

Italian immigration

When Brussels trumps Rome

The Berlusconi government is forced to soften its anti-immigration measures

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sorry, I pretended too much from your possibilities.

anyway, for whoever has no serious impediments this video (in Italian) is enough to understand the level of manipulation that italian institutions are exercizing:

in this photoes:

everyone can see how the rightist "grown up students", beated 15 and 16 years old highschool students during the protests in Rome. particularly clear is this photo:

where the blonde student in the middle is kicking youngsters that everyone, without severe impediments, can see is not a leftist extremist, they will arrive several minutes later at the manifestation.

this photo is also rather clear, if your mind is not blind:

still this photo is taken well before the facts reported by mainstream national media.



Most grown ups have long since understood that each media outlet publishes photos and news only if they support their political views. You may bet that on Il Giornale et al. you will find pictures which contradict Repubblica's. And on youtube you can find a film confirming that it was the reds who attacked the blacks, which is about what the one Santoro showed seemed to proof.Also, any grown up knows that in Italy demonstrations attract extremist from the right and the left: the only hard fact is that also among the cute little students protesting some had taken helmets, which means that not all of them were the young idealist you like to think they are. The whole discussion about who started and further theories is of very little interest to me, but it is a good thing that the police should investigate: till some evidence shows up from such investigation, I'd rather leave this line of discussion to you.As for not having anything to say, well, you might have noticed that I write a lot in this blog, so that's really not the problem. Only I feel free to pick the posts I care to answer if I understand what their point is, which is not your case. I do not care for fights among stupid and violent thugs: I'd round them all up, dress them in American military outfits, and parachute them in some Taliban controlled area in Afghanistan.


@girolamo,I think you don't know what to say.Watch this video and the photos, than you don't need to wonder more on what I am talking abouthttp://it.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk78GrEBfHYhttp://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/scuola/foto-navona/1.html


@girolamo,you should feel very disappointed, for sure you think you cannot be manipulated by this government.here are some photoes of the rightist student you are trying to defend while they beat with kicks and belts high school students (15-16 years old)http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/scuola/foto-navona/1.htmlIf Panorama says that mere financing cuts can solve problem like the one in Siena it is definitely biased, you are a good foreteller, how could you be so precise?About news, if you want to understand reality, and not just do a sterile analysis of the media industry you can watch the photoes and again the video on youtube on your beloved rightist "student" (the younger must be 30 years old) that later started a riot with leftist non-student:http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk78GrEBfHYfor sure the professors found someone comparable good in the manipulative arts, and you will simpathize more with the students, you at least share some affinities...Wake up to realityyour "expired" copyright :)


@sgxxxI agree, manipulation of opinions is so powerful that thousands of silly students may be convinced to go to the streets to protest about cuts to divert the attention from the enormous wastes, de facto protecting the Rettore of Rome type of misdeeds.But - thank God - Italians are waking up and stories about the wastes are emerging.Like the one of the 250 million euros debt (!!!) of the University of Siena.http://blog.panorama.it/italia/2008/10/31/siena-luniversita-laureata-in-sprechi/Ok, I know now you'll tell me that Panorama belongs to Berlusconi and therefore it's biased...But, the best way to understand the news, is not reading the opinions they write, but noticing what they do not write about. The Economist, for example, made a story about school protests two weeks ago when it was starting. But has kept silent even though the protest has become so much bigger: perhaps they too understood that defending our school system, and blaming cuts, is ridiculous.Use your mentalityWake up to realityIt's not my copyright, it's Cole Porter'sp.s. even Santoro the other evening wasn't so sure who started the fight in Piazza Navona: actually from the film he showed it was more of less clear that it was the helmeted thugs from the centri sociali who started. In fact, the leftist media are already talking about something else.


@girolamomy opinion is that you have been demagogic, you have a different one. of course if someone's opinion get enough manipulated he can think that demagogic proposals are sacred and undisputable, that Alitalia Italian-ness is the solution to the problem of the nation, that students protesting for preventing more people to get poor and uneducated are just puppets in the hands of professors, and only that, that two days ago police in rome did not supported a group of non-student to cast a dark light on the student manifestation against the governments cuts on the whole education system.interesting video:http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk78GrEBfHYwhy @girolamo don't you protest that policemen instead of going to defend the poor and uneducated they were wasting their time and our money in staging up a nasty aggression in the middle of a peaceful movement? I didn't hear you complain about this, why? isnt' it undeniable? but make me the favor...WAKE UP TO REALITY!!!your copy right :)


@ sgxxxyeah, of course, there are many different classes and social groups I didn't mention. Another one I forgot is those who always have to make unpleasant remarks, like judging as demagogues those who have a different opinion.The chattering class is unfortunately today's elite, the one that fills our media with all the trendy and politically correct wisdom but, like every elite, simply cannot understand the hardships of the daily life of the poor & ignorant.I can still remember wealthy whites calling blacks darkies, and I am very happy to see that Obama has got where he is today and that such paternalistic trash is gone out of fashion: I hope to live long enough to see the day when the trendy and wealthy will stop labeling as racists anyone who voices, even if rudely, the difficulty of cohabiting with people so different for culture and habits, but will try to find solutions to undeniable problems.


