The Northern League rally against the Ius Soli ('right of the soil') as Italy's centre-left government was forced to delay a vote on a contentious law granting citizenship to immigrants' children born in Italy, December 10, 2017. NurPhoto/ Press Association. All rights reserved.On February 3, in the city of Macerata, a 28-year-old man opened fire on a group of black immigrants, wounded six of them and made the fascist salute moments before being arrested. This event, which has shocked Italy, is not entirely new: it brings to mind other attacks against migrant population such as the murder of Nigerian Emmanuel Chidi Nnamdi in 2016 by a right-wing extremist in the city of Fermo, or the 2011 Florence massacre, in which a member of the neo-Nazi group CasaPound murdered two Senegalese and wounded a third, taking his own life after that.
Many believe that this racist violence is just the tip of an iceberg that is being built day by day with words. Macerata's crime has not lacked its defenders (many see it as revenge for the murder of Pamela Mastropietro, for which a Nigerian man has been arrested). Among those people is Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right group Liga Norte (Northern League), who blames the government for episodes like this one, for having allowed "hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to come here without any limit," since "out-of-control immigration leads to social conflict".
In its search for the common enemy, the Northern League, dedicated in its day to sowing division between the north and south of Italy, is now focusing on immigration and calls for the defense of the white race (supposedly "endangered", an argument shared with most European fascist groups). Coincidentally or not, the alleged murderer of Macerata was a candidate for this party last year in the city of Corridonia.
