Kyenge: subjected to racial slurs on an almost daily basis.
AFP/Reuters/Rome
The latest racist attack against Italy’s first black minister, in which bananas were hurled at her during a rally, sparked outrage across the political spectrum yesterday.
Immigration Minister Cecile Kyenge was speaking at a Democratic Party (PD) rally on Friday when an unidentified spectator threw bananas at her, missing the stage but sparking reactions of disgust from across the country.
Kyenge, an Italian citizen born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has faced almost daily racial slurs and threats since joining the government.
Earlier this month a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party likened her to an orang-utan and only apologised after a storm of criticism.
Last month, a local Northern League councillor said Kyenge should be raped so she understands how victims of crimes committed by immigrants feel. The councillor has received a suspended jail sentence and a temporary ban from public office.
Kyenge, who has refused to rise to the bait or write Italy off as racist, immediately reacted to the banana attack by slamming it as “a waste of food”.
Social networks lit up with reactions, and ministers and political bigs took to Twitter to voice their anger and support for Kyenge.
Italy’s Environment Minister Andrea Orlando expressed “utter indignation for the wretched act”, while Agriculture Minister Nunzia De Girolamo said “Kyenge has shown that faced with idiotic and violent acts, sometimes the best weapon is irony”.
Veneto region governor Luca Zaia from the Northern League, who is due to participate in an immigration debate with Kyenge in August, also spoke out against the incident yesterday.
“Throwing bananas, personal insults ... acts like these play no part in the civilised and democratic discussion needed between the minister and those who don’t share her opinion,” the Ansa news agency quoted him as saying.
At a rally for the Left Ecology and Freedom (SEL) party yesterday, where she was received with warm applause, Kyenge said she was “proud to be Italian”.
“I do not believe the problem lies with me. There are some people who are not happy, who are showing their discontent, and it is my job to listen to that discontent,” she told journalists. “I have to draw out the better side of Italy.”
Supporters called for Kyenge to stand firm and continue the fight to eradicate racism.
Tensions were running high even before the banana incident, after members of the country’s right-wing Forza Nuova association left life-size dolls doused in fake blood at the rally.
“Immigration kills” was written on leaflets accompanying the dummies – a slogan Forza Nuova has previously used when referring to murders committed by immigrants in Italy.
The group was protesting over Kyenge’s campaign to help children born in Italy to foreign parents obtain citizenship more easily.
Forza Nuova denied it had anything to do with the fruit incident.
Italy, which for decades was a land of emigration, has relatively little experience in dealing with immigration.
While millions of Italians fleeing poverty emigrated to the United States, Latin America and other parts of Europe throughout the Twentieth century, the Mediterranean country has only had to absorb large numbers of immigrants over the past 20 years or so, mainly from Africa.