A country that's changing

Immigration is quite a new experience for Italy, that, for centuries, has just been an emigration country. Nowadays, a lot of people decide to leave their own home in order to look for a better future. Italy started a big changing process in the 80's and it's still changing. So, our actual social survey is very different from as it was, for example, just twenty years ago. Things changed, are changing and will continue to change. So, I think that pretending that our reality is always the same would be quite silly: we all should awake to what's really happening to utilize new Italy's potentials an to prevent problems.

Immigration is an important resource for a country and its economic mechanism. Italy needs immigrants for those indispensable jobs Italians unlikely chose and their work is also fundamental to pay pensions in a country in which the number of old people is continuosly growing. Moreover, there're also important consequences from a cultural point of view: sharing different cultures and styles of life surely is an opportunity to enrich us.

However, things in real life are a bit more complicated. Italian politics has always had huge problems in regulating immigration phenomenon properly and the consequences of this "lassez-faire" policy has been disgraceful. Criminals for poor countries decided to move to Italy, mingling with honest people, encouraged by unclear laws and short-sighted behavoiur of some politicians. So, things started going wrong and discrimination feelings were born. Someone believes that the presence of different cultures in the same country is going to destroy Italian traditions and doesn't understand how immigration is necessary for everybody.

The way in which immigrants are often treated, saddened me, because I perfectly know that the majority of them are honest workers that just hope to leave in peace. But a lot of Italians maybe don't know it (or acting as if they don't, is simply easier...). This is what came out from our elections, in which a quite racist campaign, such as "Lega Nord"'s, took a lot of votes. I'm scared about this fact. I strongly hope immigration is going to be carefully regulated, so fear and anger shadows will be defeated.

As regards the voting right for immigrants, I think that everybody that works and pays taxes should have the right to vote. Obviously, they should know something of Italian culture, before voting. This is the reason why I think that they should wait for some years (4-5?) to obtain this important right.

Sarah, you can't vote, but we all know your situation is completely different...That's how things work...