Razzismo Di Stato. Stati Uniti, Europa, Italia

7/29/2019 Razzismo Di Stato. Stati Uniti, Europa, Italia

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Revew Artcles / Hstorcal Materalsm 20.4 (2012) 226239

Razzsmo d Stato. Stat Unt, Europa, Itala, edted by Petro Basso, Man: Ange,

Abstract

An mportant edted coecton on US and European mgraton poces as vehces or actors onsttutonal racsm are deat wth n ths revew-essay. In the context o recent terature onmgraton, Petro Bassos State Racsm proposes a specficay Marxst approach and represents asharp crtca anayss o the ongong surge n racsm sweepng across Western Europe and North

Amerca by oerng an nvestgaton nto the authortaran, racasng, and etst drt o Westerndemocraces and socetes. Partcuar mportance s gven to the spread o hostty towardsmgrants among natve workers, oten due to a condton osolaton,weakness, andvulnerabltesproduced by the aures o trade unons and potca organsatons o the workng cass. Theessays n the coecton pont towards ways n whch these can be eectvey thwarted andbocked by renewng coectve strugges and sodarty, argung that sodarty can stmuate thedeveopment o ant-racsm based on the unty o the workng cass, capabe o combatng all

types o dscrmnaton through se-organsaton, equaty, and cooperaton between mgrantand natve workers n the common strugge to assert needs and rghts. At the present conjuncture,

workers across borders can be the carrers o a new orm o cvsaton, berated rom thesupremacy o the commodty and o money, rom the expotaton o abour, and rom racsm andsexsm.

Keywords

mgrants, Isamophoba, racsm and sexsm, devauaton o work, workers sodarty, socoogy oemotons

State racsm and popular eelngs

Internatona mgratons consttute and w consttute even more n the comng years aphenomenon o epocha sgnficance, both or the countres o emgraton and or those ommgraton. Ths process has a goba and dynamc character, yet the current teratureconcerned wth t s domnated by a substantay descrptve, quanttatve, and mtedapproach, as the mmgraton queston were ony a partcuar a separate queston,

when n act t s an ncreasngy essenta ssue n soca transormatons, n potcansttutons, and n the producton o state deoogy. In many respects the prototype o thsknd o manstream terature, whch sees mgraton poces as undamentay neutra, s

The Age o Mgraton by Stephen Castes and Mark J. Mer,1 whch n ts varous edtonsand contnua updatng has conserved ts mted approach.The approach s competey derent nRazzsmo d Stato: Stat Unt, Europa, Itala [State

Racsm: Unted States, Europe, Italy], the rch and copous voume edted by Petro Basso( pages, wth u and detaed reerences to the terature on mgraton and on racsm)that I sha revew here.

Ths book presents the mgraton poces that have been mpemented n the UntedStates and Europe as vehces and actors onsttutonalracsm, n a sharp crtcal analysso the ongong surge n racsm that s sweepng through the West. Through ths crtcaanayss the text consttutes, at the same tme, an nvestgaton nto the authortaran,racasng, and etst drt o Western democraces and socetes. The hstorca and

. Castes and Mer .

Konnkjke Br NV, Leden, DOI: 0.63/569206X-234270


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socoeconomc background o ths nvestgaton repeatedy reerred to, partcuary nBassos Introducton s that o the goba crss that has ht the Unted States and Europe n

the past decade. It s precsey ths background whch I sha dscuss ater, n deta thataows us to understand the causes, orms, and eects o the quatatve and quanttatvesurge n nsttutona racsm that are examned n ths book, whch, n my opnon, has asnguar and sgnficant pace n the anayss o nternatona mgraton rom a Marxstperspectve.

Wth regard to mgraton poces, the book orceuy emphasses the connectonbetween such poces and the entre fied o neobera and, as Crouch puts t, post-democratc state poces. Few texts, n act, argue wth such cogency that mgratonpoces are by no means partcuar sectoral poces, desgned solely to reguate the eo mmgrant popuatons; they are, rather, an ntegra part o abour poces or, moreprecsey, o the poces aganstwage abour n general,whch reguate the e o the entre

workng cass, and, ndeed, o the entre socety.From ths wde-rangng crtca anayss we see how both n the Unted States and n

Europe state mgraton poces have ostered the stratficaton o the abour market and theexpotaton o abour. We see how, especay over the past ten years, they have come topay a undamenta roe n a aspects o the nsttutona actvtes o Western democraces,acqurng great deoogca and propagandstc sgnficance and producng a great numbero grave consequences or the exstence o mmgrant popuatons and, ndrecty, or that onatve-born popuatons as we, especay that o the workng cass.

Ths s a centra thess o the book, whch dstngushes t aso rom the Itaan crtcaterature on contemporary mgratons. Ths oten tends to narrow the ssue as the resut o

a great number ondvdualchoces, the addng together o manyndvdualstores (DaLago); ocusng on the subjectve dmenson o mgratory processes, the ndvduaty, therreducble sngularty o women and men who are the protagonsts o mgratons(Mezzadra); and oten eavng out competey the cruca reatonshps between mmgrant

workers and oca workers. Instead, or Basso and the other authors oRazzsmo d statonternatona mgratons are essentay a soca phenomenon, and they make a pont nundernng the common trats among mgrants o derent natonates and the convergngdestny o mgrants and Itaan, European, Western workers.

