EU Parliament warns Italy over Gypsy fingerprinting

This is what's really going on underneath all this populist harnessing of xenophobic tendencies...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7548930.stm

Funny how governments facing recession tend to find someone else to direct people's growing frustration and anger onto...

o0o0o this was good, thanks for sending it, but i can't read what people had to say but i'll be back, 'll see this soon. thanks good stuff.

Refreshing to see a government using a bit of common sense and demographics.
I didn't know it happened anymore, thought we were too politically correct for common sense.

Where did Racisim come into it?
Missed that bit.

Saverio,

So everyone in Italy will be fingerprinted. Happy now? A lot of the time fear over "barbarians within the gates" is used precisely like this: as a way to soften societies up for expanding state, legal and police powers. It's also known as social repression and authoritarianism. Just look at the way the many many judicial reforms in Britain in the past decade or two - often introduced to tackle some specific "problem" (rave parties, protest, terrorism, law and order, integration) have now started to be applied to situations they were never intended for. It's using people's fear to sneak in liberty-restricting measures.

Feel free to post the article in Italian. Io parlo italiano.

platinum rule: treat people the way they want to be treated. governments are fu#kin up, as always.

Ripe for a bit of ethnic cleansing

Saverio,

People,

No-one is arguing that they shouldn't be given some way to access all those services. Absolutely. But when an Italian starts lecturing ANYONE on "rules that they have failed to respect", you know something is amiss.

Come on. Think about it.

Of course, the policy is sold in some emotive way that makes the oppression popular - these people do run countries after all, a bit of nifty communications strategy isn't beyond them - but who the hell drew the connection between "accessing services" and fingerprinting an entire ethnic group?

How does that make sense? Please explain.

Surely there is some other way to achieve the same aims without either criminalising, racially persecuting or slurring an entire ethnic group simply by virtue of their ethnicity.

There's only one phrase for it: state racism. And that's a very different thing from man-in-the-street prejudice, or even structural racism as evidenced in the markets for labour, health and education across Europe. State racism is the ugliest virus of all, cos once it's unleashed, all sorts of dark forces are released with it, as history attests.

Saverio's arguments are the same ones that were used to forcibly steal Aborigine kids from their parents in Australia. Basically, it makes me sick. And even more so because Saverio's clearly engaged with the issues, but like a lot of those in Europe with leftist views, he's got a blindspot when it comes to racism and nationalism.

We have to draw a line Saverio, and for me, and it seems the EU, Italy is going too far. This would be disgusting at any time, but it's especially dangerous at this time when we're going into the same sort of economic meltdown that led to the rise of fascism in the 1930s.

When government's start sanctioning this sort of stuff, it can very quickly become a pressure release for all sorts of frustrations, pressures and suppressed violence that permeates industrial societies like Italy. And then who knows where it ends. If it keeps the politicians in power, anything's possible right?

Just because they live on the land that is claimed as Italy doesn't mean they need to subvert their lives to a society that hates them. They have been around just as long as anyone and just because some people with "power" decide that the land is called Italy where the Gypsies roam doesn't mean they're a apart of it, think of them as a wandering country.
Some people don't believe that land can be owned. It's not ours to divide.

OpenCircuit, I know how things go in Italy and the current state of politics is one of the reasons I moved to another country. If you read some of my posts and comments, you'll see I have very strong opinions against this government - whose representatives, as you point out, are constantly flirting with crime and corruption.

However, let's stick to the point.

When it comes to Gypsies, the issues go well beyond cultural differences. It's about the rules that they have failed to respect as citizens. If they want to live in Italy, they need a national identity card, a sanitary card, and education - like the rest of us. It would be racist NOT to let them access those services.

Can we just take a look at the bigger picture here for a second? We are talking about a country - Italy - in which for the first time since World War 2, a major part of the new ruling coalition government is self proclaimedly neo-fascist, as they call it. The Northern League has an agenda, and the Italian government's treatment of gypsies is part of that broader nationalist agenda.

Just as Berlusconi is rattling the nationalist sword when it comes to demanding EU documents in Italian from now now, this move against gypsies originates far less from concern for their education, welfare or health (the government has plenty of other ways it could improve these dimensions of their lives without criminalising them or reducing their civil liberties so radically) than it does with giving non-Gypsy white Italians something to rally round.

With a burgeoning demographic crisis, one of the least dynamic economies in Europe, inherently corrupt and inefficient power structures (actually, I'm wrong, they're very efficient at being corrupt), a leader who, when not calling up heads of TV stations to get his latest 20-something lady friend a role, spends most of his time trying to evade prison by haranguing the judiciary, this whole gypsy thing starts to look a little too convenient doesn't it? And just as we're going into the most acute global economic downturn since...the 1930s, which by unhappy coincidence was the last time the Italians, or any other European country, introduced laws like this.

Think about it Saverio.

One can begin to imagine how useful it would be in such a country to have everyone's attention focussed firmly on "an enemy within"...

Saverio - you shrug off your government being racist very lightly. So therefore, in a spirit of attempted empathy with you, I will too. After the gypsies I say we go for the North Africans. Criminals all of them, right Saverio? Or at least enough of them that we can feel ok about targeting the whole lot right? After that I reckon gay people. After all, it's against God right. And it's all for their own good in the end right? Like the invasion of Iraq. (Pesky ungrateful Iraqis!)

Right?

Wrong Saverio.

Take a look at the Northern League's political agenda. You'll find it interesting reading. Not much about the education and health of minority groups in there, I can assure you.

