German neo-Nazi trial sparks fear of hidden racism

FILE - In this June 9, 2004 file picture police officers stand in front of a hairdressers shop at the scene of a bomb blast in Cologne, western Germany. Beate Zschaepe, the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi group _ the self-styled National Socialist Underground _ blamed for ten killings goes on trial Monday, May 6, 2013 in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped the killers in various ways. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago (AP Photo/Hermann J. Knippertz,File)EARLY RISER FOR FRIDAY MAY 3 2013

FILE - This combination image of handout pictures released by the federal criminal Police Office ( BKA) shows undated file photos of victims of the far right terror group NSU . top from left: Enver Simsek, Abdurrahim Ozudogru, Suleyman Taskopru, Habil Kilic and police woman Michele Kiesewetter and bottom from left : Mehmet Turgut, Ismail Yasar, Theodorus Boulgarides, Mehmet Kubasik und Halit Yozgat. Beate Zschaepe, the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi group _ the self-styled National Socialist Underground _ blamed for ten killings goes on trial Monday, May 6, 2013 in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped the killers in various ways. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago. (AP Photo/dpa)EARLY RISER FOR FRIDAY MAY 3 2013

FILE - The combo of undated photographs provided by German federal criminal investigation office BKA shows terror suspects, from left, Uwe Mundlos, Beate Zschaepe and Uwe Boenhardt. Zschaepe who is the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi group _ the self-styled National Socialist Underground _ blamed for ten killings goes on trial Monday, May 6, 2013 in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped the killers in various ways. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago. (AP Photo/BKA)EARLY RISER FOR FRIDAY MAY 3 2013

FILE - The 2004 photograph provided by German federal criminal investigation office BKA shows terror suspect Beate Zschaepe. The sole survivor of a neo-Nazi group _ the self-styled National Socialist Underground _ blamed for ten killings goes on trial Monday, May 6, 2013 in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped the killers in various ways. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago. (AP Photo/BKA)EARLY RISER FOR FRIDAY MAY 3 2013

FILE - The Feb. 23, 2012 file photo shows German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivering a speech during a memorial ceremony for victims of far-right violence in Germany at the Concert Hall at the Gendarmen Markt in Berlin. Beate Zschaepe, the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi group _ the self-styled National Socialist Underground _ blamed for ten killings goes on trial Monday, May 6, 2013 in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped the killers in various ways. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)EARLY RISER FOR FRIDAY MAY 3 2013

Map locates cities where murders and bombings took place

BERLIN (AP) — Most of the victims were immigrants and their deaths at first failed to make headlines. Police were quick to blame the slayings on foreign gangs with links to gambling and drugs.

But revelations that a string of unsolved killings may have been a cold-blooded neo-Nazi campaign against ethnic Turks have shaken the nation, forcing Germans to confront painful truths about racism and the broader treatment of immigrants in a society deeply conscious of the lasting legacy of the Holocaust.

The sole survivor of the group blamed for the killings — the self-styled National Socialist Underground — goes on trial Monday in Munich, along with four men alleged to have helped the killers in various ways.

Beate Zschaepe, 38, is charged with complicity in the murder of eight Turks, a Greek and a policewoman. She is also accused of involvement in at least two bombings and 15 bank robberies carried out by her accomplices Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, who died in an apparent murder-suicide two years ago.

Zschaepe, who surrendered to police four days after Mundlos and Boenhardt were killed, denies the charges. If convicted she faces life imprisonment.

The case is being closely watched by Germany's 3 million ethnic Turks, many of whom still feel marginalized by German society despite having lived in this country for decades or even having been born here.

"There have been only a handful of trials in recent German history that have had a similar effect," said Gurcan Daimaguler, a Berlin lawyer of Turkish origin who represents some of the victims' families. He cited court cases against members of the far-left Red Army Faction terror group starting in the 1970s and the trials of East German border guards who fired at people trying to flee to WestGermany during the Cold War.

"These were all trials that went beyond the courtroom," Daimaguler told The Associated Press in a recent interview. He noted that each of them prompted periods of soul searching that in some cases continue until today.

It was only when Mundlos and Boenhardt died following a botched bank robbery in November 2011 and weapons were found at the scene tying them to the killings that authorities acknowledged they had failed to stop what amounted to a far-right terror campaign lasting more than a decade.