The democratc state as a prmary source o racsm n Europe and the US

Far ndeed rom beng seen as neutra, US and European mgraton poces are, n thsanayss, examned ptessy and presented as racaland racstpoces. In ths respect thebook sharpy dstngushes tse rom many other works deang wth the connectonbetween mgraton and racsm. Indeed, the gudng thread o ths work, decared n the veryfirst nes o ts Preace, s that the first propeant o the revvalo racsm now underwaythroughout the West s nsttutonalracsm, and ts first protagonsts are precsey states,governments, paraments: wth ther speca aws and ther pubc dscourse aganst

. C. Crouch .. C. Da Lago .. C. Mezzadra .


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mmgrants, ther arbtrary admnstratve practces, ther raca seecton between goodnatonates and dangerous natonates, ther obsessve poce actons and nternment

camps (p. ). Ths s the thess that runs throughout the book. And t s a thess that swmsaganst the stream, snce amost a the terature that deas wth the spread o race-reatedeengs, prejudces, dscrmnatons, and voence on both sdes o the Atantc expresses atotay derent convcton: namey, that racsm rsesrom the bottom up. From the bottomo the popuar strata towards the up o the state nsttutons that, or ther part, do whatthey can to mtgate and even to combat these spontaneous tendences o the natve-bornpopuaton. Ths s a poston that s carred to the extreme by Huntngton, Cadwe, and the

whoe host o propagators o the Euraban Foes, who mantan that mutcuturasm hasbeen abe to assert tse n the West ony and excusvey through the perfidy o cosmopotangovernment etes batanty unconcerned about ther naton, whe the vast majorty, oreven near totaty, o the Western popuatons are n act (aegedy) naturay and heatedy

opposed to the transormaton o the West nto mutraca and mutcutura socetes.For Basso and the other authors oRazzsmo d stato, by contrast, state nsttutons have

payed an absolutely decsve roe n the socal and poltcal constructon o the eengs ohostty to and contempt or mmgrant workers and peopes that are spreadng throughthe natve-born popuar strata o Western socetes. And the mass-meda ndustry, otencaed nto queston (wth good reason) or the harm t does n ths fied, can tse be seen asa drve bet o the two most poweru orces generatng racsm aganst mmgrants: potcansttutons and the nsttuton o the market.

In ths respect, whether one agrees or dsagrees wth ts approach, ths book aso contansa theory o the state n the orm o a testament to the ongong radcal change n that

consttutona state o whch the West has or so ong been proud. Today, n the name o themmgraton emergency poce, mtary paradgms and speca structures, aws, andpractces are contnuay beng mposed on norma democratc everyday e. What s more,ths change s a general change, whch s beng mpemented by means o a varety opartcularmeasures apparently concernng ony terrorsts or mmgrants, measures thatRazzsmo d stato examnes n great deta.

To speak ony o Europe, nsttutona racsm operates both at a centra and at a oca eve,wth paraments busy approvng a sorts o dscrmnatory speca aws and reguatons, andoca egsatve and admnstratve organs o the state engaged n arbtrary practces.Measures, drectves, and nterventons are oten proposed or mposed by partes o the

ethno-natonastc rght whch are growng stronger n many European countres butare approved no ess oten wth a consensus that goes ar beyond them: sufice t to thnk, orexampe, o the mutpcaton o detenton camps but specficay or rreguar mmgrants,or o the at tmes voent poce actons aganst the Roma.

The concrete exampes o ths way o operatng on the part o European state nsttutonsare countess: the budng o was at the border between Greece and Turkey or, morerecenty, ater the books pubcaton, between Denmark and Germany; compusoryfingerprntng (treatment once reserved or prsoners); admnstratve detenton (unknownn ordnary aw); attrbuton o the rght to appy or resdence-permts not to the mmgrantsthemseves but to ther empoyers (one provson o Itays Boss-Fn aw); the torrent oprohbtons concernng mmgrants ssued by mayors n Itay there were n the perod

. C. Huntngton , ; Cadwe .


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between Juy and August aone, regardng access to resdence, to nursery schoo,to pubc parks, to pubc housng, to paces o worshp, to certficates, to suppementary

ncome, to amy reunficaton, even to parkng paces!The overa eect o ths enormous producton o specal law aganst mmgrants hasbeen the normasaton o a herarchsed mode o socety based not ony on cass but (aso)on natona, raca, and securtaran actors, o whch the concentraton camps ormmgrants they, too, have become an ntegra part o the European cv andscape areone o the embems. What s more, there are the specfic modates by whch ths productono speca aw comes about Isde Gjergj wrtes about them n deta .e., the rantcaccumuaton o aws, memoranda, mnstera notes, and other centra and ocaadmnstratve orders represents ajust-n-tme rue o aw wthgreat leeway or arbtrarnessand or socalsaton o the arbtrary wth respect to mmgrants. And ths new type o aw sbegnnng to be seen as a mode to be oowed beyond the specfic area o mmgraton,

because t aows the domnant economc nterests to penetrate more drecty nto thesphere o aw, and because o ts capacty to adapt rapdy to these nterests.

