Lots of common sense and zero demagoguery

Finally, three years later, we finally talked about the reform of the Citizenship Law 91/1992 that went into effect, perhaps not surprisingly, 48 hours before the Maastricht Treaty was signed.

Those who oppose the changes on the subject, especially on the right, reiterate that the current law is good and even very advanced. On the other hand, those who want to change it, in various ways, ranging from the Catholic world to the far left, almost always come up with different arguments in an uncoordinated way. Concrete discussion on this topic seems impossible. As far as we try to clarify, the battle continues through slogans, most of the time general and imprecise. That is why, before moving forward on the doctrinal level, there is an urgent need for a brief historical summary to try to frame the problem in a balanced way.

It was my thirty-year adventure leading Italian cricket, a sport with a very high participation in immigration from the Indian subcontinent, that it introduced me, in a gradual but increasingly attractive manner, to the maze of the matter. This indisputable reality, combined with the desire to foster youth integration, led the Italian Cricket Federation in February 2003 to introduce the “Ius Soli” sports into its system. In this way, all those born in Italy under the age of 19, who had no nationality, and who were entitled to regain their nationality upon reaching adulthood, were equal to full citizens. It was an authentic and partly unconscious challenge for CONI who, over time, was received by the body and then absorbed its contents and made it his own.

Later, they remained in cricket, on Friday 21 August 2009, the public became more aware of the citizenship issue when a group of decidedly tanned boys awarded Italy the European title under 15. The significance of the result was relatively, and the influence of the media was enormous. A cocktail of Indian, Pakistani, Sinhalese and Bengali boys gathered with two cherries, one Afghani and the other Sardinian, under the tricolor as they sing the Nuffaru and Mamele hymn during the award ceremony. In the week after the tournament, the post-fascist president of the chamber, Gianfranco Fini, was at the Democratic Party Festival in Genoa, in the post-communist house. The occasion could not have been more serious and Finny made sure it was memorable. He took the bull from the trumpets, and cited the “boys of cricket” as an example of the new Italy, a country in need of a new bipartisan citizenship law. Finally, the question has taken the right form: It is no longer a battle of one side against the other now, but the problem of national interest must be solved in a joint way.

In fact, the law Vinnie talked about has been ready for some time already. It is signed by Rocco Granata, his loyal follower, and Andrea Sarobi, Democratic Party deputy. On Wednesday September 23, 2009, the project was presented in the Mappamondo Room of Montecitorio with the boys from the National Under 15 attending as testimonials. Unfortunately, the subsequent degradation of the political scenario, culminating in the irreparable disagreement between Berlusconi and Fini, led, after a few months, to push the citizenship debate back into the background to the point that he was not appointed Minister for Integration into the government of Monti. , Born November 2011, by Andrea Riccardi, the inspiration for the new design, was able to revitalize the project.

To return to talking about citizenship, it was necessary to wait for the birth of the Lita government in the spring of 2013. To tell the truth, the appointment of the Italian Congolese ophthalmologist Cecile Kenji as Minister for Integration was above all a symbolic gesture in the lack of effective progress in the field. At the end of the year, then, the Italian Cricket Club book, produced by three young journalists (Giacomo Fasola, Ilario Lombardo and Francesco Moscatelli), was published that emphasized the existence of an integrated, harmonious world around the sport, the only one of its kind. Kind in Italy. Meanwhile, the eventual disappearance of Gianfranco Fini from the political scene has pushed the question back from a public national interest to the request of a single political party.

Over the past seven years, we’ve seen a lot of chatter and a lack of facts. The agonizing Melina that happened over the Lo Moro bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives on October 13, 2015 and not debated in the Senate in the remaining 30 months of the legislature, has sufficiently demonstrated the lack of political will to address the problem. Later, with the Salvini Decree of September 24, 2018, which was not amended 91/92 but slower in its implementation, a half-step was taken objectively, given the time given to the provinces to respond to citizenship applications.

This is the past, and now let’s look to the future. What is the envisaged solution to remove citizenship reform from the swamp? First of all, the lesson of Gianfranco Fini must be taken. Citizenship reform is part of the evolution of civil rights. And it follows that it is neither right nor left-handed: it can only happen if it is bipartisan. As long as the left is impersonating the meek right of the issue, the right will oppose it, more motivated by preconception than ideological opposition. The example of what happened a little less than half a century ago in the greatest civil battle in the history of the Republic, the law of divorce, provides an indelible example to emulate. The revoked referendum was defeated, sabotaging the parliamentary numbers, thanks to the unexpected contribution of a large segment of the conservative electorate.

The second key point to understand, and above all to accept, is that the term “Ius Soli”, for the time being, should be refrigerated. The right to citizenship could also be expanded without the issue which, in addition to not being contemplated by ancient Roman jurists, is also being gradually abandoned by the country that created it: the United Kingdom. The only nation in the world that thinks about that day is that can do it. I am referring to the United States of America, the country that I know nobody wants to immigrate from. Those born in America stay there forever. I don’t think the same can be said of Italy. Will the Italian far left be able to withstand this partial advance? His refusal, in the fall of 2017, to accept the Catholic mediation that would have resulted in the approval of the Lo Moro Project in a reduced form, thus ensuring the green light for “Ius Culturae”, makes the fear worse.

Initially, for the sake of simplicity, I divided the lineups within the political arena between the defenders of 91/92 and the copyists of the same. Nevertheless, I believe there is an intermediate position of common sense that runs through the extension of the law currently in force. Indeed, if what is expected today for those born in Italy, that is, the granting of citizenship in conjunction with the coming of age, has also been extended to those who have completed two courses, attending them fully and at profit, then most cases are in relation to youth, the true resource that It must be protected, it will be resolved happily. Those who have started the track in elementary school will obtain the right to obtain a middle school degree. At the age of 18 they automatically become citizens of Italy, on a par with those born in the country. For those who, on the other hand, begin their course of study from middle school, consideration should be given to the possibility of acquiring citizenship “no later than age 22” given the objective difficulties they face in adapting in the race to high school. So it is a question of “acquiring citizenship through education”, which is certainly a more appropriate definition for Ius Culturae. Frankly, I do not see Meloni and Salvini, who will certainly remain in opposition to any change, engage in a crusade in the face of the introduction of this innovation, which will instead take place in the highly unlikely event of parliamentary approval by “Ius Soli”.

In the final analysis, for now, we need to be complacent in terms of citizenship with what appears to be a small step, but in reality it is not very small, in order to avoid spoiling everything after a canceled referendum that would split. Country. Politicians are known to dislike simple answers because they shorten the questions in methods, removing any possibility of attributing credit to them. We just hope that our political class can occasionally, for the sake of more than a million young people, abandon saying in favor of action.