Italy’s populist Interior Minister and leader of the nationalist League party, Matteo Salvini – who recently became Italy’s most popular politicians – was accused by opposition politicians on Monday of creating a “climate of hate” in Italy following a spate of racist attacks that have coincided with his anti-immigration drive.
In the latest assault, which Reuters reports was “possibly motivated by racism”, a black Italian athlete Daisy Osakue was injured early on Monday when unknown assailants drove alongside her in a street near the northern city of Turin and hurled an egg at her face.
Osakue herself was not quick to pass judgment: “I don’t want to play the sexism or racism card, but people should be able to go out without someone attacking you out of the blue,” said Osakue. “They are just cowards.”
Neither were the local police, who questioned whether she had been victim of racism, saying there had been similar assaults that had targeted white locals.
However, opposition politicians swept aside those concerns and the violence dominated local media: “The attacks against people of different color skin is now an EMERGENCY. This is now obvious, NOBODY can deny it, especially if they sit in government,” former center-left prime minister Matteo Renzi wrote on Twitter. The United Nations predictably also voiced its alarm, saying it was “deeply worried” by the situation.
“We can not tolerate this escalation of indiscriminate violence, which reveals an alarming racial matrix,” said Felipe Camargo, the southern European chief of the U.N. refugee agency.
This attack, and others like it, come at a time when Salvini has launched a crackdown on illegal immigration since entering a coalition government last month, closing Italian ports to migrant rescue boats and urging officials to apply tougher rules on asylum requests.
“Is there a racism emergency in Italy? Don’t be stupid,” Salvini said in a statement on Monday in response to the clamor over Osakue. Turning the tables on his accusers and saying he stood alongside any victim of violence, he added: “Certainly the mass immigration allowed by the left hasn’t helped matters.”
Meanwhile, with Donald Trump better known as Adolf Hitler among the world’s liberal community, Salvini too has been granted a “unique” nickname after a popular Christian magazine comparing him to Satan on its front cover last week. He has also come under fire from human rights groups and factions within the Roman Catholic Church for his uncompromising stance on migration;
And, pouring gasoline on the fire, Salvini tweeted “so many enemies, so much honor,” tweaking a well-known saying of Italy’s World War Two dictator Benito Mussolini on the 135th anniversary of his birth.
According to Reuters, at least eight migrants from various African countries have been shot by air rifles since the start of June in possible racist attacks. In addition, a Roma baby was hit by an air pellet and risks being paralyzed for life. The Italian who fired the gun has denied aiming at the child.
Meanwhile, The U.N. migration agency (OIM) said there had been 11 racist attacks in Italy since mid-June. “(This represents) an extremely worrying trend of violence and racism,” it said.
In typical fashion, the League leader also dismissed concerns over racist attacks in Italy, saying migrants were to blame for a third of all crimes in the country. “This is the only true drama,” which explains his fervent desire to get all of them out of Italy.
Predictably, his comments only exacerbated the left’s anger: “Violence is multiplying everywhere. But he denies it,” said Maurizio Martina, head of the opposition Democratic Party (PD). Unfortunately for the PD, and its plunging popularity in the polls, identity politics no longer is a short-cut to political success. In fact, as Salvini has demonstrated so clearly, it is a shortcut to precisely the opposite.
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