The book whch s the successor to an earer, no ess copous, coecton o essays onmgraton by varous authors, edted by Petro Basso and Fabo Perocco s dvded ntotwo parts.

The first part s concerned wth genera trends n the Unted States and n WesternEurope. It presents and anayses state persecuton o undocumented mmgrants n theUnted States and US poces to combat and contro mmgraton rom Mexco and Latn

Amerca (Justn Akers Chacn); racst aws and drectves ssued n Itay (Lug Ferrajo);key ssues o state racsm n Europe (Petro Basso); poces or mmgraton management n

Germany, wth ther procedures o contro, montorng, recuson, and excuson n thecontext o an nsttutona voence aganst mmgrants and asyum seekers (Drk

Vogeskamp); camps n Germany as varabe nstruments or the contro o mgratons(Tobas Peper); rues o ntegraton n a racst and ant-Isamc Great Brtan (ArunKundnan); eements o contnuty between the od coona poces and the currentmgraton poces wth respect to mmgrants o coona orgn n France today, and thebruta destructon o the reugee camps n Caas, the Eurotunne cty (Dno Costantn);camps or mgrants at the borders o Europe (Govanna Russo); the back book on the actsconcernng Ceuta and Mea and Europes war aganst emgrants rom Arca (Mgreurop);poces aganst the Roma n Swtzerand (Daro Lopreno); and an Appendx on the Swss

reerendum aganst the budng o mnarets (Mouvement pour e socasme).The second part o the book dscusses the nsttutona poces mpemented n Itay,whch s seen as a laboratory o poces o ths knd and as a vertabe avant-garde o European nsttutonal racsm (Fabo Perocco), wth partcuar attenton to the roe payedby securtaran deoogy n ensurng a subordnate ntegraton o mmgrants, as we as tothe processes and the reguatons that crmnase them (Marco Ferrero). The fina chaptersdea wth the just-n-tme reguatons and drectves produced by centra and ocansttutons, n the context o a permanent emergency that has served to create apostmodern authortaran ega system n the ron grp o economc nterests (Isde Gjergj);the passage, n the Itaan experence, rom Isamophoba to racsm and to dscrmnatonsaganst Musm workers and popuatons (Fabo Perocco); the escaaton o voence aganst

. Basso and Perocco (eds.) .


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mmgrant arm abourers perpetrated by the Mafia, whch, n the agrcuture o southernItay, contros mmgrant save abour n the nterests o mutnatona corporatons and o

agrbusness a scene dotted wth massacres and pogroms, but aso wth magnficent revotsby the mmgrants and state nterventon aganst the rebes (Bago Borrett); and manyother epsodes o super-expotaton, dscrmnaton, and voence aganst the women andmen who mgrate towards Itay, durng ther voyage and ater ther arrva as nternees nCamps o Identficaton and Expuson, where there have been cases o women raped by thepoce, and where vng condtons are so degradng and abuses so requent that theydeserve the nameLager(Marco Petten). The ast essay o ths second part s dedcated, ason hstorca retrospectve, to the persecuton and margnasaton o Roma popuatons,

whose symboc degradaton s just what the Itaan state has needed to smutaneousycrmnase mmgraton and poverty (Lug D Noa).

Lke a books o essays by varous authors, there s agreement and dsagreement between

them. The ponts o agreement are qute strong, and we can magne the edtor ony hntsat t that there were ntense dscussons between the edtor and the authors, but asoamong the authors themseves. The ponts o dsagreement regard above a the queston o

whether or not the democratc nsttutons o Europe and the US w, n the uture,mpement poces that are radcay derent rom the ones crtcsed n ths book. It shere, I beeve, that the book may be contested, or the categorca manner n whch someessays Bassos n partcuar present Western democraces as, so to speak, organcallyracst: a thess that s not wdey shared, and that certany deserves to be dscussed wthoutdeoogsm.

Ths thess s not shared by other crtcs o nsttutona orms o racsm among them

Etenne Babar whose standpont s that by enactng racst potcs European nsttutonsbetray themseves, so to speak. They beeve Europe coud become the centre o anaternatve gobasaton, capabe o creatng a democratc reguaton o mgratons Europe reay wanted to do so, .e., ts rung casses coud get out o the prevaent mndset,a dsastrous coectve ncapacty o magnng aternatve potcs where the atter s seenas relectng the w o a gobay actve ctzenshp. Such a poston, despte a ormacrtques addressed to nsttutona racsm, gves me the eeng o the extent to whchnternased Eurocentrsm has not been deconstructed, even n the ant-racst movement:the startng pont o much reasonng remans Europe, unrelexvey represented as thecentre o the word, Europe as a contnent that shoud be capabe o ormuatng a new type

o unversastc thnkng nstead o humby startng to earn rom the rest o the word.

Islamophoba and the nfinte war on terror

The perod examned n the book s the past decade, domnated by the so-caed nfintewar on terror and the great crss o . It s not ortutous, then, the examnaton othe poces o the Western states begns precsey wth the Unted States ater / and wthSamue Huntngtons bpartsan theorsaton o the pressng need to abandonmutcuturasm and reaunch assmatonst poces, on pan o the dsntegraton o USsocety and o North Amercan nsttutons. The essays by Justn Akers Chacn ustrate

. C. Babar , .


