inspectors), there are not only squalid details of mistreatments, and episodes of brutal violence, but also the incredible ending: after enduring seven days of dire conditions in a detention center, Gatti was simply let go. Despite the conservative government's tough policy on immigration, the reporter's alter ego, Bilal Ibrahim el Habib, was set free, "to go and work in any city in Europe as an illegal alien".
So what the detention was for then? Learning more about Italy?