The video is of a demonstration this last 28th of November in Coccaglio, Italy.
3,000 people took to the streets to protest the proposed action by the Northern Union Fascist Party to have a "Bianco Natale". Their White Christmas operation that proposed to round up the suspected illegal residents of Coccaglio and hold them in a camp until their status cold be decided. The target, of course, was the Northern Africa and Arab population which makes up the urban majority of the population of Coccaglio.
They are now engaged in this very action, making door to door searches of the city and notifying all inhabitants that might be behind in their residency requirements that they might be rounded up. Read the article in yesterday's Guardian for the full story.
The city of 8,000 is located near Brescia, between Milan and Venice. The new detention camp for suspected illegals is located in Brescia and was visited by Silvio Berlusconi's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, who is a leader of the Northern League. This is a government approved operation spurred by a fascist political movement. All the Catholic Church could muster was a statement saying that they were "depressed".
No wonder, the bulwark of the remaining Italian Catholic faithful is made up of right wing extremists. Many priests in Northern Italy are members of the party and the cross and the swastika are displayed openly together in their demonstrations. The Northern League members display baseball bats wrapped with Italian flags in their marches.
Italy is violently split now. Berlusconi is seen as the only alternative to a weak ineffectual left which he has systematically destroyed over the last 10 years. The Italian State is becoming a one party state which controls the media and the economy.
Hmm...sounds like the Republican Party Strategy platform?
This explains why the incident with the plaster model of the Duomo meeting Berlusconi's cosmetic surgically enhanced kisser was such an act of desparation. Maybe the use of souvenir statues could be exported...the strategic placement of a 24 cm chrome plated Eiffel Tower in France, or say...is that a model of the Washington Monument in your pocket...or are you just happy to see me?
2 comments:
The political chaos here in Italy is really something. I don't follow it much, but I often second guess my decision to raise my kids here.
Mike. Italy may be crazy now, but Poland is even worse. One of my best friends moved there soon after the fall of the Communist Government and started a very successful business got married and raised a family.
Unfortunately, he is Jewish and he really re-embraced his Jewish heritage and raised his children as Jews. His wife remained Catholic and is a professor of history at the University of Krakow.
Things were okay for a while and the community, outside of Krakow was quite open to him
Then about 5 years ago, things got ugly for him, his business and his kids in their school. The wave of xenophobic irrationality hit him hard.
He was resented for his business success and his kids were ostracized because they were Jews.
I got an email from him recently and he is in the process of relocating to the states. He says he does not want to have his children destroyed by the Polish racist mentality and the backwards educational system....
Italy is not Poland, but this wave of irrational xenophobia exploited and manipulated by right wing politicians, even now, here in France is a dangerous, ugly trend.
I respect your attempts ot remain anonymous and un involved in this ugly business, but we owe it to ourselves to try to give support to the resistance, where ever we can.
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