Indivisible: Rome against border security laws

On November 9th, the second national protest promoted by the Indivisible and United Forum against the immigration laws and the prevailing racism in Italy was held in Rome. Despite the rain and the anticipated storm, more than twenty thousand people gathered in procession to demonstrate that an Italy in solidarity with its citizens from other parts of the world refuses to be overcome by the increasingly tense and xenophobic climate.
Last year’s protest saw more than one hundred thousand people march against the ratification of the first security decree into law, as promoted by the former minister of the interior, Salvini. And now, one year after that protest, with another security decree passed into law and a new government, the situation not only hasn’t changed, but appears still more hopeless.

In fact, even with the new government proposing to change these laws and improve the reception process in Italy, there has yet to be seen any discontinuity from its predecessor. Not only have the security laws not been abolished or revised, not only have the remarks made by the President of the Republic regarding its unconstitutionality not been taken seriously, but the NGOs carrying out rescue missions at sea continue to be criminalized (look no further than the ships Alan Kurdi, Open Arms, and Open Viking, which waited over ten days for entry to a secure port) and the Libyan guard continues to receive praise for capturing people, and returning those seeking hope in Europe to the hell of detention. This makes it clear that in reality their proposals were no more than propaganda, opposition in words, while winking at the criminal politics of the national right.

Thus notwithstanding the weather alert forecast for the capital, hundreds of people, hundreds of movements, social centers, NGOs, grassroots networks, organized citizens and families joined together in front of the Colosseum to express their dissent in confronting a government that continues to march against its foreign citizens, to make scapegoats of migrants, and to exacerbate the war against its poorest.

And a beautiful sight it is, this crowd of people under umbrellas and K-Way jackets, below one of the most recognizable monuments of Rome, with tourists looking out from the Colosseum and photographing the protest and not the amphitheater. As if to show that there are two forms of migration, one fully accepted and wanted by Europe, created by the tourists for whom all services are imagined and designed; the other kept secret and hidden, stamped out and impeded at all costs, made up of people fleeing in search of human rights, who are brought up against the wall of this European fortress that speaks of rights without putting them into practice.

The procession crosses the streets of the capital, in a festive and joyful manner, with numerous slogans and banners, to make their message clear. One cannot stand on the side of those who believe migration is an emergency that needs to be resolved, on the side of those who evacuate in the name of urban decorum without providing real shelter to people, of those who refuse to take a stance against hatred and racism, accepting the media pillory to which senator-for-life Liliana Segre has been subjected.

The most important Italian television networks and newspapers of the country, in keeping with last year, have not participated nor dedicated a line to the event. Showing that there exists a diverse Italy which rejects hated, which doesn’t hurl propaganda and doesn’t incite violence, does not generate an audience. And yet this Italy exists and on Saturday it found itself in the square to say that the politics of Europe and of Italy will not divide us, for we are indivisible.

Peppe Platania
Borderline Sicilia

Translation: Olivia Taibi