FOCUS -
Multicultural Societies of Europe 'islands' ethnic
From London to Malmö, the neighborhoods where foreigners are the majority and the 130 cities in the EU asking for help to tackle the emergency
BRUSSELS - L 'yesterday, in Stockholm, 300 Swedish citizens born in Iran, shouting "death to Khamenei", have faced a hundred policemen Swedish Khamenei had probably never heard of. Throwing stones, one pair of arrests. News as trivial, for the city, having just touched the front pages of the chronicles.
A few weeks ago in Brussels, capital of the European Union and a symbol of community integration, after a vigorous performance of the football team dell'Anderlecht a group of his fans did not know how to celebrate. Children belonging to a curve which for years has links with Flemish ultranationalist groups, they finally chose the destination of their celebration: the neighborhood of Schaerbeek, where one person in three is Muslim and an immigrant from Turkey or the Maghreb. It was not causal, they had done it before. So, said and done: face scarf and belt in hand, after a chorus, some aimed at the fashion arm of Nuremberg and a few bottles of beer Trappist shattered, the boys dell'Anderlecht ran chased by dozens of their local peers who urged each other in turkish or Arabic. "Jallah, jallah," "come, come," if you take them and convert them to blows good to them that the police came to the rescue. The stock had nothing to do, even religion, not unemployment, Belgium, Brussels even less. Like, a year earlier, had nothing to do in Brussels clashes in the same neighborhood had opposed other young Turkish immigrant Kurds and Armenians, in memory of the massacres committed in the Ottoman Empire a century earlier. And like the other night, via Padua and Milan looked like a stage for the explosion of anger among African immigrants and South America.
But this is Europe today, with its 8 million non-EU without a work permit and residence. This is the European Union, whose 27 countries struggling to consolidate a common legislation, consistent, on addressing the challenges of immigration outside the EU. It is at least since 2004 that seeks to achieve this result, and much progress has been made, if only on paper (such as the "blue card" system similar to the "green card" that would attract American immigration highly qualified), but in fact, the current legal landscape is still like the dress of Harlequin. And the highest price they pay laboratories where does the social (and often fail) the experiment of integration: the city. There is the Sweden-12% of immigrants in the total population, according to data from Eurostat and the UN - which has received on average 76% of asylum claims by Iraqi immigrants and now it is trying to "redirect" at least 10 000 to other EU countries. It is Greece (percentage of immigrants: 8.8%) and Iraq has not accepted almost anyone. There is Germany (12.3%), which officially does not allow the expulsion, but then practice of extradition after regular sentence, and sometimes even for minor offenses. Was France (10.1%), who does not speak of "expulsion" but of "outward humanitarian 'which boils down to an initial term' protection in place," for immigrants who do not comply, and then in his accompaniment to a 'safe country of origin ", if one exists. It seems to work. But the cities of France, it is they are not models of integration: how they taught at the time the flames of the banlieue, erupted from behind Pigalle. Then there is the Netherlands (10%), which many neo-immigrant not only asked to follow a language course, but also a look at a movie where, among other things, we see a kiss between homosexual and you can see the overview of a nudist beach. Implicit message: this things are normal in our society, are willing to accept them? But even here, no one knows what the final result of this forced assimilation stage. Indeed, assimilation is a blanket full of holes: Amsterdam multiply clashes between Indonesian immigrants and East Timor on Friday in the mosque a few still remember the burning of Schipol (11 immigrants died in the detention center eponymous airport , 2005) and Theo van Gogh was murdered is still in Holland, not in Saudi Arabia. And to say that the latest statistics from the EU seems to certify the real news, a news counter: non-EU immigration is falling, not rising, because of the recession. In the Netherlands, asylum applications by half. In Ireland, which had welcomed the surge in the wake of its strongest boom in cheap (almost 15% of immigrants), tens of thousands of Poles and Lithuanians were packed. Yet in Spain (11.1%) Romanians and Bulgarians would be leaving.
Once again, however, this does not allay the fever of the city. And it is the microconflittualità daily, rather than the large-scale riots, to mark the progress of the illness. In Birmingham, UK (9.1%), months ago after petrol bombs were flown to the British workers had called for British jobs for British workers, "British jobs for British workers', and after that Polish immigrants were deployed on the streets. In Malmoe, Sweden, the city where Muslims were now the majority - at least in the suburb of Rosengard - the police did not play in public, behind closed doors, the recent meetings in Israel, where he played Davis Cup. Malmoe, in recent years has seen outbreaks of destructive fury, almost a civil war as a correspondent for Al Jazeera spoke of "unpredictable rage." Interviewed on TV all over the world, local youths have accused the police of "continuous provocations": "and then are surprised when we respond?". But even there, a real motive was not established. As in other laboratories of the European malaise. That in the meantime, make their voices heard, "Eurocities", the organization that brings together 130 European cities, has asked the EU can play a "bigger role" in tackling the problems of immigration in urban centers. There is a sense of urgency, even of an emergency has occurred. But perhaps the true diagnosis was apt, across the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times: "The United States-wrote-have struggled with the issue of immigration from birth, so it's easy to forget that these issues are relatively new to European states, remained consistent for centuries. But this difference, we were reminded when hundreds of African workers took to the revolt in Calabria. " Luigi
Offeddu
February 15, 2010