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very we the substanta contnuty between the mgraton poces o the Repubcans andthose o the Democrats, but show at the same tme how the mmgrants n the US especay,

but not ony, those o Latn Amercan orgn have reused to submt passvey to repressveand voenty dscrmnatory poces, creatng a huge mass-mobsaton that cumnated onMay Day wth the first nternatona strke (.e., spread throughout a the states o theUnon) n the hstory o the Unted States.

The same tendency that n the US took the shape o the Sensenbrenner B (ater rejectedn the streets but, then, not even wth the advent o Obama have the gudenes o statepocy taken any turn or the better) materased a ew years ater n Europe, wth eaturesthat, oten, were even more extreme. Whe the aunch o the harshest state poces aganstmmgrants took pace n the US ater /, the countres o Europe began to ntensy therstrateges and ther aws aganst mmgrants n , when France, Germany, Austra andHoand estabshed, de acto, that mmgrants (or, at east, the more recent arrvas) were to

be consdered nothng more than guests o ther host countres and, accordngy, areobged to adapt to the cutura vaues o the countres n whch they happened to ve they want to be toerated. There s a dash o undamentasm o ntegrasm n the verydea o ntegraton. The Latn term nteger/ntegrum sgnfies, n act, keepng ntact, whchmeans: You, mmgrant, can become a part o our envronment your presence eaves t ast s, uncontamnated . And there s, n addton, another orm o undamentasm whosecontent s expcty matera, namey, the demand that mmgrant workers accept they

want to be toerated every magnabe orm o precarousness and dscrmnaton n theworkpace and n socety.

New orms o natonastc and whte-supremacst rhetorc drve backwards any dea o

co-exstence, any orm o rea respect or dversty, and any prospect o postve exchangeon a bass o equaty between natves and mmgrants. What states demand today scomplete dentficaton wth the culture, language, and domnant relgon o the hostcountres and total assmlaton to ther more-or-ess decared prncpes and vaues ndeed, to preserve the purty o Europe there are countres, such as France, that have goneso ar as to rename the mnstry whose concern s mmgraton the Mnstry o NatonaIdentty. At the same tme, to preserve or revve the compettveness o the European andthe US economes, mmgrants are requred to denty totay wth the nterests and theobjectves o ther host companes and countres.

In the books wde-rangng survey o US and European systems o dscrmnaton aganst

mmgrant popuatons, speca attenton s pad to Isamophoba. The queston romGreat Brtan to France, rom Swtzerand to Itay s deat wth n deta n a number oessays and s presented as one o the key ssues o state racsm throughout the West. In apartcuary mpressve essay, the books edtor, Petro Basso, deves deepy nto the specfictechnques that have been empoyed to deepen the urrow between them (the Isamcpeopes) and us. The openng nes o the essay speak voumes:

Lke the shrewd entrepreneurs o the Hagenbeckan human zoos who went nsearch o subjects objects o coour to exhbt n the metroposes o Europerom the most out-o-the-way and prmtve vages o Arca and Asa thepresent-day entrepreneurs o Isamophoba am to create n the European pubc

a eelng o mmense dstance rom the Isamc popuatons, based on a(presumed) organc and nsurmountabe derence between us and them. And


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at the same tme they am to socase the apparenty we-ounded convcton thatwe are conronted wth backward peopes, anatcay cngng to a past that doesnot pass; peopes nerorto us n every respect, both because poorer n materameans and because poorer n sprt and n cuture yet determned to export thermsery and ther matera and sprtua backwardness everywhere, at any cost.

The prncpa technques used to produce, spread, and ampy the rreducbeextraneousness, contempt, and opposton between us and them are theoowng:

) remove cover everythng that can brng coser and even jon together thepopuatons o Europe and the popuatons o the Isamc word, and npartcuar the workers o the two words;

) present Isamc mmgrants, potca Isam, Isam as such, as aggressve

coonsers that threaten our securty, our tranquty, our customs, ourterrtores;) bang the drum about the oppresson o Arab and Isamc women, and about

the necessty that t be we Europeans, respectu o women by definton,who berate them (pp. ).

We have seen just how eectve these technques have been even n the pacd and oNorway n the recent massacre there very oten attrbuted to the crmna madness oBrevk alone, or to the Chrstan-undamentast movements alone, or to the ethno-natonastc and openy racst Rght alone, when n act t s rooted entrey n the rsngnsttutona Isamophoba o the ast two decades.

The crtque o Isamophoba n Bassos essay s ar ndeed rom the manstream crtqueso the phenomenon. Here, the crtque s based on a recognton o the actua exstence o

Arab and Isamc socetes, whch are actuay Isamc ony to a certan extent because togve just one o the reasons n these socetes we find an unquestonabe domnaton oabour tme, dctated by captast rues o producton and the captast market, over aother tmes, ncudng the tme o the sacred. Arab and Isamc socetes are undergong aproound and endurng process o secuarsaton n whch, on the one hand, the new dos othe market economy (money, first o a) assert themseves and, on the other, aspratons toreedom and democracy aborousy advance. Basso emphasses that n these socetes asoca dvson o abour s progressvey assertng tse a dvson o socety nto casses

that has ncreasngy modern characterstcs, even ths s a modernty o domnatedcountres, and even one must dstngush rom case to case, because o the many derencesbetween the countres concerned.

