Worldfocus

A mosque in Palermo, Sicily.

Editor Lisa Biagiotti researched Muslim immigration trends in Italy on a Fulbright grant in 2001. She recalls the post-9/11 climate in Italy and touches on the heightened immigration debate in Italy today.

As I read the Italian headlines these days — the government’s declaration of a state of emergency because of the immigrant influx, the proposal of special tests that could potentially segregate immigrant children and the general xenophobia toward immigrant groups — I remember the row of armed Italian policemen lining the U.S. embassy gate in Rome.

When I got off the plane in Rome a week after 9/11, I was ready to research Muslim immigration in Italy. I was prepared to link current Muslim immigration flows into Italy to colonialism under Mussolini, when Italy overthrew the Christian Coptics in Ethiopia and placed the Muslim minority in power. In typical Mussolini style, Italy built mosques and sent Ethiopian Muslims on pilgrimages to Mecca.

Actually, the connection between Italian colonialism and the rising tide of Muslim immigration was not significant. The immigration boom was due more to Italy’s geographic position — dipping down into the Mediterranean. People from Muslim countries in northern African and eastern Europe filtered through Italy. Today, there are just under 4 million immigrants (about 6 percent of the total population).

In the once-homogeneous country known for its emigration, I saw Filipino women pushing baby carriages and wheelchairs in Rome, African men hawking CDs on the streets, immigrant prostitutes hanging out behind the ruins along the old Appian Way, a bustling Chinatown in the Tuscan countryside and boats of refugees washing up on Italy’s shores.

After 9/11, as an American — and I don’t mean to be dramatic here — I couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy not knowing when the next attack might strike. Muslims were not only affected in the U.S., but also in Italy where the immigration debate turned against them. Muslim immigrants faced Islamophobic blame and pressures. My research took on unexpected meaning.

Seven years later, the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the U.S. has seemingly erased much negative sentiment toward Americans — but the same is not true for Muslims and other minorities in Italy. Nonetheless, there are signs of hope for easier relations.

This year’s report on immigration statistics and trends seems at odds with newspaper headlines. Caritas di Roma reports increased integration — one in 10 marriages is between an Italian and an immigrant, and in some northern regions that percentage spikes to 25 percent.

As Martin Seemungal’s video shows, anti-immigrant sentiment still churns, but I guess I’m a little optimistic when I read about the Italians and immigrants rallying together to protest the murder of a Burkina Faso native or the Catholic-Muslim interfaith talks that took place in Rome earlier this month.

In some ironic way, maybe Mussolini’s vision and outreach of a predominantly Catholic Italy joining forces with Muslims could somehow play out peacefully today.

- Lisa Biagiotti

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Andrew & Suzanne under a Creative Commons license.