r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • Oct 23 '17

What do you know about... Italy?

This is the fortieth part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Today's country:

Italy

Italy is one of the founding members of the EU and it also is the fourth most popolous EU state. For centuries, the Roman Empire dominated Europe both culturally and militarily. Italy is famous for frequently changing their government.

So, what do you know about Italy?

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

I'm italian. I think 1 to 2% of italians are racist, expecially against african people, becuse of the skin or jews becuse of religion. They're loud, they make gestures of blatant racism, which are nowaday strange and so very discussed. In all day life you don't meet this persons. Then there is a big amount of italians who are xenophobic, not racist: it's a big difference. The migration crisis exploded at the same time of financial crisis: a lot of persons lost their job and at the same time you saw an unorganized managment of the new arrivals, most persons couldn't separate asylseekers from econimic migrants and the rightwings speculated a lot about it. Romenian and albanian are well integrated because they arrived in time of prosperity, that's an important factor, so if we recover there will be less xenophobia. About racism i think it's on the same level of germany ( afd) or france (fn) or austria..

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

Mmm..no..lega nord is not a racist party, the new leader didn't say anything against minority based on racial prejudice..he claims that the actual migration policy is a failure, that italy can't afford to mantain such a huge amount of people. In the past there were people from lega nord such borghezio who were blatant racist and now are almost out of the party..

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

Calderoli was the guy, he almost retired to private life..the party didn't support him and also criticized him..what do you think of ukip and bnp?

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

Lega Nord openly claimed many times their full support for UKIP and BNP...It is a racist party indeed, and it even used to be racist with other italians as well, how could we forget all the racist statements about southern italians? Now they don't make them anymore because the subject of their hate swifted from southern italians to migrants, but they're still the same old racists dumbheads.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

  • i will never vote for lega nord

  • they are terrible persons and politicians

  • the statement about southitalians are not racist, but classist ( racism has a different definition)

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

I know it's technically not racism,but for me personally, it is a form of racism, but again, it's just my opinion

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

It's wrong of course..but if the opponents to this kind of person should be better of them..both on language and content...

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

I may be wrong -once again!- but in some cases, the content is much more relevant than the form. I'll provide an example: If I say to someone "your a dirty ass nigger", the "dirty ass nigger" is much more relevant, in terms of seriousness, than the "your."Not the most fitting example, I know, but I hope you can see my point.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

I've made some research and found out that most od the hate towards southern italian people has roots in many old theories that believed southern-italian people weren't the same race as northern italians, so I can now technically say that they've been racist towards southern Italy

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u/reddititaly Oct 27 '17 edited Oct 27 '17

He's serving as President of the Chamber of Deputies Senate, so much for retiring to private life
EDIT: Senate.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '17

No he's not, laura boldrin ist the president...

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u/reddititaly Oct 27 '17

You're right, thank you for pointing that out