If in Britain someone set out to offend a black person by saying he or she resembled an orang-utan, the aggressor might be looking at a prosecution under hate laws.
In Italy, a senior politician can do just this, then compound the offence with a witless follow-up “joke” but not even have to resign. The man in question, Roberto Calderoli, is the deputy speaker in Italy’s Senate. On Saturday Mr Calderoli, a bigwig in the anti-immigration Northern League party, said that when he saw pictures of Cecile Kyenge, Italy’s black minister for integration, he “could not help but think of the features of an orang-utan”. He blithely brushed aside criticism, saying his remark was born of his “love for animals”.
Despite outrage from the centre-Left (though little or no criticism from Berlusconi’s conservatives), Mr Calderoli, who has warned that Italy risks “becoming a nation of poofs” and who once called on immigrants to “go back to the desert and talk to the camels”, said on Monday he had no intention of quitting, although he might buy Ms Kyenge a bunch of flowers. Mr Calderoli’s Northern League colleagues joined in the fun. Daniele Stival, a councillor in the Veneto region, said the original remark was an insult to orang-utans. And neo-fascists around Italy were quick to crawl out from under their stones on Mr Calderoli’s prompting. The extremist Forza Nuova Party dangled nooses from lamp-posts during a visit by Ms Kyenge yesterday to the city of Pescara.
Apart from being black, the Congo-born minister has earned the hatred of the Italian Right by calling — entirely reasonably — for a change to the law that would allow children of immigrants born in Italy the right to citizenship. We already knew that Mr Calderoli was an offensive figure, even by Northern League standards. Nonetheless, the civilised world is watching how Italy responds. That he’s still deputy speaker four days on says a lot. No one expects a sudden display of self-awareness and contrition from Mr Calderoli. But if the Northern League has aspirations to be regarded as anything other than a party of racist goons, and more importantly, if Italy doesn’t wants to be seen as a bigoted, second-world backwater, Mr Calderoli should be kicked out of the Senate position immediately. It wouldn’t end racism in Italy. But it would be a start.