It s worthy o note that ths unconventona presentaton o Arab and Isamc soceteswas ormuated pror to the events o the Arab sprng that heraded a revva o thedemocratc revouton n the Arab word; a revva that brought to ght how, even nthe context o an endurng nluence o the Isamst movements, the basc aspratons o thegreat masses o workers and young peope n the Arab countres have ncredby tte o theIsamc about them. Ths s ndeed a ormdabe bow or the credbty o that wretchedcuturast constructon whch camed to find rremedabe derences o nature (a sort o

naturased cuture) between Arab-Isamc and Western peopes.No ess noteworthy s the strong nk that a number o authors oRazzsmo d stato orgebetween the current mgraton poces o European countres and ther coona experence.


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In act many o the commonpaces and many o the dscrmnatons that alct mmgrantpopuatons today have cear coona orgns; that s, they come rom a past that reuses to pass

and that, on the contrary, many today are begnnng to deend as a thngs consdered postve.The eects o ths nexhaustbe sowng o Isamophoba pace a heavy burden on the

shouders o mmgrant workers and popuatons o Isamc orgn. Indeed, the Isamophobandustry s fing the ar wth a seres o cchs that nerorse and oten demonse Isamcmmgrants, as s we documented by the European Montorng Centre on Racsm and

Xenophoba n ts studyMuslms n the European Unon: Dscrmnaton and Islamophoba,8and by the Fundamenta Rghts Agency n tsData n Focus Report 2: Muslms; DscrmnatonExperenced by Muslms. For a these reasons the authors oRazzsmo d stato are convncedthat one o the basc commtments o the schoars who crtcse current mgraton pocess the commtment to combat, orceuy, Isamophoba and a the speca harassment o

whch so-caed Isamc mmgrants are vctms. Aso because we must not beeve thatthese partcuar mmgrants are a speca case: on the contrary, the speca bows amed atthem end up strkng, sooner or ater, allmmgrants wthout dstncton, oten depcted enboc as the nterna enemy o whom we must beware.

One o the aspects o mgraton and mgraton poces that certany deserved moreattenton n the text s that o the nsttutona treatment o mmgrant women a questonthat s compcated and o great mportance. In state poces regardng mmgrant workers,asyum seekers, and envronmenta mgrants n search o sheter, the queston o gender susuay broached n a doube sense. On the one hand, to create eengs o averson andrejecton wth regard to women who have been raped and sod, women who n some cases

arrve n Europe pregnant or wth sma chdren n a mx o racsm, sexsm, and paternasm;on the other, to spread the dea that Western states can pay the roe o berator o women,even though they are themseves the hers o the od coona states that so grevousyoppressed them.

In ths regard, I wsh to reca an epsode that concerns the country (Itay) where I veand teach, n southern Itay to be precse, n an area o hgh densty o mmgrants, but asoensaved sex workers. Recenty, Prme Mnster Beruscon, we-known a over the wordor hs pathetc jokes, ater askng the Abanan premer Bersha to coaborate wth theItaan government n the war on trafickers o rreguar mgrants, added that an exceptoncoud be made ony or the trafickers that brng beautu Abanan grs to Itay. Such a

batant expresson o mae chauvnsm s a cear symptom o the way n whch racsm andsexsm urk n the hghest eves o state nsttutons.Razzsmo d stato has some scathng pages that ra aganst the hypocrsy o the

propaganda n Western states n deence o Isamc women, conrontng t wth the reatyo the genera commodficaton o the emae body n Western socetes n a contextobsessvey domnated by homosoca dscursve practces, n whch new orms o coectvepatrarchasm emerge desgned to mantan a status quo based on the supremacy o maes.

Whe these are nterestng crtca remarks, the space devoted to the treatment o mmgrantwomen s nonetheess nsuficent n a book whose cear ntenton s to carry out a -degreeanayss o nsttutona racsm.

. EUMC .. FRA .


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Mgrants and local workers: a convergng destny

The detaed examnaton o the state poces on mmgraton n Itay n the second part o

the book s cruca or brngng nto ocus the extremely close connecton between polcesaganst mmgrant workers (whch are not poces aganst mmgraton as such) andpolcesaganst natve-born workers. Here, the structure o Itaan socety as a whoe s n queston,snce the poces aganst mmgrants Fabo Perocco wrtes are hepng to orge andconsodate an utra-poarsed and etst socety:

In the current phase o downward sprang o the captast economy and ograve crss o the Itaan potca and economc system, the matera crushng andsymboc devaorsaton o mmgrants consttute, rom the standpont o captastnterests, eements that are more and more necessary. And ths s so not ony out

o matera needs o mere protecton o profit but aso or potca reasons, sncethe ongong goba crss, and the natona crss n partcuar, s dvertedsystematcay and amost everywhere towards aganst mmgraton. The waron mmgrants s truy a etmot that characterses the natona pocy o many

Western chanceeres.In the spread o the war on mmgrants Itay pays a eadng roe, especay n

terms o state measures, socasaton o a potcs o ear, and promoton o mass-racsm. The Itaan stuaton, then, s not to be consdered an excepton or asnguar and provsona case. The persecuton o mmgrants especay undocumented n Itay must, rather, be seen as the antcpaton o a reaty thatn the uture w be more wdespread and deep-rooted, or whch a number o

European countres are preparng, aso wth the placeto the European Unon whch has done ts share by gvng the green ght or measures that are, to say theeast, questonabe.