@ChokelsWere the composition of Italian immigrants so different? In any case, are Italians so proud of being racist? @Girolamo,you forgot the "rich and ruthless" exploiter of illigal workforce in your demagogic accounting...are the interests of the chattering class and of the poor & ignorant so different? I don't think so!


In Italy, like in most other countries, poor & ignorant lower classes are fed up with having to take all the burden of cohabiting with even more ignorant and poorer immigrants, who talk different languages and don't seem to want integrate.And in Italy, like in most other countries. the trendy, wealthy, high class chattering class, who have close to no contact with the immigrants, can't think of anything better than preaching the same old boring tale of tolerance and whatever.As is only natural, upon hearing again and again these same boring preaches, the poor & ignorant become always more angry, which is why the various Le Pen, Heider, Nick Griffin and Bossi have more and more success.Who's more stupid: the chattering class or the poor & ignorant?

An Smaointeoir

As a foreigner who has lived in Italy for the last 20 years I have noticed an marked increased in intolerance, generated, I suspect, by the hopeless economic situation and exploited by Berlusconi. He is playing on your fears and not offering you any solutionsItaly would be a lot better off if they left the Romani and kicked their their petty power brokers who use a pre-war bureaucracy to inhibit any progress.Keep your refugees - they have some energy and some 'get-up-and-go'. You need them, badly.


@Chokels et allI'm an Italian citizen who like many millions of others compatriots decided to emigrate to fully maximize my professional potential.According to MAE, (Ministero Affari Esteri) there are 60 millions of Italian origin people spread all over the globe, mostly in the Americas and Australia. These Italians for various reasons started leaving Italy soon after the Peninsular Unification about 160 years ago. These brave and mostly uneducated folks were subject to alls sorts of discrimination because of their religion "peculiar" diet and funny accent.We, modern Italians, are subjecting these Romas exactly the same discrimination that our Italian forefathers suffered in their newly adopted countries.We and Italy owe what we are now to these 60 millions Italians abroad, thus we need to be more circumspect and reflective before denigrating and discriminate against people that differ from us.What makes us Italians Europeans, is a core of values and believes that are based on democratic principles and respect for basic human rights. Reading some of the comments on this thread, makes me wonder whether some of us Italians are really Europeans.



reconsider your definition of europeans.
The Roma consistently fail to integrate, whether it is in Bulgaria or Italy. They came from Asia, which I don't mind, but many don't learn the language of their host country (where most have resided for many generations), they disobey laws and so on.
I wonder whether you are aware of the lengths governments have gone to aid these people. And all efforts seem to be in vain.

How does it make Italians ignorant when they're simply less ashamed then others to think and say the truth - lost cause.


The man is a baffoon like bush, only richer
they should both clear out of politics
and apologise for the damage they have caused
better yet lets take their money
and make them feel the pain like the rest of us.
They are both disgusting and vile men.


The Italians made the mistake of believing - or at least pretending - that they are citizens of a sovereign nation. Where have they been? They live in a province of the EU - get used to it.

Walter Bruno

An other important example how Brussel perverts the will of the sovereign majority, resulting in further alienation with Europe. Rome and others should stand up and fight for the will of the silent majority and not let it be swamped by undesirable migrants.

Saint Paul

It�s very bad. These measures, are took and aproved by incompetent people, who see in the foreigners, competence and menace to the acivities and labors that all the foreigner people do in a god way. It is a measure, that shows the dangerous menace of the totalitarian gobernments that survived to the global war. It�s very sad that nobody do something to contrast this phenomenon.


Gypsies are branched in various traditional guilds - jewelry, pottery, musicians, beggars etc. Also, many gypsies have traditions unfit for today's Europe: girls are not encouraged to attend school more than 4th grade, marry at 13 with parental approval, tribal law etc.It will take patience and investments (cheap housing tied with mandatory education, for ex) to bring gypsies to EU cultural standards.


Did Berlusconi buy the Guardian? Read the followinghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/24/race.italy


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