Public debate has focused on how Germany's well-funded security services could have been so catastrophically wrong with their long-held theory that the killings were the work of immigrant criminal gangs.

Several high-ranking security officials including the head of Germany's domestic spy service have already resigned over blunders made during their watch. These ranged from failing to act on intelligence about the trio's whereabouts in 1998, shortly after they avoided arrest on lesser crimes; shredding evidence gathered by informants close to the group; and ignoring a racist motive in the crimes despite the fact that random killings without claims of responsibility fit the pattern recommended for decades by racist supremacists.

For years the media described the killings as "Doener Murders" — after the popular Turkish dish of spit-roast meat served in snack bars across Germany. Yet only two of the nine men killed worked in doener restaurants, and many Turks say the phrase reflected the dismissive attitude mainstream society had toward the victims.

The police failures prompted Parliament to establish an independent panel investigating whether there was institutional reluctance to deal with far-right extremists.

Its chairman, Sebastian Edathy, has said that not only did Germany's 36 security services fail to exchange information in the case, but the potential for far-right violence was massively underestimated even as some officers instinctively blamed the victims.

An internal document drawn up in 2007 by police in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and obtained by The Associated Press asserted that the likely killer couldn't have come from Western Europe because "in our culture the killing of human beings is a grave taboo" — a striking comment in a country that made genocide against Europe's Jews a matter of state policy in the last century.

Zschaepe, Mundlos and Boehnhardt met as teenagers in the eastern city of Jena amid an ideological vacuum following the 1989 collapse of the Socialist dictatorship in East Germany.

The region suffered economically during the early 1990s, with anti-immigrant sentiments voiced openly even by mainstream politicians, providing a fertile recruiting ground for far-right groups.

Thomas Grund, a social worker in Jena who knew the trio when they first showed up at his youth club 20 years ago, said Zschaepe showed no hint of political extremism until she befriended the two young men who, he said, would later become her lovers.

Grund says social workers warned throughout the 1990s that extremist groups were setting up base in small towns and villages in the region but authorities did little.

Sometimes, he says, it appeared as if officials were protecting the far right.

Such claims have been made by people across the political spectrum, skeptical that a group such as the National Socialist Underground managed for more than a decade to slip through Germany's sophisticated surveillance net for neo-Nazi activity. Edathy's parliamentary committee has uncovered several instances where security services appeared to hide what they knew about the group. Whether they were simply trying to cover up their own failures, protect their informers, or actually protect the group has been a matter of intense debate.

At a memorial event last year German Chancellor Angela Merkel apologized to the victims and their families for the wrongful suspicions that swirled around them. Police spent a great deal of time probing the victims' backgrounds and business dealings, suspecting them or those close to them of being involved in the drug trade and other illegal activity.

She also pledged to take all necessary steps to help those affected by the crimes, and prevent a repetition of the investigate failures in this case.

Merkel's apology was well received by many Turks at the time. But some noted she didn't spell out that most of the victims were targeted because they were different from mainstream society: Turkish, and Muslim.

"Here in Germany we are scared of using the word racism," said Daimaguler, the lawyer. "As long as we don't call it what it is we will never be able to solve the problem."

The authorities' reluctance to highlight the xenophobic motive also worries Barbara John, the official intermediary between the victims' families and the government.

She is currently campaigning to ensure memorial plaques to honor the victims highlight the racist nature of the crimes.

John, a longtime campaigner on immigration issues, said this would go some way toward giving the victims' families a sense that they are being taken seriously by the authorities.

"Germany society as such isn't racist, but there is a deep-rooted lack of trust toward the immigrant community," she said, noting that it was only recently the families started receiving financial compensation from the government.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned last month that the trial could shape the way his country is viewed abroad.

But the handling of the case has already left its mark on relations between Germany and its Turkish residents.

"The murders might have been prevented if someone had considered that racism could have been a motive," said Kenan Kolat, who heads the Berlin-based Turkish Community in Germany. "No one considered it and that was the biggest mistake."

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Frank Jordans can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter

There’s evidence suggesting that the man photographed being wheeled away from the Boston bombing is an amputee and an actor and that the photo was taken earlier than the bombing, at a drill.