Ths ntensficaton o racsm s aso a sort o prevew o the socety o tomorrow,towards whch Europe s racng. A socety n whch the workng cass s to be setback to the soca and jurdca condtons o fity years ago or, possbe, o thenneteenth century! The war on mmgrants, eevated to a undamenta eement onatona pocytout court, prefigures, then, the condton the powers that be haven store or allworkers (pp. ).

That whch has been socased n Itay n recent years by the rung casses, the mass-meda,

and the potca and state nsttutons s not an ordnary, or sot, racsm. Perocco nsststhat, on the contrary, t s a surly racsm worthy o the Europe that attacks abour and o thehstory o ts coonsng natons. It s a racsm that s abe, first o a, to keep mmgrant

workers n a condton o constant precarousness and o economc, ega, resdenta,cutura, emotona, and sprtua nerorty, n order to neutrase n advance possbe ther soca, human, and sprtua demands.

Ths, then, s a racsm that s abe to make ts own contrbuton to the u mpementatono neobera poces and to the mystficaton o the causes o the worsenng o thepopuatons vng condtons that s the resut o these poces. The ongong processeso captast concentraton and accumuaton, whch produce a generased worsenng o

workng condtons, have ound n racsm a most useu ay n the producton outracasuased abour-power and n the constructon o a pubc danger to whch a soca


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anxetes can repar. As Perocco expresses t, n the fina anayss, ths renorced racsmconsttutes an nstrument that s ndspensabe to the process o ormaton o the

utrapoarsed and etst socety now n the ofing (p. ).Ths, ndeed, seems to be the am o the combnaton o mgraton poces and abourpoces that n the ast three decades have teray dsmanted the tradtona rghts oEuropean abour, whch n Itay, ater , had a partcuary vgorous lowerng. In thssense the anayss o the Itaan case, carred out wth care n the seven essays by youngschoars, takes on paradgmatc vaue, snce Itay was ht harder than many other Europeancountres by the economc crss, and because t was precsey and excusvey a surge nmmgraton that managed to brake (somewhat) the ree a o the Itaan economy and topug the hoes opened n the domestc economy o many ames by the drastc cuts n

weare.As or the reasons why we are wtnessng ths surge n nsttutona racsm, the genera

concuson we can draw rom the edtors texts and rom some o the essays contaned nthe book s, roughy, the oowng: first, the West s undergong a goba economc andpotca crss o coossa proportons that ntersects wth the decne o the word order thatcame out o Word War II. However ncredbe t may appear to poor mortas, or thefinanca turbo-captasm that has hed the centre o the word stage or the past thrty yearsthe ony possbe souton to ths crss s to reduce as drastcay as one possby can theremuneraton, rghts, guarantees, eve o organsaton, and soca recognton owagelabour. And or the success o a shock therapy o ths knd nothng coud be more approprateand useu than nctement o the sharpest possbe competton and, even, open conlctbetween workers o derent natonates and races. And to obtan ths resut the Euro-US

power etes need to perorm a dua, compex operaton: reduce the mmgrant workers,men and women ake, to the rank oGastarbeter, guest worker, lavorator temporaneamenteospt, a just-n-tme abour orce, bound hand and oot, wth no reedom o crcuaton, noamy, no permanent rghts, no trade unon. And then blame ths ptessy crushed nakedabour power or the general worsenng o the workng and vng condton o the other

workers, .e., mmgrants o ong standng and natves. And ths, n order to deepen thedvsons and the antagonsms wthn the workng casses and wthn the word o mmgrant

workers tse, and thus brng about ageneral devalorsaton o abour.But there s more to t than that. Another process o great mpact s broached qute brely

when, n my opnon, t deserved uer treatment: namey, the process n whch Chna first

and oremost, but aso the other emergng countres o the goba South, are cang ntoqueston n a fieds the prmacy o the Unted States and Europe. Ths chaenge ncreasesthe need o Western companes to have recourse to mmgrant abour because, as we have

just seen, such abour underpad and wth ew or no guarantees s a ever o crucamportance or economes that have been alcted wth a great oss o compettveness. At thesame tme, however, the contnua growth o the sze o the mmgrant popuatons (n theUS the Latno mmgrants aone amount to some mon peope, whe there are morethan mon mmgrants n Western Europe) s gvng rse to ncreasng concern ngovernment crces on both sdes o the Atantc. These popuatons are perceved, n act, aspossbe Trojan horses o the new compettor captasms o the goba South nsde the

was o Western natons. The poemca wrtngs aganst mutcuturasm, rom Huntngtonto Cadwe, rom Faac to Enzensberger, rom Bernard Lews to Thornton, wth severadegrees o derences,are anaysed n the text aso n ths perspectve. Apropos, the edtor


