In these days, flipping through the front pages of newspapers or listening to the major television networks, it becomes difficult to ignore the fact that immigration and the xenophobic excesses of some inconsiderate are - more or less rightly - at the center of our country's political agenda. Around this problem, politics has built the last election campaign, transforming the Reception Centers and the desperate landings into a political program where every other economic and social problem became secondary or directly related.
If the imagination of journalists sometimes exceeds reality, also creating serious trouble, we have done this on purpose trying to build a fanciful tale that does not reward and do not condemn anyone, except prejudice. What follows is pure fruit of the imagination - if we want contorted - of the writer whose thought, however, returns to a famous phrase of one of the most sublime minds in world history. Indeed, Albert Einstein stated that "the only race to which it belonged was the human race".
Rome, 17 August 20xx.
Urgent session of the Council of Ministers for an in-depth examination of the international situation.
On the agenda: the US-Iran war and the terrorist attacks in Rome, Milan, Genoa and Palermo.
The Transatlantic, once a place of exchange of secrets, indiscretions and gossip, has turned into a cathedral of silence where each MP collects his own ideas and fears before entering the Chamber. It was two years before NATO supported the war between Americans, Israel and Iran; a conflict at the base of economic interests related to oil, but also a good deal of madness of both heads of state. To make matters worse, Italy suddenly found itself caught between an economic decadence resulting from poor governance and an escalation of the violence generated by both small-scale crime and international terrorism. Rome, Milan, Genoa and Palermo had been the subject of explosions of suicide bombers that caused around 150 victims and as many wounded. Police, Carabinieri and Special Units of the Army and Navy were in a state of maximum alert. The management of public order was watering from all sides. After the success of the "Safe Roads" operation, the war had attracted most of the troops to the role for which they were born, so the Ministry of the Interior decided to first resort to private patrols, but after many incidents he limited himself to strengthening the police local and hire private security institutions.
The armed forces were going through a moment of crisis: the commitments of Security Assistence Force in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, the normal operations had been delayed and a large part of the workforce was absorbed; to this the 12 October 20xx was added to the conflict in Iran that required the deployment of new units. A stall that lasted for some time, determined by a progressive thinning of the staff in all departments: in a short time our army was transformed into a pension where the age of the military was almost always higher than 40 years and young people did not want to know to enlist, too many sacrifices and little money. The movements of the extreme right and left, always the lions of the square and the parades with the music in thrash, fled from the acclaimed appeal of the President of the Republic asking them to wear the uniform and support the homeland. The military service was reintroduced for proof for the duration of a year: an experiment demanded by the many who yearned for the return to conscription to raise awareness among young people of national values. As a consequence, a few months after the reintroduction of the compulsory leverage, the borders were clogged by hundreds of renitents who preferred to expatriate than take a rifle in their hands. What for then? For what cause? The leftist oppositions made a wall and the law was suspended again. Forces of the Order, Army, Navy and Air Force had most of their men engaged both in the home front and abroad. The 9 ° Parachute Assault Regiment "Col Moschin", for example, was only the shadow of himself: for months the army's elite could no longer find volunteers and among the missions abroad and the Tasks NATO operative force in Iran, could count only on a few reserve men, accused in Livorno. The COMFOSE (Army Special Forces Command) had tried them all, even facilitating the path to become "operators" of the special forces, but achieving as a result a decided worsening of the training standard of the departments.
Our allies were no better and - good or bad - Europe's seniority began to have a clear impact on its future. Years in which the sessions of the European Parliament dispelled time and words trying to straighten phantom balances drawn by the banks: now the accounts had dried up in the name of a war that no sensible European had wanted.
On the Italian streets the problems were the same: the previous xenophobic campaigns of the Minister of the Interior of previous years had saturated the urban environment of fears and prejudices. Immigration policies, directed above all to the satisfaction of public opinion, had led nowhere, if not to reinforce the hatred of desperate people towards other desperate people. The reception centers had become closed-door ghettos and entire city areas used as homeless shelters belonging to various ethnic groups. Poverty had no color, hunger made victims without distinction of race.
Yet at first everything seemed to run smoothly: no landing, the introduction of self-defense and then ... the increase in murders, do-it-yourself justice, and other similar filth that delegitimized the government and its representatives.
