Il lavoro nobilita l'uomo - Acido Politico

ITALIANS
Restriction to Citizenship and Politics
Just to have a better picture of the situation: of the
760,000 cases of citizenship under consideration in
Italy, 500,000 are Brazilians.
di Nadia Petean
BRASILE ‐ The principle of granting Italian
citizenship has been applied since the begin‐
ning of the current Italian State, explicitly
mentioned in the Statute Albertino signed by
Carlo Alberto Savoia, on the 4 th of March
1848, included in the first Italian Civil Code
of 1865, reedited by Law n. 555 on from the
13 th of June 1912 and confirmed by the cur‐
rent law n. 91 on the 5 th of February 1992,
which is currently in debate for changes in
the Parliament. Moreover, the Italian Consti‐
tution in 1948 prohibits the deprivation of
citizenship for political reasons: ʺArt. 22. Nes‐
suno può essere privato, per motivi politici,
della capacità giuridica, della cittadinanza,
del nome.ʺ Well, the obvious reasons of anti‐
immigration policies that motivate the omis‐
sion and even the suspension of accepting
new applications for the recognition of citi‐
zenship, fit perfectly for being politically mo‐
tivated.
The current government wants to restrict the
granting of citizenship only to children and
grandchildren, the project has been under
discussion in the Parliament since last elec‐
tions. The two things are connected intrinsi‐
cally, at a time when Italians resident abroad
obtained the right to vote and they had con‐
siderably increased their ʺspecific gravityʺ,
from that political and institutional exercise
they let 18 parliamentarians to participate in
the decisions that concern on those subjects
which also relate to all Italian public life. For
the first time, 12 deputies and six senators of
the Italian Parliament have be chosen by the
four million Italians living abroad, 890000 of
whom are in South America.
The so‐called ʺlobbyʺ of Italians from the
outside gives uncertain future trends in Par‐
liament. The law on citizenship, in fact, make
it clear that the vast source of voters will con‐
tinue growing in South America (especially
Brazil), which focuses the largest amount of
Italo‐descendants of the world, and even
though they can vote for any candidate from
South America, it is more likely they will
vote for politicians residents in their country.
At the same time, as they increased their
rights, millions of Italians abroad have be‐
come subject to assets and liabilities for this
exercise of citizenship and more prone to
vote only according to their own local inter‐
est and politicians use the citizenship speech
as an easy bay to catch electors. Moreover
Italy has one of the most flexible rules for
citizenship in the European Union.
The citizenship is extended to all descendants
of Italians from the paternal line. So these are
either children, grandchildren or have even
more distant kinship. Who displays Italian
ancestry by maternal side can also get the
citizenship however, in this case, the preroga‐
tive is restricted to those born after 1948,
when the laws of that country made women
equal to men in rights.
The request for restriction responds also to
the European Union, which presses for
changes in Italy and that happens because
most bloc countries limited the granting of
citizenship to children and grandchildren
and requires other ties to grant the right. This
is the case of France, which affects the knowl‐
edge of their language and their culture.
Now the grandchildren of Spaniards need to
live at least one year in that country to obtain
citizenship.
On the other hand the Italian legislation, for
being more flexible, has created advantages
for their descendants in relation to their
neighbors. Today, a great‐grandchild of Ital‐
ians may obtain the European citizenship and
work legally in Spain, for example, whereas
Spanish great‐grandchildren under the Span‐
ish law cannot.
Curiously these changes will modernize
other aspects of the legislation in this sector.
It states that children of foreigners born in
Italy automatically acquire the right to be
Italian ‐ today, they can only request it from
the age of 18 years and must have lived in the
country for at least a decade. It also estab‐
lishes a mechanism to regularize the situation
of immigrants.
For the current legislation, only those who
live more than ten years in the country can
request citizenship, the period should fall to
five years. Just to have a better picture of the
situation: of the 760,000 cases of citizenship
under consideration in Italy, 500,000 are Bra‐
zilians. The demand has caused an overload
of work in consulates. And it will take over
25 years for all requests made in Brazil to be
examined.
These leaves debating material to the “ius
sanguinis” descendants who are queuing up
in Consulates in South America for years and
years to be granted citizenship. Italian de‐
scendants may not consider fair these restric‐
tions when in the first place they are not actu‐
ally given the conditions to obtain their citi‐
zenship.
(con la collaborazione di Dario Luciano Merlo)
di Leonard Berberi
S
arò pure un tele‐
romantico, ma otto anni
di assenza dal video si
fanno sentire. Nell’estate del
1999, infatti, veniva trasmessa
la trentesima ‐ ed ultima ‐ edi‐
zione dei “Giochi senza Fron‐
tiere”.
C’è ancora qualcuno che si
ricorda i giochi, il colore bian‐
co abbinato al Belpaese e so‐
prattutto quella sigla iniziale
con gli esseri animati al com‐
puter che lanciano verso la
scritta “JSF” il tipico cappello
del giullare?
“Giochi senza frontiere” era
questo e molto altro. Quanti
fine settimana passati davanti
alla tv, quante speranze ripo‐
ste sul paesello italiano affin‐
ché potesse vincere qualche
puntata oppure qualche gioco.
“Giochi senza Frontiere” era ‐
soprattutto ‐ un viaggio verso
i luoghi (molto spesso sperdu‐
ti) di una Europa che si stava
ancora costruendo e che di lì a
poco avremmo potuto visitare
senza frontiere. Come i giochi
appunto.
Non devono essere pochi i
nostalgici di questo format se
c’è addirittura qualcuno che vi
ha dedicato un sito e se la re‐
plica delle puntate sulla tv
francese hanno fatto, qualche
tempo fa, il record d’ascolti.
Ecco perché il consorzio EBU‐
UER (ovvero l’Eurovisione)
aveva quasi tutto pronto per
la ripresa dei “Giochi” l’estate
che è appena trascorsa. Ma è
venuto meno l’accordo e quel‐
la piccolissima speranza è
svanita.
O meglio, resiste ancora un
altro anno. La società ‐ infatti ‐
ha annunciato che la trentune‐
sima edizione riprenderà l’e‐
state prossima.
In attesa del ritorno, spegnia‐
mo questa tv che ha perso
qualsiasi contatto con la real‐
tà.