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states: The ong march o the peopes and the workers o the ormer coones and, n otherrespects, o ther respectve captasms (understandaby) rghtens the Western etes and

drves them more and more to consder mmgrant peopes as the fith coumns o thsmarch, to be kept under strct and severe contro. In ths task states and governments areattemptng, more and more, to recrut and mobse, n addton to the nsttutonamachnery, aso ther respectve socetes(p. ). And t s precsey at the head, heart, andbey o ther respectve popuatons and o the natve-born US and European workers thatthe machnery o nsttutona racsm ams, n order to demonstrate to ts own ctzens andts own workers that the derent cutures and cvsatons are ncompatbe, thatmmgrants are carrers o matera and mora evs o a knds, that they exercse a orm ounar competton wth respect to the natves and that, thereore, no precauton anddscrmnaton s excessve where they are concerned. Such demonstratons nvarabyconcude wth the usua natonastc, Westernstc, and whte-dentty rhetorc, and wth

ths njuncton addressed to the mmgrants: you want to stay here, you have to dentyyourseves totay wth our countres, our vaues, our customs.

Glmmers o lght n a dark scenaro

Razzsmo d stato presents us, then, wth a -degree crtque o Western state poces onmgraton and on ega and soca (n)equates between mmgrants and natves, and n thsrespect t s a hard, ptess book that eaves no room or usons (about our nsttutons).But ths does not mean that t s pessmstc about the uture. On the contrary, the mpresson

one draws or that I dd, at any rate s very derent.The book contans, n act, some mportant ndcatons regardng the queston o what s

to be done to oppose the spread o racsm, ant-Isamc eengs, hostty to the Roma, hate/ear o mmgrant workers and asyum seekers, the new wave o antsemtsm n EasternEurope and, everywhere, o authortaran and repressve poces.

What we earn rom many o the essays s that the first thng to be done s to cut theconnectons between the racsm o nsttutons and popuar eengs, by workng tostrengthen the current orms o cass and gender sodarty through the creaton o newnetworks and assocatons that connect mmgrants o varous natonates wth natves. Inact the spread among natve workers o eengs and behavours that are hoste to mmgrant

peopes s oten due to a condton o solaton, oweakness, opartcular vulnerablty,produced by the aures o the trade-unon and potca organsatons o the workng cass,and can be eectvey thwarted and bocked ony by a renewa o the strugge and ocoectve sodarty.

From ths pont o vew, the ongong rse o nsttutona racsm n Europe and n Itay canbe seen aso, paradoxcay, as a hstorc opportunty, because ths process s aso stmuatngthe deveopment o a more sod ant-racsm based on the unty o the workng casses,capabe o combatng alltypes o dscrmnaton through the practce o se-organsaton,equaty, cooperaton, and sodarty between mmgrant and natve workers n the commonstrugge to assert ther needs and rghts. In the books concusons Basso mantans that thesoca orce that can take up such a task s the one Saska Sassen descrbed as the goba cass


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o dsadvantaged peope,1 but n Bassos vew ths goba cass s not composed excusveyo mmgrants or o emgrants t s, at bottom, the cass o wage abourers as a whole. At the

great hstorc watershed that we are crossng, ths great soca orce can be he beeves the carrer o a new orm o cvsaton, berated not ony rom the supremacy o thecommodty and o money, and thus rom the expotaton o abour, but aso rom racsmand rom sexsm.

Petro Basso emphasses how the epocha soca transormatons we are wtnessng todayare ayng the concrete oundatons or overcomng the antagonsm between workers oderent natonates, because, n spte o what appears on the surace, such transormatonsare osterng a growng nter-reaton between natve and mmgrant popuatons and

workers.

In ther campagn to spread ant-mmgrant racsm at the popuar eve the powers

that be n Europe and the Unted States come up aganst no sma contradcton:the Western popuatons and workers that are urged and, n some respects,commanded to move aganst the mmgrant popuatons and workers are areadyand w be ncreasngy carred by the orce o thngs to ee that they arethemseves mmgrants n ther own natve lands; and they w themseves have theconcrete experence that a the poces aganst mmgrants produce negatveeects on the exstence o the natve popuatons, who are not dvded rom themmgrant popuatons by a Great Wa o Chna. Indeed, t s or ths reason thata hety and repeated admnstraton o racst posons s needed to dvde them nther mnds and n ther eengs rom the mmgrant peopes whom they w tendto resembe n everyday e more than they do today (and more than they woudke to).

Both n the countres o ongstandng mmgraton such as the Unted States,Great Brtan, France, and Germany, and n the countres such as Span and Itaythat more recenty have become countres o mmgraton, there s a growng de

acto connecton between natves and mmgrants. The cose weave o therpresence together n workpaces, schoos, neghbourhoods, towns, consutngrooms or women, assocatons, trade unons; the mutpcaton o aectvereatonshps and marrages between natves and mmgrants; the growng engtho the mmgrants stay; the acquston o ctzenshp; the even greater rse n thenumber o the chdren o mmgrants born n Europe or the US a ths, n spte

o a hoste nsttutona cmate, s greaty and contnuay enargng a molecularnetwork o contacts, rendshps, and sodartes that soten and downpay thederences o cuture, regon, and custom, whe hghghtng and accentuatngthat whch even n the endurng herarchca derentaton o ther soca andega postons mmgrant and natve peopes, mmgrant and natve workers,have n common (pp. ).