Rome - Urgent session of the Council of Ministers - 14,00 hours
Outside Montecitorio, the air was hot, you had not lived such a hot August for years. The arrival of the blue cars followed one another at an impressive pace; from there came the hot, frightened representatives of the people and - something that rarely happened - with their faces dark and worried about a future that would deprive them of power and easy money. Inside the rooms the only comfort seemed to be air conditioning, otherwise the weather was unbreathable. The House of Parliament had never been so full by gathering for the occasion also the senators: this time there were all of them, including those who considered the parliament a pastime to deal with only when it was convenient. Everyone was grumbling with incomprehensible phrases and rumors of the corridor conjectured irrational measures, but without which the country would have sunk into the underworld, without any defense. At the entrance of the Prime Minister, the classroom had a start and the speech began to become more consistent: together with the head of government entered the Army Chief of Staff, including two generals of the Carabinieri and the commander of the COFS (Command Special Forces Operations). What was it? Military who violated the sacred soil of democracy? A coup and the abomination of the military in power? Both the right-wing and left-wing players began to chant protest slogans so that men in uniform were escorted out of the courtroom. The head of the government made a few nods to the president of the room to calm his colleagues.
"Ladies and gentlemen" - the President of the Council began with a husky voice - "it is now clear that we are facing an unsustainable situation and the presence of the military at my side should not raise your concern, because they are here to testify imminent crumbling of our internal defenses if no action is taken. Although unpopular! ". Some deputies and right-wing senators shook their heads, almost sorry that the officers were not there to take power.
"In agreement with the Minister of Defense and the Minister of the Interior we have verified how the episodes of terrorism and crime are now out of control. Ungovernability is due to an effective lack of personnel involved in patrolling the streets. The war against Iran alongside NATO has deprived our defense of almost 80% of its staff and we can no longer deploy any military to support public order. The Islamist attacks occurred some days ago in some cities have put this government against the wall, so that in common agreement with the ministers we decided to proceed to the voluntary and provisional enlistment of at least 2.000 units between immigrants and asylum seekers still hosted in reception centers ". At one point it seemed that the walls of Montecitorio crumbled due to a sudden destructuring caused by the wave of protests and screams from the left and right banks. The representatives of the right shouted to shame; how could the uniform of the Italian army be worn by the "Negroes", what courage did the weapons and munitions confide in the dregs? For years these people had remained in the Centers of Reception locked up as trained beasts functional exclusively in the electoral campaign, now even involving them actively in the defense of the state seemed a blasphemy.
If the right challenged, the left horrified ... against the right? Eh no ... the parliamentarian heirs of communism and then of conditioned democracy, expressed horror for this initiative. Refugees and immigrants were not in Italy to become troops of our army; the fascist reminiscences of the colonies were over, so they could not turn into regiments of color at the service of a dictatorial state. It is no coincidence that even the deputies of the left cuddled for years - well comfortable from their living rooms - this mass of people giving them money, clothes, mobile phones, but never a project to become something really useful. Do we seriously want to believe this resource story? And then after the military service, why do not we send them to study, but let's say what would be their use if they suddenly started to form a civil conscience and then understand?
Suspension of the sitting.
Parliament, like the rest of Italy, was ungovernable.
Break and then resumption of work.
Ministry of Defense - 17 August 20xx - 17,00 hours
Worrying voices leaked from Montecitorio. The proposal by the Prime Minister was temporarily rejected in unison by the whole Parliament. But it was necessary to proceed the same, only after they had assimilated the extraordinary nature of the provision. No one was more able to stop the wave of violence, even if the same idea of enlisting in the Italian army of immigrants could cause further unrest. We had to take risks.
A pool of officers had worked for this event for months. The three weapons, including the Carabinieri, had examined every condition that excluded the use of non-EU citizens, but without success. However, if it were possible to temporarily involve - at least voluntarily - a small portion of foreigners in the defense of the territory, then perhaps the souls of the violent would be appeased. But how to proceed? Who to admit on the recruitment lists? What are the pros and cons? In an emergency situation like this - the Minister reminded everyone - we must look optimistically at the possible positive implications, we will proceed in an empirical way, then we will evaluate the rest.
