Racism and Anti-Racism in Europe by Alana Lentin

Author:Alana Lentin [Lentin, Alana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2004-06-19T18:30:00+00:00

‘LAVORATORI IMMIGRATI, ROMPERE LA CATENA DEI RICATTI DI PADRONI E GOVERNO ITALIANI’:13 THE EMERGENCE OF ANTI-RACISM IN ITALY

Anti-racism in Italy cannot be said to constitute a recognisable movement form. In contrast, Italian anti-racists have come together periodically in response to specific instances of racism, from racist murders to discriminatory legislation and detention centres. They constitute a wide range of social actors from a variety of political origins, including the far left wing, trade unions, charitable organisations and, increasingly, the opponents of economic globalisation; the protagonists of the so-called ‘movement of movements’. How is the notion of racism constructed and interpreted by anti-racists in the Italian context? What are the specificities of the circumstances in which anti-racism, as a form of collective action, intervenes? Such a contextual examination should go towards revealing the reasons for which it is difficult to speak of the existence of an Italian anti-racist movement.

Unlike Britain, France and even Ireland with its nascent anti-racism, very few studies of either racism or anti-racism have been conducted in Italy. This is because, to a much wider degree than even in France, the problematic of racism in the Italian context is almost universally understood to be one of immigration which, in turn is seen as being the local translation of a global-level object of study: migration (Dal Lago 1999; Mezzadra 2001). Therefore, the study of anti-racism is of interest only in that it constitutes a localised struggle against the much more wide-reaching processes of migration, resultant it is said of globalisation, that will ultimately continue despite the localised efforts to raise awareness of the inequalities they produce. This is supported by my observation of the types of groups and organisations active against racism and of the discourse that is produced and which becomes representative of the Italian anti-racism visible in the public sphere. Organisations are often composed of groups of left-wing activists, adjoined to the more generalised movement for a ‘globalisation from below’ that has gained strength in Italy over recent years. Groups composed of black and ‘minority ethnic’ people often have a culturalist orientation, determined by the felt need of the wider Italian left wing to ‘deal with’ the problems faced by immigrants and, in its own words, to embrace cultural diversity. COSPE, a development organisation that also organises anti-racism training and from which the Italian delegation to the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) is coordinated, claims that the focus on culture serves to marginalise the critique implied by an anti-racist approach:

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