Many folks close to me know my obsession with many things Italian. While I'm only one quarter Sicilian, the prominence of my full-blood grandmother in my upbringing and the associated happy memories have fostered a deep love for the food, language, culture, and country of Italy.
But lately, I'm kinda pissed at the Italian government.
You see, it seems that they're performing a fingerprint census of all Roma (or Gypsy) people in their country - including the 90% which claim Italian citizenship - in an effort to "crack down on crime." This fingerprinting includes Roma children, but doesn't include any non-Roma Italians (sounds confusing, but this doesn't refer to residents of Rome).
I hope this sounds as obviously horrific to readers as it did to me and many in Italy's population. This is terribly similar in concept to how Germany treated Jews leading up to WWII; blame a minority ethnic group for societal woes (in Italy's case, theft and such) and set them apart, treating them differently than the rest of the population. That certainly snowballed into one of the greatest human tragedies in history.
Thankfully this isn't the 1930's, and the European Union took notice early on, so I don't foresee any larger-scale escalation without the intervention of the international community. There are currently political efforts within Italy and without to stop this practice, and I hope it picks up steam.
But lately, I'm kinda pissed at the Italian government.
You see, it seems that they're performing a fingerprint census of all Roma (or Gypsy) people in their country - including the 90% which claim Italian citizenship - in an effort to "crack down on crime." This fingerprinting includes Roma children, but doesn't include any non-Roma Italians (sounds confusing, but this doesn't refer to residents of Rome).
I hope this sounds as obviously horrific to readers as it did to me and many in Italy's population. This is terribly similar in concept to how Germany treated Jews leading up to WWII; blame a minority ethnic group for societal woes (in Italy's case, theft and such) and set them apart, treating them differently than the rest of the population. That certainly snowballed into one of the greatest human tragedies in history.
Thankfully this isn't the 1930's, and the European Union took notice early on, so I don't foresee any larger-scale escalation without the intervention of the international community. There are currently political efforts within Italy and without to stop this practice, and I hope it picks up steam.