As already mentioned, for many years the Reception Centers had become a political manifesto, filled with young people whose hopes of finding a dignity had melded between a free meal in the canteen, a few pennies and a smartphone.
Many worked, but what works: victims of a 21st century slavery. The worst were dedicated to the small shop, others to more heinous crimes, risking their lives, but aware that no one, under those conditions, would ever have taken them. The most wandered senseless in the streets of the city, looking for some alms out of supermarkets or in front of some shops. The Italians were not racists - they knew this - but they also learned that in difficult times the common tendency was to look for a culprit: in the thirties the Germans had done it with the Jews, so it was a dangerous situation.
The Minister, in harmony with his entourage of experts, then asked that some departments of foreign troops be organized on a voluntary basis. They had the right to enlist all young immigrants and / or asylum seekers from 18 to 30 years, provided they were without a criminal record. The voluntary rates would then be transferred to a CATS (Training Center for Foreign Troops) commanded by an Italian colonel supported by Italian trainers too. Arms education could not be left to chance and, given the experience gained in Military Assistence, staff were selected from the best elements of COMFOSE. The official cadres had to be Italian (the English colonial school had breached the most good spirits), supported by a few non-commissioned officers chosen according to the predominant nationality of the platoons and foreign companies.
The course, of a total duration of 3 months, summarily formed the students to the use of weapons (some already knew!) On the rules of military life and - amazing thing that even the Italians had forgotten - on the meaning of the Constitution. At the first hurdle or intemperance the recruit had to leave the ranks and go back to where he had arrived.
In total, the requested military service lasted for 24 months, after which the soldiers would have obtained Italian citizenship and the possibility to access (through regular competition) the regular departments of the Armed Forces. The problem was that many boys came from war zones, or rather they fled from the war, how to convince them then? According to experts, many would have accepted in anticipation of citizenship, but also because they could once again create an identity and something in which to recognize themselves in the midst of their compatriots, for a common cause. The foreign departments would have served on the homeland, in support of the police, in the cities considered most insecure. A discrete salary (lower than that of Italian policemen and carabinieri), but with gratifying prospects that could therefore stimulate recruitment. However, the innovation of such a trick was in the question "What can you do?". The Minister had, in fact, imposed on the recruiters an accurate interview (made by trained personnel, but above all capable of speaking a foreign language) of the candidate in order to ascertain its predispositions. In the past few years no one had seriously interested in how to turn this plethora of desperate into resources: not even one had studied integration projects, not assistance, but a real involvement in the life of the host country. Of course, the military world was not the same thing as an office in the center or a university hall, but it was still a beginning.
The announcement was posted in all the Centers and the health personnel began a series of checks on the state of health of the guests so as to inform the Recruitment Centers on the general conditions of young people "in the military age". The news created havoc among the Nigerians, Senegalese, Cameroonian, Tunisians, etc.: it was not an imposition - some remembered - but a request for help. A plea from a government that had always looked suspiciously at the "different" and judged much simpler to manipulate the migratory wave for its return. The extreme right and the social centers were silent for a long time, had disappeared as soon as the word war was heard, swallowed by their ineptitude and senselessness, victims of their cowardice and slaves of the money of mum and dad. The best guys already served in arms, while most of the Italians waved like a ship in the storm looking for a safe harbor.
Then the war, terrorism and the streets like "1999: Escape from New York" had upset the world of securities in which everyone slept and disturbed sleep even the more traditional underworld that, because of the war, had lowered the income of his shady deals. Now someone had noticed them, the "different", scrutinizing them differently: some amplifying their hatred, many lighting the last hopes.
The emergency decree was about to be approved, but no one imagined what would happen.
Rome, Milan, Genoa, Turin, Venice, Potenza, Catania and other Italian municipalities.
18 August 20xx
Rome. In the end the Parliament, during a meeting that looked more like the clash between lame gladiators, approved with reserve the emergency law on the recruitment of non-EU citizens. Right and left they crumbled - not without remorse and with many fears - the great alibi behind which for years they had hidden their ineptitude: immigration.
Meanwhile news came from the various reception centers: some columns of migrants, backpackers and smartphones in hand were seen heading to the first collection points manned by the army. Many would have fled once they received a weapon, but others may not. It was a new challenge.
(photo: US Army)
