Author: Sophie Arie
Publication: The Christian Science
Monitor
Date: November 10, 2003
URL: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1110/p07s01-woeu.html
Contributor to The Christian Science
Monitor
In the Italian capital's abandoned
Tiburtina railway station, clothes dangle from makeshift washing lines,
and families camp out without running water or electricity - many waiting
as long as 14 months to see if Italy will accept them as asylum seekers.
"I've been here a long time," says
John Laki, who is still living on the weed-covered tracks more than five
years after arriving from Sudan. "I keep trying to find a job. But it's
always complicated. They gave me asylum, but they don't give me any money.
How can a human being build their life [this way]?"
The 400 squatters in the station
in central Rome - dubbed "Hotel Africa" - are a reminder of Italy's difficulty
in taking in the waves of migrants escaping wars and dictatorships or seeking
work in Europe.
While immigrants live largely apart
from mainstream Italian society - doing manual or factory work or scraping
a living peddling trinkets or vegetables on the streets - the influx of
foreigners in recent years, many of them Muslim, is rapidly changing the
cultural makeup of this Roman Catholic country.
The tension between the two worlds
was apparent last month in an uproar over school crucifixes, which echoed
cultural struggles in France and Germany, where the wearing of head scarves
in schools and the use of ID cards are burning issues.
Italians were outraged when a judge
ruled that crosses should be removed from classroom walls out of respect
for Muslim pupils. In the normally quiet town of Ofena in central Italy,
parents held a "hands off our crucifix" vigil outside the elementary school
in question. The Education Ministry managed to win a temporary injunction
against taking down the crosses pending a hearing next week.
While Italy is officially secular,
more than 80 percent of Italians declare themselves Catholic. Legislation
from the 1920s says crucifixes should be in every school, but some argue
the subsequent secularization of the state makes the laws defunct.
The order to have them removed -
a victory for the media-savvy Muslim, whose children attend the Ofena school
- may have opened a legitimate debate, but it offended many Italians who
say their national identity was being attacked.
"It is unacceptable that one judge
should cancel out millennia of history," says Roberto Maroni, a Northern
League labor minister. And many Muslims say that the issue raised unwelcome
hostility between them and their Italian hosts.
"This is the last thing we need,"
says Jamel, a Lebanese immigrant who preferred not to give his full name.
"Crucifixes are not the problem. My children are the only Muslims in their
class, and they are happy. Finding a job - that is the problem. This kind
of conflict will just make it harder."
Islam has become the country's second-largest
religion, with the number of Muslims estimated at 700,000 to 1 million
among a total population of 57 million. Only 30,000 Muslims have Italian
citizenship. The rest are labeled extracomunitari - working on temporary
visas or illegally.
Unlike other religious communities,
Italy's Muslims have yet to be formally recognized by the state. Other
religions, including Judaism and smaller groups such as the Assemblies
of God and the Seventh- Day Adventists, have signed agreements with the
government, giving them official recognition and a chance to benefit from
a national "religion tax."
Talks are under way to establish
a formal dialogue, but observers warn that the Muslim community has yet
to overcome internal divisions, and right-wing elements in the Italian
government are intent on blocking all dialogue.
"There is a kind of resistance to
formally recognizing that we are here," says Khalid Chaouki, president
of the Young Muslims of Italy, complaining that some right-wing mayors
refuse to authorize plans to build mosques and cemeteries. "It is very
hard to make people realize we are people, not just Muslims."
"Italians don't want immigrants,
but they need them," says sociologist Franco Ferrarotti. "There is a great
danger of radical discrimination here against Muslims. Immigrants will
not be fully integrated in this country until they are given voting rights
- and we are far from that."
In recent weeks, Italy's far-right
Alleanza Nazionale has called for immigrants to be given the vote. The
call is seen as a major U-turn from a party striving to break clear from
its fascist roots to become a moderate mainstream party. But the Muslim
vote still faces stiff opposition from parts of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's
coalition government.