The evidence is posted to BBMisc but was originally posted to Above Top Secretand you can see it here if you’d like it in its original order:http://www.bbmisc.com/forum/showthread.php?20697-Boston-Bombing-Actor. It’s given by an individual who has training in working with emergencies, including bleedouts from major traumatic incidents.

These photos fooled me at first because I thought the hooded man was the amputee, but the amputee in fact lies in front of the hooded man and the young girl. You’ll notice that, up till frame 9, he has what appears to be a leg and after Frame 9 he now has a prosthesis simulating what appears to be a bone protruding.

Just before reviewing that evidence in detail, I ask you to look at the expression on the face of the alleged victim (left). That individual has just had his legs destroyed and lost a great deal of blood. I ask you if it’s reasonable to expect the expression on his face to be as you see it here.

Boston Bombing Actor

BBMIsc, 20 April 2013

http://www.bbmisc.com/forum/showthread.php?20697-Boston-Bombing-Actor

I’ve studied and graduated EMT-B certification with the state of Oregon. I’ve been on calls with heavy arterial bleeds, internal bleeding, fatalities, doa’s. I am speaking from direct personal experience with severe trauma.

Here is a telling photograph of the amputee actor. [Steve: I've made this Frame 1] I encourage readers to view the photo side by side with my analysis.

http://www.kaotic.com/media/pictures…42b556ee65.jpg

If you loose both your legs from explosive trauma half your blood is gone in one minute via the femoral arteries, youre dead after two. Bleeding out is worse with blunt force trauma (like shrapnel) because flesh is torn rather than cut, exposing more arterial and vascular tissue. The human body holds 5 to 6 LITERS of blood. If that really happened you would see blood EVERYWHERE, the guy would be drenched in it. You would also see what’s called arterial spurtting from the injury. Most likely he would vomit after turning ghost white from shock, then turning delirious or passing out. As for the “tourniquet”…

Its not even tied off, its suspended via gravity, which would literally do nothing to an arterial sever. There’s no pressure applied. There’s no knott with a turn stick for leverage. You can clearly see a gap in the nonexistent wrap job on his left inner thigh (left anterior proximal for you experts) His hands have no blood on them. There’s no blood on the ground. The color in his hands and lips shows good circulation.

This is an actor. This is staged. How did they pull it off though? I can show you.

Here in frame six on the left we see the the man with a hood setting up the fake leg wound prosthetics. His attention and hands are right there. The woman is acting as a shield covering what’s happening.

Frame 1

Frame 6

Frame 8

Frame 9

Frame 11

Frame 14

Frame 20

In frame 8 the prosthetics are in place. Amidst all this chaos seconds after the explosion the hooded man takes the time to put on his sunglasses which is a signal. [Steve: It may or may not be.]

In frame 9 with sunglasses now on the hooded man and the woman make eye contact, signal received.

In frame 11 after recieving the go signal the woman makes an open hand gesture the direction both of them are looking, signaling the staged injuries are in place for cameras. The prone amputee raises his left prosthetic injury into the air over the woman’s shoulder. No blood is present. The bone is dry, no blood on his leg above the knee, no blood on the woman, no arterial spurt, nothing.

In frame 14 the woman turns her head right but is still holding up that open palm signal with her left hand. The hooded man again busies himself pouring fake blood on the pavement behind the woman. The amputee has both fake injuries in the air now. There is still no blood on his legs, his skin above the injury is clean and dry.

Frame 20, the fake blood and prosthetics are in place. The amputee gives an open hand gesture along with the woman to bring the cameras in. We’re now twenty frames in and still not a drop of fresh blood from a double leg amputation. His legs are dry, the woman is dry and unscathed. Both are making the same hand gesture.

Sectarian killings reported in Syrian village

This citizen journalist image released on Thursday May 2, 2013, provided by The Syrian Revolution against Bashar Assad, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian army soldiers loyal to Bashar Assad, seen in the background, standing in front of dead bodies at Bayda village, in the mountains outside the coastal city of Banias, Syria. Syria's main opposition group on Friday accused President Bashar Assad's regime of committing a "large-scale massacre" in a Sunni village near the Mediterranean coast, killing scores of people, according to activists. (AP Photo/The Syrian Revolution against Bashar Assad)

In this image taken from amateur video, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, dead bodies are seen in Bayda, Syria, Friday, May 3, 2013. Syria's main opposition group on Friday accused President Bashar Assad's regime of committing a "large-scale massacre" in a Sunni village near the Mediterranean coast, killing scores of people, according to activists. (AP Photo via AP video)

BEIRUT (AP) — The bodies of the Syrian boys and young men in jeans and casual shirts were strewn along a blood-stained pavement, dying apparently where they fell. Weeping women moved among the dead, and one of them screamed, "Where are you, people of the village?"

