6069 The Right to Rebel: Italians Abroad Fight for a Different Italy

20081114 11:14:00 redazione-IT

DEMONSTRATION AT THE ITALIAN EMBASSY IN LONDON (Grosvenor Square): SATURDAY 15 NOVEMBER at 12.00

We are students, teachers, researchers, employees, workers, women and men who have come to Britain in search of a better job than any we could have had (or rather, could not have had) in Italy. We are not "settled" immigrants– we
regularly go back, and keep in touch with our country on a daily basis, reading and listening to the news on the internet. Ever since moving to the UK our affection for Italy has not diminished, on the contrary, it has grown stronger. This is why we feel very involved in the political events taking place in Italy today.

The cuts to the research and education budgets on the part of the current
government have provoked a steady rise in the number of Italians who are forced
to look for work or to study abroad. The outrageous, tailor-made laws that have
been passed to protect the Prime Minister from trials for corruption and
association with the Mafia have demonstrated the government’s contempt for
justice and its lack of interest towards workers, employees on a short-term
contract, and the jobless. The fact that institutions attack immigrants on a
daily basis means that the worst citizens feel legitimized in using physical
and verbal violence against foreign nationals. There has even been a government
proposal to set up separate classes for immigrant children in schools. The most
inhuman forms of racism have been directed against the tiny Roma population;
there have been official attempts to fingerprint them and to close down the
camps, throwing women and children out in the street as if they weren’t human
beings, recalling the time when Fascist Italy passed the racial laws. Then as
now, the Vatican, which intervenes regularly in almost all aspects of Italian
politics, is not taking a position on this.

But we should not lose heart. A huge number of Italians and immigrants,
students, teachers, workers, are taking over schools, universities, occupying
city squares, protesting against this arrogant, corrupt and racist government.
This is the biggest political movement that Italy has seen in the last decades.

NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION IN ITALY: FRIDAY 14 NOVEMBER

DEMONSTRATION AT THE ITALIAN EMBASSY IN LONDON (Grosvenor Square): SATURDAY 15 NOVEMBER at 12.00

6069-the-right-to-rebel-italians-abroad-fight-for-a-different-italy

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EmiNews 2008

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