Friday, July 11, 2008

Racism returns to the European mainstream

What the hell is going on in Italy? Berlusconi is using his first weeks in power not only to evade prosecution in all the corruption trials he's up against, but he and his government seem hell-bent on returning the country to the days of Mussolini.

Recently, for example,
Italy's highest appeal court ruled that it was acceptable to discriminate against Roma on the grounds that "all Gypsies were thieves"
(taken from this article)

I mean...christ on a bike, this is fucking appalling (I hope you'll excuse the language, but when talking about acts as repulsive and racist as those which the Italian government is currently engaged in and engaged in supporting, strong language is unavoidable)

When an angry mob went on the rampage and burnt down a Rroma slum, the government's response was... to praise them.

This is a country in Western Europe. In the G8. in 2008. And it is being run by a bunch of vile extremist throwback bigots and no-one is saying or doing a thing about it. It's appalling.

The EU prides itself (with no little justification) on helping to rebuild a Europe shattered by war and fascism, and to ensuring that the conflicts of the past could never happen again. Yet it sits idly by while one of its core members returns to the 1930s.

1 comment:

Gadjo Dilo said...

Yeah, it's disgusting. Some others also think so, as e.g. we've been debating here, though it's obviously the EU leaders that should be objecting.

And it makes me laugh (or do I mean cry?) when Berlusconi et al. complain about immigrants - if only they'd take back all the mafiosi that Italy's exported around the world.