Basso notes that Cartas, n ts most recent report, n the case o Itay spoke o an ever cosernterweavng between the new arrvas and the socety that has taken them n an

. C. Sassen .


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nterweavng that goes we beyond the workpace and that Cartas descrbed esewhere asa growng symboss between Itaans and mmgrants. Interweavng, symboss, are strong

words, whch can even sound excessve because, at the moment, n the dramatceneebement o a the orms o wage-abour organsaton, most o these connectons, othese nterweavngs, appear, and are actuay experenced, as mere prvate acts, as reatonsbetween sngle ndvduals and not aso as reatons between peopes, races, contnents,cvsatons, ormer coonsers and ormer coonsed as the excepton and not the rue. Buteven wth these mts, the reducton o the dstance between mmgrant and natvepopuatons s nevertheess a reaty, and t s contnung. I qute a ew Itaan workers arebegnnng to ee as they are mmgrants n ther own country,vce versa many mmgrantsare begnnng to be consdered (and to ee themseves) ess ke oregners n the countrythat s not ther country o brth. Basso concudes that ths objectve, and not only objectve,convergence s an rreutaby rea act. In partcuar the bg ctes, undamenta terrtora

artcuatons o the goba market, are uy-ledged ms that grnd natona derences (p. ).

But t s not ony a queston o bg ctes: aso smaer ctes, towns, and even the smaestvages have been nvoved and transormed by ths growng, and postve, de actoconnecton between natves and mmgrants. An exceent exampe, whch I woud ke toreca, s that o the sma town o Race, n Caabra n southern Itay, whch has openedtse n recent years to the contrbutons o mmgrants, expressy nvtng them to sette nths town that was threatened by depopuaton. A good number o mmgrants accepted thenvtaton, and ther presence has ed not ony to a demographc rebrth but aso to therecovery o oca rea estate, a revva o tradtona actvtes and trades, the aunchng o

ecoogca garbage coecton, new mutcooured schoo casses, etc. In ths way the entretown has been envened and beautfied, to the satsacton o natves and mmgrantsake.

In the mdde o ths hstorca process that s deveopng on a arge scae and to anncreasng depth, one can see a gmmer o ght, a uture that has, n a certan sense, areadybegun. Ths s not a utopa but, rather, a new reaty that s assertng tse, a transton thats underway.

There s no queston that, up to now, popuar eengs have been skuy cutvated bythe nsttutons o the state and the reactons o the natve-born popuaton have beenskuy nluenced by the mass-meda. But n the ong term manpuaton cannot wn out

over matera condtons, whch produce even stronger coectve eengs and ntutonscapabe o modyng the course o events. It cannot wn out ths progressve reducton othe dstance between the condtons and eengs o whte workers and workers o coour

w be accompaned by an ant-racsm that s up to the tmes, and by a workers movementthat s, once agan, ndependent o governments and firms. Petro Basso concudes:everythng has aready been wrtten, but nothng has yet been decded.

Translated rom the Italan by Gacomo Dons

Laura CorradUnversty o [email protected]


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Reerences

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Babar, Etenne ,No cttadn dEuropa? Le rontere, lo stato, l popolo, Rome: Manestobr. , n Europa atro mondo possbe,Il manesto, March.Cadwe, Chrstopher , Relectons on the Revoluton n Europe: Immgraton, Islam, and the

West, London: Aen Lane.Castes, Stephen and Mark J. Mer , The Age o Mgraton: Internatonal Populaton Movements

n the Modern World, Fourth Edton, Basngstoke: Pagrave Macman.Crouch, Con ,Post-Democracy, Cambrdge: Poty Press.Da Lago, Aessandro , Non persone: Lesclusone de mgrant n una socet globale, Man:

Fetrne.Davs, Mke and Justn Akers Chcon ,No One Is Illegal:Fghtng Racsm and State Volence on

the US-Mexco Border, Chcago: Haymarket Books.Enzensberger, Hans Magnus , Schreckens Mnner: Versuch ber den radkalen Verlerer,

Frankurt: Suhrkamp.EUMC ,Muslms n the European Unon: Dscrmnaton and Islamophoba, Venna: European

Montorng Centre on Racsm and Xenophoba.Faac, Orana ,La rabba e lorgoglo, Man: Rzzo. , The Rage and the Prde, New York: Rzzo.FRA , Data n Focus Report 2: Muslms; Dscrmnaton Experenced by Muslms, Venna:

Eu-Mds.Huntngton, Samue , The Clash o Cvlzatons and the Remakng o a New World Order, New

York: Smon & Schuster.

, Who Are We: The Challenges to Amercas Natonal Identty, New York: Smon &Schuster.

Mezzadra, Sandro , Drtto d uga: Mgrazon, cttadnanza, globalzazone, Verona:Ombrecorte.

, Confin, mgrazon, cttadnanza, Scenza e Poltca, : .Sassen, Saska ,A Socology o Globalzaton, New York: W.W. Norton.

Razzismo Di Stato. Stati Uniti, Europa, Italia

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