FORZA IMMIGRATI!

I thought I’d try to post a photograph, snapped near the stadium in Avellino last week.
I first saw this billboard when we walked out of Fiumicino, the airport in Rome. Of course, I immediately thought it was startling—not to mention relevant to my work here.

The text is specific: a rough translation might be “Take as many illegal immigrants as want to come? No, thanks!” (That is, it’s not on its face a rejection of all immigrants, just the ones who come in without documents.) Nevertheless, the focus is clearly in line with Berlusconi and Forza Italia’s general anti-immigrant stance.

This position is no secret, really, and should come as no surprise to even the most casual observer of Italian politics. That a country, like Italy, with such a long history of emigration, gives broad support to an anti-immigrant platform is unsettling but perhaps not surprising (not much different than anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., a nation of immigrants).
I won’t offer a sustained political discussion; I don’t know enough about contemporary Italian politics to do so. Nonetheless, it’s election time around here, with elections slated for April 9, and Forza Italia, in particular, is covering Italy’s billboards with this and similar messages.