A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #12-26 - Opposing racism and identity politics. Remigration: the monsters' summit in Milan (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

"Enough with substitution, now with remigration": with this slogan, the 
cream of our Northern League fascists will gather in Milan on Saturday, 
April 18th, to give strength to the plan to forcefully expel as many 
immigrants as possible, regardless of their legal status or the 
documents they hold.
In a world increasingly shaken by wars, climate crises, and social 
impoverishment, the search for a scapegoat to blame for every disaster 
is the order of the day; and minorities, whatever their identity, always 
and in every era play this role.

The nation state knows this very well, and regardless of the color of 
its managers and bureaucracies, it is always ready to maneuver in 
accordance with the interests of the ruling classes. Given that the 
worsening social conditions of a large portion of the population could 
trigger moments of crisis and disruption of the status quo, government 
policies seek to anticipate them by identifying targets to feed the 
stomachs of a deconstructed social system. The immigrant population 
represents one such target, with the "maranza" in the eye of the storm. 
And while the left's moderate stance has "limited" itself to churning 
out the Turco Napolitano law and the anti-immigration measures authored 
by Minniti and Orlando, their successors, buoyed by electoral successes 
largely built on the criminalization of immigration and the Roma 
population, have gradually stepped down on increasingly restrictive and 
despicable policies, even to the point of outsourcing the concentration 
camp to Albania. The press, television, and social media, all serving 
this agenda, have contributed to fostering a favorable climate, 
contributing to the current situation. Conspiracy theories, which once 
found their followers in small circles of relics of past Nazi-Fascist 
regimes, have found a wider audience and are now presented to the public 
in all their human squalor.

The proposal for "remigration"that is, the expulsion from a country of 
those of foreign origin, even if they hold citizenshipwas born from a 
meeting of far-right activists from Germany and Austria in November 
2023, shortly before the European elections the following year. It was 
born as a political response to the "great replacement" conspiracy, 
allegedly orchestrated by political and economic elites (read: Soros & 
Co.), according to which white, Christian populations would be 
deliberately replaced by non-European immigrants, primarily African and 
Muslim.

Thanks to Elon Musk and his social media, these "theories" have 
gradually gained notoriety, spreading exponentially. Donald Trump's 
second US presidential election was the icing on the cake, transforming 
the "theory" into a political program. The large-scale expulsion of 
migrants, asylum seekers, long-term residents, and even 
second-generation citizens considered "unassimilated" has become common 
practice in the US and a driving force for the European right.

It is no coincidence that on March 26, the European Parliament decided 
to adopt the repatriation reform proposal supported by the center-right 
(the People's Party) and the sovereignist and radical right (the ERC and 
the so-called Patriots). This regulatory reform focuses primarily on 
increasing administrative detention of so-called irregular migrants (up 
to 24 months), opening "return hubs" (concentration camps for "returns") 
based on the Italian model in Albania, and increasing expulsions to 
third countries. Governments have the option of organizing veritable 
huntsobviously based on ethnicityfor illegal immigrants in public and 
private spaces, along the lines of Trump's ICE. We're not talking about 
"remigration" as a term, but its essence is there.

It's therefore not surprising that someone launched a provocative 
Remigration Summit on April 18th in Milan's Piazza Duomo, a week before 
the demonstration on April 25th. This is Salvini's League, which has 
invited the bigwigs of European sovereignism, from the Dutchman Wilders 
to the Le Pen supporter Bardella, the Czech Babis, as well as the 
Spanish Vox party, Portuguese, Hungarian, Austrian, and Flemish 
representatives. For Orban, we'll see; it depends on the election results.

This operation kicks off Salvini's election campaign, once again intent 
on targeting the weakest and most vulnerable segments of the labor 
marketimmigrantsand seeking to disempower Vannacci, Casapound, and 
company. Meanwhile, newspapers like La Verità and Panorama have taken 
steps to boost the initiative by publishing, as an insert, the text by 
far-right Austrian theorist Martin Sellner, "Remigration. A Proposal," 
just to clarify which side they're on.

Sellner is the one who argues that not only immigrants but all citizens 
of foreign origin (even naturalized ones) should be expelled, in order 
to affirm the principle that citizenship must be based solely on ethnic 
identity. And if immigrants are needed to run factories, to work in the 
fields, to do the jobs that white, Christian citizens don't want to do, 
let them be excluded from all citizenship rights: silent and mute, 
paying contributions for other people's pensions, subjected to the 
apartheid regime.

An ethno-nationalist proposal, with the same roots that fueled the 
racial laws in Germany and Italy in the last century, and which even 
scandalized the Lombardy representatives of Forza Italia, who distanced 
themselves from it, calling it racist. These representatives, however, 
should also look at their own country, at the European People's Party, 
where there is a head of government, the German Friedrich Merz, who has 
relaunched the issue of the direct relationship between immigration and 
violence and who has proposed the removal/return of Syrian refugees 
fleeing the war.

All this identitarian and para-fascist agitation seems to ignore the 
reality. According to Eurostat data, compared to an average of 300,000 
"irregular" entries, another three million people enter Europe legally 
each year thanks to tourist visas, family reunification, seasonal work, 
and so on. While the media and political speculators focus on the 
maritime invasion and invent increasingly criminal measures to ensure 
that any shipwrecked migrants are not rescued, in order to demonstrate 
their resolve (and to continue profiting from the human trade in 
collusion with North African traffickers), the European manufacturing 
sector continues to thrive on the sweat and toil of millions of 
exploited people from difficult situations. It couldn't be otherwise, 
given the need to maintain the European population's standard of living, 
its aging population, and its progressive rejection of the most 
degrading jobs. We must therefore ask ourselves why states, and the 
European Union, continue to pursue repressive policies instead of 
finding solutions that, by facilitating freedom of movement, overcome 
the critical issues that every significant migratory phenomenon, whether 
inbound or outbound, creates.

We already had an example with the opening of borders to the populations 
of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall: after 
the initial fear, amplified as usual by the conservative and reactionary 
right, the masses of Albanians, Romanians, Poles, and others, who would 
have brought crime and unemployment, found their place, some staying, 
some returning to their countries of origin. Why shouldn't the same 
thing happen to other immigrant groups?

The answer comes from a state that, as such, is primarily concerned with 
asserting its power, which is still based on fundamentally 
identity-based criteria, both ethnic and religious, and as such is 
necessarily impervious to external influence and infiltration.

Maintaining a rigid and punitive approach to immigration means waving 
the baton of capitalist power and raising the specter of remigration; it 
means increasing the level of blackmail and therefore subordination. But 
it's not just the immigrant population that is the target of growing 
state authoritarianism: anyone who doesn't conform to mainstream 
thinking is an enemy of the Italian people, as government officials have 
repeatedly stated, and therefore a potential target for another form of 
remigration, that of social freedoms.

For those who hold dear the values of social justice, freedom, and 
solidarity, the task of demonstrating that many others must remigrate, 
and where to make them remigrate, is well within your grasp.

Massimo Varengo

https://umanitanova.org/opporsi-al-razzismo-e-alle-politiche-identitarie-remigrazione-a-milano-il-summit-dei-mostri/
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