Riccardo Armillei

The institutional concealment of the Romanies’ culture: the ongoing legacy of Fascist Italy

ABSTRACT This paper presents the case of the Romanies in Italy and the ‘forgotten’ nature of their genocide. The crimes committed by the Fascist regime towards these peoples during the Second World War were not disclosed until recently. In past decades it was commonly believed that Fascism had targeted Romanies merely as a problem of ‘public order’, rather than as a racial issue. This study argues that a lack of official acknowledgement, together with recent authoritarian approaches towards them (such as the introduction of 2008 ‘Nomad Emergency’ and the ongoing adoption of the highly criticized ‘camps policy’), could all be interpreted as an indirect consequence of the governments incapacity to deal with a shameful past and its unbroken ties. The existence of ‘gaps’ in Italian collective memory is now harming the health of Italys democratic polity, allowing racism to re-emerge, while resuscitating a deep-seated belief in the ‘legendary generosity’ of Italians.

Forgotten and Concealed: The Emblematic Cases of the Assyrian and Romani Genocides

By exploring how the Assyrian and Romani genocides came to be forgott en in offic ial history and collective memory, this paper takes a step towards redress for years of inadvertent neglect and deliberate concealment. In addressing the roles played by scholars and nations, and the effe ct of international law and government policy, it notes the inaccessibility of evidence, combined with a narrow application of definit ions of victim groups, and a focus on writt en proof of perpetrator intent. Continuing persecution of survivors in the aft ermath of the genocides, and government actions to erase the genocides from history, are common to both cases. The d imension of a comparative analysis between two emblematic “hidden” genocides shows that there are many similarities in the process of forgett ing that occurred in their respective aft ermaths. Developing an understanding of how these genocides came to be ignored and forgott en may provide a foundation for genuine acknowledgment and redress.

‘Campi nomadi’ as sites of resistance: The experience of Romani camp dwellers in Rome

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the Romani people who live at the margins of Italian society, often in city camps that show signs of institutional abandonment, neglect and extreme decay. Every year, large amounts of public money are spent on managing these camps, whetting the appetites of various institutions, both private and public. Consequently, the Romani issue has turned into a business involving hundreds of employees in which it is very hard to know exactly how funds are actually used. However, as well as the top-down approach adopted by the Government and its agents, this study also uncovers the existence of a bottom-up opposition expressed by the Romani communities living in camps. The Romani camp dwellers have recently been described as ‘fighters’ or ‘warriors’ in the sense that they have learned to take advantage of their marginal conditions. The daily struggle to make the best of a bad situation might be interpreted as a form of resistance. Inside the camps, Romanies now occupy an in-between position, partly imposed on them by outside forces and partly the consequence of their own volition. While standing on the side of the subjugated and against a hierarchy which produces and reproduces injustice, this article examines how Romani camp dwellers have managed to exercise what remains to them of their free agency.

A Multicultural Italy

This chapter discusses the approach the Italian Government is taking to cope with an increasingly diverse population. It focuses particularly on the circumstances of the Romani communities in the sphere of education and social justice, but also deals with marginalised migrant communities. Based on fieldwork conducted in Rome between 2011 and 2012, and an analysis of relevant secondary sources, this chapter draws attention to the educational system and its capacity to deal with ethnic and cultural diversity. Analysis of the via Italiana (the “Italian way”) of promoting intercultural education enables an appraisal of current ethnocentric and assimilative policies, together with related social inclusion strategies. The position of the Romani peoples, in particular, functions as a magnifying glass with which it is possible to analyse Italy’s overall approach towards cultural diversity. The discourse on ‘interculture’ in Italy is also placed in the broader context of the ongoing international debate about the “multiculturalism” versus “interculturalism” paradigm.

Recasting Italian Post-unification Period: Racial and Colonial Discourses Shaping the ‘Making’ of Modern Italians

1. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, ‘The Color of Reason: The Idea of “Race” in Kant’s Anthropology’, in Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze (ed), Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader, New York: Blackwell, 1997, pp 103–140. 2. Sheldon Pollock, ‘Deep Orientalism? Notes on Sanskrit and Power Beyond the Raj’, in Carol A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Perspectives on South Asia, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993, pp 76–133. 3. Susanne Zantop, Colonial Fantasies. Conquest, Family and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870, Durham/London: Duke University Press, 1997. 4. Ian Baucom, ‘Cicero’s Ghost: The Atlantic, the Enemy, and the Laws of War’, in Russ Castronovo and Susan Gillman (eds), States of Emergency: The Object of American Studies, University of North Carolina Press, 2009, pp. 124–142; Ian Baucom, ‘Financing Enlightenment, Part Two: Extraordinary Expenditure’, in Clifford Siskin and William Warner (eds), This is Enlightenment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010, pp 336–356. 5. Michel Foucault, ‘What is Enlightenment?’, in Paul Rabinow (ed), The Foucault Reader, New York: Penguin, 1984, pp 32–50.

‘Parallel Emergencies’ in Italy and Australia: Marginalised and Racialised Romani and Aboriginal ‘Camp Dwellers’

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Romani and Aboriginal peoples who live at the margins of Italian and Australian societies, often in city ‘camps’ that show signs of institutional abandonment, neglect and extreme decay. To address this socio-economic disadvantage and improve the quality of life, the governments of these two countries have implemented what we have defined ‘parallel emergencies’, extraordinary policy measures of intervention, surveillance and control. This paper argues that these policies that aim to improve the everyday lives of Romani and Aboriginal peoples, however, often re-produce a ‘tradition’ of institutionalised racism that can be traced back to the post-Unification period in Italy and the Federation period in Australia. By drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, we highlight the approach adopted by Italian and Australian institutions in terms of ‘inclusive exclusion’. On the one hand, the government makes significant investment in schooling and employment projects; on the other, it keeps promoting the use of emergency measures, which leaves slender scope for Romani and Aboriginal voices.

Boat arrivals and the “threat” to Italian national security: between a “moral panic” approach and the EU's failure to create a cohesive asylum-seeking policy

ABSTRACT Italy is increasingly a major destination for asylum seekers arriving by boat. In this context, the construction of a threat as “moral panic”, the idea of “national insecurity,” have been used by politicians to justify the implementation of “emergency” measures towards them. The aim of this study is to investigate the way so-called “boat people” are constructed as a pervasive threat to Italian national security. By doing so, it argues that the adoption of highly restrictive measures should be interpreted as the governments own incapacity to address this issue and to conform to its obligations under international human rights law, rather than resulting from the urgency of the situation itself. This paper will also place the Italian case in the context of European Union (EU) policy framework on asylum seekers. Thus, it will explore in a critical manner the literature emanating from the EU and its grandstanding purpose and failure to impose a normative understanding and cohesive polity on the matter of the asylum seekers. Ultimately, the lack of a truly European approach has impacted on the failure of the Italian government to address this issue.