The Lega Nord have often been accused of xenophobia – a charge that is too general to hold. The party, which is playing a legislative blinder at the moment, bludgeoning through various reforms as if they personally had the support of the majority of Italians (rather than their actual 8% in both the lower and upper houses of parliament), is in fact a keen aficionado of at least some foreign cultures.
In fact the Padania libera crew have often and openly looked lovingly towards America for inspiration on their political crusade (to emphasise the crusading point, they include a knight in armour on their logo – cute). They borrowed liberally from the American declaration of independence when they declared a free and independent Padania a number of years ago, and they even went as far as to suggest that Italy (their Padania project sidelined temporarily) would be better off to drop the Euro and introduce a new currency linked to the Dollar (like Ecuador and Argentina).
Their latest initiative to get Italy back on track takes a page firmly and squarely out of the American statute books, in the form of a clause in the Education bill seemingly modelled on the ‘seperate but equal’ policy of the Jim Crow laws (overturned in the 1960s due to the efforts of <u>communists</u> like Martin Luther King).
At a time when their Government is introducing cuts across the board – someone, after all, has to pay for the costly Alitalia rescue package – that will see a reduction in the number of teachers by roughly 87,000 over the next three years, the genius minds at the Lega are hoping to introduce a clause into the education bill that will see the children of immigrants effectively forced to qualify for a place in the classroom alongside their Italian peers – children who fail an Italian language test would be placed in a separate class (for foreigners only).
Perhaps the Jim Crow label is harsh, given that there is, it seems, a growing problem with children unable to speak/read/write italian in school. It may be that the Lega’s proposal is one designed, as they claim, to favour integration of children from foreign families (there have been similar proposals from regional authorities governed by the left-wing – not that that is an automatic exemption from charges of racism).
With a controversial measure like this some benefit of the doubt is probably needed. Pity for the Lega then that the leading personalities in the party have regularly expressed opinions publicly that rubber-stamp their racist credentials:
Umberto Bossi “Houses go to Lombards first, an not to the first ‘bingo-bongo’ that arrives” [1]
Roberto Calderoli “I don’t think its the case to give the vote to extracomunitari [non EU citizens, although this monkey has never heard an American described as an extracomunitari, the term being reserved for immigrants from the east and from Africa], a civilised country can’t give the vote to a bingo-bongo that up until a couple of years ago was still up in the trees, come on”
The other day I heard a Lega member interviewed on the TV lamenting that when another party introduces measures that deal with immigrants they’re described as practical, while when the Lega does the same thing they’re described as racists.
Well, if the cap fits…
One good way to avoid the charge would be to introduce measures to test the intelligence and capacity of ‘full-blooded Italians’ before they’re granted the privilege of attending school with their peers. The thinking behind the Lega’s measure is apparently that these foreign children risk holding the class back. The same could be said for ‘slow’ children – for whom special measures should be taken. Surely they’d benefit as well from these tests and separate classes. And who better to lead this revolutionary reform than the Lega, given their own personal experience of the ups and downs fo the education system. Umberto Bossi’s son Renzo has famously failed not once but twice his final school exams (no impediment to pursuing a political career, coincidentally in his father’s party).
[1] “Le case si danno prima ai lombardi e non al primo ‘bingo bongo’ che arriva” – La Repubblca 4/12/2008
[2] “Dare il voto agli extracomunitari, non mi sembra il caso, un paese civile non può fare votare dei bingo-bongo che fino a qualche anno fa stavano ancora sugli alberi, dai” – Ansa 2006-08-21(via Wikipedia)