Take a look at every single other example anywhere EVER of a particular racial / ethnic group being targeted in this way ("for their own good" of course Saverio!): Rwanda, Uganda, Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy... I would be very interested to hear of one example of this kind of targeting EVER resulting in improved living conditions for the targeted group.

You want to fingerprint them?

Why don't you fingerprint your grandmother? Your dad? Are you trying to tell me that non-Gypsy Italians don't commit crimes? In a country where half the economy is a Black economy, being a lawbreaker is a very broad church. Shouldn't we just say what the hell and iris scan, fingerprint, DNA sample and electronically tag just about everyone, from birth? Would make things so much easier for those nice people running the government who of course have the people's best interests at heart...

Saverio, dude, I'm sure you mean well, and it definitely sounds like you genuinely want the Gypsies to be better off. But this isn't the way. You are being lied to by your government, a government that is the closest thing Italy has had to fascist in nature since Mussolini.

Is that really what you want? Surely there are other ways to 'help' the gypsies other than criminalising them. I mean, have you tried talking to them? Have you ever actually met a gypsy? Do you count any among your friends?

Wake up and smell the Lavazza dude.

Big up Mafiosi. Like it.

integration and assimilation are not good things!!!
Communication and respect are.

One more Zappa quote "The most important thing to do in your life, is to not interfere with somebody else's life."

"Gypsy children, whose parents keep them out of school and send them to beg on the streets would lose custody of their children."

Throughout their centuries of peregrination through a great many countries, Gypsies have had their children taken from them for various reasons by local authorities - the same authorities which spread the lies that Gypsies steal children - especially where Gypsies were enslaved - yes, enslaved for hundreds of years. I see that Berlusconi has managed to repeat this intolerable "tradition", saverio.

Zappa!

your so right thats the best reposnse chilled and relaxed about stuff that we cant change

Personally, I think government needs to get out of people's business. The lives of the gypsies have nothing to do with the Italian gov't. Respecting these people means not trying to impose authority over them.

To me, just another example of civil liberties and privacy and security in yourself being butchered in order to 'cut down on crime'. Fngerprints are a unique part of our identity that should not be taken so lightly. We leave them everywhere but to be forced to give them to a system you don't want in your life is not okay.

Italian government should have nothing to say about these people. They shouldn't be able to force them to do this just like America can't force native americans to do anything.

I don't understand why everyone has to belong to a country. And be tracked and evaluated by it. These people are a beautiful and unique society.

As for education, who decides what education a person needs? Why do people have to be educated to live? Let me quote the great frank zappa here "Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST..."

mafioso

I have experienced racism and i konw its not nice, sometimes in life not everyone likes to follow the rules that are set in a country, im not saying its nice the way they get treated but everyone should be able to be identified.
people are arses that just human beings for you.

Chrlotte - Usually you get fingerprinted after you commit a crime not before. How would you like an officer to just walk in to your home (not knock and ask to be let in, just bust your door down) and ask that you and your family produce your hands so they can fingerprint you all, just in case you happen to commit a crime at a later date?

Oh wait, you've probably never been confronted with that type of racism. So, no wonder you can be for it.

P.S.

If the Italian educational system is such a benefit, why are Italians still racist against Gypsies? Schooling obviously hasn't taught them to respect other cultures or human beings. It hasn't taught them that there are better ways to include a race other than their own into their society without trying to change them or make them more like them.

Fuck the whole "You can be part of our country but only if you're more like us" mentality. Individuality doesn't have to tear us apart, it should be a common thread. If we all were truly individuals in our own rights and didn't need to "fit in" to the status quo, we could respect others for doing the same. For just being themselves and not having to alter who they are to be accepted.

You know this is just one of the stories lately that has made me nearly disgusted by the Italian government and even the people who live in Italy (most of them who agree with this branding). I can't believe a nation (Italy) that has the oppurtunity to bring this discussion (racism) to the forefront and possibly be an example of the right way to end it, would resort to an archaic manner such as criminalizing an entire race supposedly to benefit them.

Italians are so hell bent in making sure these Gypsy children attend school, when Italian kids probably share their parents' racist beliefs and opinions and will undoubtedly make their (Gypsy childrens') lives a living hell.

What's the difference if the abuse is verbal or physical or whether it's committed by a fellow Gypsy or an Italian?

Are they (Gypsies) supposed to feel "better" about themselves because Italians "want" their children in their (Italian) schools? I think not. Gypsies know the suffering their children will endure at the hands of racist Italians, because I'm sure they went through it when they were children. Read up on the atrocities the Gypsy race and culture has endured. This was even before they were labeled a second class citizen for being "thieves" and "murdererous barbarics".

When you are pushed underground by the status quo, what other option do you have than to resort to crime against those racist bastards? They (Gypsies) got backed into a corner and fought back, that's what I would do.

In France, there are teachers with their own caravans who travel with the Gypsies, this way they get school education.

If their "secular culture" and "unique identity" imply they can avoid sending kids to school, then sorry but I can't accept it.
For once, I support and justify this government's measure. It's drastic (and perhaps even racist) but necessary.

Is this really is to integrate them into society, they will lose their Gypsy lifestyle and, consequently, a unique identity.

When they fingerprint the gypsy from Stephen King's 'Thinner' they'll be sorry!

Pretty sickening. I always wonder what goes on behind the closed doors of many governments. Surely they must've realised what they were doing was wrong?