Migrants as Activist Citizens in Italy
Migrants as activist citizens in Italy
Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
Migrants as activist citizens in Italy
In 2010 and 2011 migrants behaved like activist citizens throughout Italy, initiating a new cycle of struggles in the crisis of neoliberalism. Their contestation of an exclusionary, racialized and competitive model of society could become a goal shared by migrants and nationals alike.
‘We will be remembered’; whoever wrote this on the wall of an abandoned industrial site near Rosarno, in the southern Italian region of Calabria, did not know how right he would be. The anonymous writer was one of the hundreds of migrants from many African countries working in this region as orange-pickers during the winter. Year after year, they transformed an old olive oil factory into a highly precarious and uncomfortable shelter. The sentence on the wall appears like a message in a bottle, sent before the authorities removed almost all Africans from the town ‘for their own security’. It refers to the tumult [14] that exploded on 7 January 2010 in Rosarno, where hundreds of migrants rebelled after two of them were injured by three Italian youngsters in a drive-by shooting. The rioting workers set on fire rubbish bins, destroyed shop windows and cars, engaged in urban guerrilla clashes with the police, and finally they became the target of a ‘black man hunt’ unleashed by the resident population: during the same night many migrants were beaten with iron bars and two were shot. In the next three days, with the excuse of protecting them from the rage of Italians, about 2,000 African workers were either moved from the site by the police or fled voluntarily. On 7 January, 2012 many grass-roots associations, anti-racist and social justice movements, collectives of workers and neo-communist parties met in the sites of the unrest and announced the beginning of a new campaign – SOS Rosarno [15] – against exploitation, underground and criminal
Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
Migrants as activist citizens in Italy
In 2010 and 2011 migrants behaved like activist citizens throughout Italy, initiating a new cycle of struggles in the crisis of neoliberalism. Their contestation of an exclusionary, racialized and competitive model of society could become a goal shared by migrants and nationals alike.
‘We will be remembered’; whoever wrote this on the wall of an abandoned industrial site near Rosarno, in the southern Italian region of Calabria, did not know how right he would be. The anonymous writer was one of the hundreds of migrants from many African countries working in this region as orange-pickers during the winter. Year after year, they transformed an old olive oil factory into a highly precarious and uncomfortable shelter. The sentence on the wall appears like a message in a bottle, sent before the authorities removed almost all Africans from the town ‘for their own security’. It refers to the tumult [14] that exploded on 7 January 2010 in Rosarno, where hundreds of migrants rebelled after two of them were injured by three Italian youngsters in a drive-by shooting. The rioting workers set on fire rubbish bins, destroyed shop windows and cars, engaged in urban guerrilla clashes with the police, and finally they became the target of a ‘black man hunt’ unleashed by the resident population: during the same night many migrants were beaten with iron bars and two were shot. In the next three days, with the excuse of protecting them from the rage of Italians, about 2,000 African workers were either moved from the site by the police or fled voluntarily. On 7 January, 2012 many grass-roots associations, anti-racist and social justice movements, collectives of workers and neo-communist parties met in the sites of the unrest and announced the beginning of a new campaign – SOS Rosarno [15] – against exploitation, underground and criminal
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