The way of oblivion: refugees in Italy
- PDF / 65,761 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 536 x 697 pts Page_size
- 1 Downloads / 176 Views
In these short notes, that constitute the beginning of what we hope will become an in-depth study, we would like to introduce some critical points regarding the representation, perception and policy of refugees in Italy. A ‘research in progress’ on women in Kosovo is the starting point of the following reflections.2 The project was born from an idea of giving voice to Kosovar women; this then changed into a discussion on contemporary forms of intersubjectivity between the two sides of the Adriatic sea (Athena, 2001: 22–48). This research asked us to contextualize the specificity of the construction of ‘refugees’ in Italian public space and discourse. The project was immediately challenged in the spring of 1999 when people fleeing from poverty, civil war and persecution entered Italy’s realm of visibility. What became the ‘Kosovo war’ deeply transformed not only the setting in which our request to other women to tell us their stories happened, but the space between us, which was colonized more and more by the media and by discourses of war. All these limitations, including our worries on the construction of the sample - was our gaze contributing to the ethnicization of the population in Kosovo? might we be misinterpreting the women’s voices we collected? – necessitated our making explicit our cultural, social and political positioning. During the Kosovo war Italy played a double role. On one side the Italian government offered Nato its military bases for the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; on the other the humanitarian ‘Missione Arcobaleno’ initially included an initiative aimed to assist refugees in Albania escape violence and ethnic cleansing. Just a few months later, the same government denied citizenship to Kosovar refugees coming to Italy. The so-called Rainbow Campaign (Missione Arcobaleno) was set up by the Italian Government in March 1999 to support Albania in the reception of thousands of people fleeing Kosovo. In this humanitarian intervention were involved State institutions such as the police, the Italian army, the State branch called Protezione Civile (literally Civil Protection, for intervention in case of environmental emergencies) and several NGOs. The field of humanitarian help was then invaded by institutions usually devoted to military acts, revealing the absence of any recognized and legitimized space between the apparatus of control and the civil and public sphere. The assistance given to the population subjected to war was overseen by the very same people who decided where and when to bomb. Moreover, as the bombing ended, so too did the possibility of refugee status in Italy for people from Kosovo. This double position highlighted the crucial contradiction between the reassertion of Western civilization based on
148
feminist review 73 2003
dialogue
1 The Way of Oblivion (La Strada Dell’oblio) is the title of Marcella Delle Donne’s book on refugees in Italy. It is an appropriate one because refugees are like ghosts in Italian public space and discourse. 2 The project entitled
Data Loading...
