A Growing Trend in Europe?
January 15, 2010
We believe the little reported "Race Riots" in Rosarno will sadly be a growing trend in Europe, as its demographic landscape dramatically changes over the next decade.
The official figures show there are 1,600 agricultural workers in this town, all but 36 of them Italians. The reality, exposed by the raw and violent riots here last week, was far different: Some 1,200 foreigners, most of them Africans, earned about $30 a day under the table picking oranges and clementines. Now that the town is largely cleared of foreign labor, the fruit remains on the trees.
In a broad sense, the worst immigrant rioting ever seen in Italy - shocking here not only because of the anger of migrants, some of whom clashed with local residents, but also for the attacks on them by townspeople - cuts to the heart of the nation's difficult evolution from a place of emigrants to one of immigrants.
The city commissioners say that the riots were fueled by wild rumors on both sides. The immigrants had heard that local residents killed an immigrant, while local residents had heard that immigrants had wounded a pregnant woman so badly that she lost her baby. Both rumors were false, the commissioners say.
Still, the violence was dramatic. After immigrants struck residents and shops with sticks and burned and smashed cars, residents began responding with violence. By late Saturday night, most immigrants feared for their safety and voluntarily boarded buses and trains that took them to immigrant detention centers elsewhere in southern Italy, Rosarno authorities said.
Source: New York Times
