In 1974, the magazine "Il Ponte" dedicated an entire issue to Italian emigration, with the now-famous title "Emigration. One Hundred Years, 26 Million." --- Soon after, Italy would transform from a land of emigration to a place of immigration, where the two elements, as in the current phase, have sometimes coexisted. --- Since then, scientific research has made enormous strides, and historical studies on the subject have reached, as in other fields, an extremely high level of depth and detail.
But none of this seems to have translated not only into "common sense," but even into political decision-making.Indeed, it seems that the aspects of study, research, and politics have now taken completely incommunicable paths.
If one were to think the worst, it would seem that, rather than analyzing a now structural situation (half a century old!), it would be far more preferable and convenient (politically and otherwise) to keep attention focused on a perennial emergency, one that can be used as needed in times of economic and social difficulty.
The speeches in Parliament by members of the newly formed "Futuro Nazionale" party seem to turn the clock back even further, with a kind of hodgepodge far below even the old barroom chatter (or social media chatter, as we would say today).
However, it's not the case to transform this objective infamy, part of a well-studied radical strategy, into a call to arms for the "left," in order to politically reap the benefits of being on the side of the "good guys." And, in his speech, perhaps even Cuperlo[1]understood this when he asked the FN extremists to "attack us." Because that speech was entirely internal to the right, and if there had been a "locust emergency," it would have been used in the same way against traveling comrades.
Yes, because the "permanent emergency" of the so-called "migration phenomenon" (again, a haphazard statement) has not been addressed very differently by the two "supposed" sides.
As Max Frisch said in 1965, "We were looking for hands, men arrived"[2], but it doesn't seem that attention to human beings, single and unique, has ever been at the top of the agenda of those in decision-making power.
In almost half a century, nothing has been done to establish a rational, clear law, in which those arriving know which paths they can take and what procedures. Instead, the choice has been made to ethnicize work[3], transforming the "foreigner" ("the Muslim" to use the FN character's words - as if migration and Islamic religion were a pair with some sort of complete meaning - reminiscent of the term used in the concentration camps Primo Levi speaks of[4]) into someone predestined for apartheid and outsourcing portions of family care to them.
But the emergency creates jobs, opportunities, creates charities, which, as Gaber sang, give great visibility and, as often happens, where the rules are missing, practice takes over and adapts to the shape of water.
And slave labor keeps the cost of goods low so that Italians don't realize they're a country in a very bad state (but just go abroad for two days) with prices set by large-scale retail outlets where what "melts" is certainly not the piggy bank.
The entire supply chain needs the emergency: that of underpaid labor, that of "remigration" (a word of rare stupidity), that of the "good guys" (to recall the title of a ferocious book by Luca Rastello[5]). And when a smaller but combative union raises the bar, demanding that all workers (Italians and non-Italians) have the same rights, the mystery is revealed. Squadrist thugs beat up strikers and union representatives, in the near silence of the authorities and social forces.[6]Perhaps this game, once it's exposed, when the "migrant" returns to being a person fighting for their rights and duties, is very annoying to those who pursue their political careers behind and in front of this (perpetually passive) figure. Not to mention the "big brands" who are always "ignorant" of the conditions in which their products for the elite are manufactured.[7]
So the emergency is not a mistake, but a political and economic choice. And it cannot fail to come to mind that the post-World War II emigration from southern Italy, which contributed to the so-called "economic boom," was brought about by a fascist law still in force, the so-called "Law against Urbanization," which stipulated that to be resident in another municipality, one had to be employed, while to have a job, one had to have an employment contract. As has been demonstrated (e.g. Anna Treves[8]) the law did not at all prevent the mass movement of people from the south to the north of Italy, but they did so in conditions of illegality and blackmail. The law was abolished in 1961, and the situation, despite a generally conflictual landscape, was still managed in a less than optimal manner, but still with a rational spirit.
But today Rocco seems to have no more siblings, and, as Rino Gaetano would have said, if he has a brother, he's still an only child.
Andrea Bellucci
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZ4hNKUVUw
[2]https://www.rsi.ch/cultura/play-top/Siamo-italiani-1253423.html
[3]See C. Morini, La serva serve. Le nuove forzate del lavoro domestico, Derive Approdi, 2001. Note the publication date, a quarter of a century!
[4]P. Levi, Se questo è un uomo, Einaudi, various editions.
[5]L. Rastello, The Good, Chiarelettere, 2013.
[6]https://www.tio.ch/dal-mondo/cronaca/1868471/i-lavoratori-in-sciopero-picchiati-dai-titolari-dell-azienda-benvenuti-nel-distretto-tessile-piu-grande-d-europa
[7]https://www.insurancereview.it/insurance/contenuti/risk_manager/2804/fashion-italiano-i-rischi-del-mancato-controllo-sui-fornitori
[8]A. Treves, Internal Migrations in Fascist Italy, Einaudi, 1976.
https://www.ucadi.org/2026/07/23/senza-ponti/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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