In the Syrian civil war's latest alleged mass killing, activists said Friday that regime troops and gunmen from nearby Alawite areas beat, stabbed and shot at least 50 people in the Sunni Muslim village of Bayda.

The slayings highlighted in the starkest terms the sectarian overtones of a conflict that has already killed more than 70,000 people. Details of the killings came to light as the Obama administration said it was again weighing whether to arm the rebels.

Syria's 2-year-old crisis has largely broken along sectarian lines: the Sunni majority forms the backbone of the rebellion, while President Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, anchors the regime's security services and military officer corps. Other minorities, such as Christians, largely support Assad or stand on the sidelines, worried that the regime's fall would bring about a more Islamist rule.

The killings in Bayda fall against this backdrop. Tucked in the mountains outside the Mediterranean coastal city of Banias, the village is predominantly Sunni but is located in the Alawite ancestral heartland centered in the rugged region along the sea.

Activists say fighting broke out in Bayda early Thursday and that at least six government troops were killed. Syrian forces backed by Alawite gunmen known as shabiha from the surrounding area returned in the afternoon and stormed the village, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The gunmen torched homes and used knives, guns and blunt objects to kill people in the streets, the group said. It added that it has documented the names of at least 50 dead in Bayda, but that dozens of villagers are still missing and the death toll could rise to as high as 100.

Amateur video showed the bodies of at least seven men and boys lying in pools of blood on the pavement in front of a house as women wept around them.

"Don't sleep, don't move," one woman sobbed, leaning over to touch one of the men, who appeared already dead. A woman also is heard wailing, "Where are you, people of the village?"

The video appears genuine and consistent with reporting by The Associated Press from the area.

Syria's state news agency said late Thursday that the army conducted a raid in Bayda, killing several "terrorists" — the term it uses for those trying to oust Assad — and seizing machine guns, automatic rifles and other weapons.

Syrian troops were still in Bayda on Friday, conducting house-to-house searches, according to the Observatory's director, Rami Abdul-Rahman. He added that phone and Internet service to the village was cut, making it impossible to verify the final death toll or pin down more details on what happened.

The Observatory also reported clashes and government shelling of Sunni areas of Banias on Friday.

If confirmed, the bloodshed in Bayda would be the latest in a series of alleged mass killings in the civil war. Last month, activists said government troops killed more than 100 people as they seized two rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

The violence in Bayda bears a closer resemblance to two reported mass killings last year in Houla and Qubeir, Sunni villages surrounded by Alawite towns. Some activists said the Houla and Qubeir carnage, which they blame on regime forces and shabiha, was aimed at driving Sunnis from areas near main routes to the coast to ensure Alawite control.

Months of bloodshed have sharpened the divide and unleashed sectarian hatred. The violence has ripped apart communities and brought a bloody end to decades of coexistence. Retaliatory kidnappings and killings have surged.

That raises the prospect of Syria taking the same path as neighboring Iraq, where violence in 2006 and 2007 effectively turned into a kind of sectarian cleansing as Sunnis and Shiites fled the bloodletting by rival militias to the relative safety of their own communities. Lingering animosity has helped fuel renewed violence along those fault lines in recent weeks between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq.

In what amounted to little more than a symbolic protest, rebels in Syria fired rockets at the village of Qardaha, the hometown of Assad's father, the Observatory said. There were no reports of casualties.

The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, condemned what it called "a large-scale massacre in Bayda," and urged the international community to act to protect Syrian civilians.

"It is time for the world to intervene and put an end to the grievous crimes of the Assad regime," the Cairo-based group said in a statement.

While the U.S. and its European allies have backed the opposition, they have been reluctant to provide those fighting Assad's troops with weapons that could challenge the regime's superior firepower. They fear the arms could end up in the hands of radical Islamic groups, such as the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, that in the past year have become the most effective fighting force on the opposition's side.

On Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington is rethinking its opposition to arming the rebels amid growing indications that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons — something President Barack Obama has called a "red line."

The U.S. has said intelligence indicates Syria has used the nerve agent sarin on at least two occasions, but Obama has stressed that he needs more definitive proof before making a decision about how to respond — and whether to take military action. Damascus denies using chemical arms, and says the opposition is trying to frame it.

Obama said Thursday his administration was proceeding cautiously as it looked at options to ensure that what it does is helpful to the situation rather than making it more deadly or complex.

The Syrian crisis started with largely peaceful protests of Assad's rule in March 2011, but shifted into an armed insurgency as opposition supporters took up weapons to fight a harsh regime crackdown on dissent.

The conflict has laid waste to cities and towns, forced more than 1 million Syrians to seek refuge in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and displaced millions more inside Syria.

Syria's state news agency said mortars fired at the Damascus International Airport struck a kerosene tank and a commercial aircraft, causing significant material damage. It said the airport was functioning normally, although many airlines no longer fly into the Syrian capital because of the conflict.

___

Associated Press writer Barbara Surk contributed to this report.

In Italy, racist taunts for footballers and ministers alike

The appointment of Italy's first black government minister has brought racist sentiment to the surface.

The election of Italy’s first ever black government minister has brought the country face to face with its racist demons.

Cecile Kyenge, an eye surgeon who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was made the new minister for integration this week when Italy finally cobbled together a government after weeks of backstabbing and brinkmanship in the wake of inconclusive elections in February.

Her appointment has exposed the deeply held prejudices of many Italians, who insist that a person with black or brown skin can ever be considered Italian, no matter how long they have lived in the country.

RECOMMENDED: 10 books to read before you go to Italy this summer

In the few days since she was sworn in on Sunday, the 48-year-old Ms. Kyenge, who moved to Italy three decades ago and is a member of the center-left Democratic Party, has been subjected to a shocking tirade of racist abuse. Much of it has circulated on the internet, with the minister called “a Congolese monkey” and a “Zulu” on websites, some of them with links to neo-Fascist groups.

The online vitriol by anonymous bigots was bad enough, but the race hate has been dealt out by prominent politicians too.

The most extreme remarks were made by Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of the European Parliament who has made incendiary remarks about immigrants in the past. In an interview with a radio station, Borghezio, from the anti-immigration Northern League, accused Kyenge of wanting to “impose her tribal traditions from the Congo” on Italy.

BUNGA BUNGA

He was referring to the new minister’s support for a change to laws which currently restrict the children of immigrants from applying for Italian citizenship until they reach the age of 18. Borghezio said the inclusion of Kyenge in the new administration of prime minister Enrico Letta made it a “a bonga bonga government” – an off-color quip which referenced the so-called “bunga bunga” antics of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.

"You can't say the word 'nigger' in Italy, only think it," Borghezio added. "Pretty soon you won't even be able to say illegal immigrant – you'll have to say 'your excellence'.”

He said Kyenge would make “a great housekeeper, but not a government minister." He added: "Africans are different. They belong to an ethnicity much different from ours. They haven't produced great genes.”

The racism directed towards Kyenge is by no means an isolated incident. One of Italy’s most talented soccer players, Mario Balotelli, who was born in Sicily to Ghanaian parents, has endured years of racial abuse both on and off the pitch.

Hostile fans have made monkey noises at him during games and thrown bananas onto the pitch. At one match, fans once shouted: "There are no black Italians." In February he was called a “little black boy” by Paolo Berlusconi, the vice-president of AC Milan soccer club and the brother of Silvio Berlusconi.

"And now let's go and watch the little black boy of the family, the crazy head," Paolo Berlusconi said at a political meeting, after Balotelli transferred from Manchester City to become one of AC Milan’s star players.

HISTORY

The racial prejudices held by many Italians are in part a result of the country’s history, analysts say.

Italy has traditionally been a country of emigration, sending millions of impoverished migrants to theUnited States, Latin America and Australia from the 19th century onwards.

It had a short-lived overseas empire in North and East Africa and did not receive the waves of immigrants from former colonies that Britain, France, and the Netherlands did after the Second World War.

Immigrants from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East only began arriving in the 1990s, meaning that Italians have had much less time to get used to the idea of a multi-ethnic society. Since then, numbers have risen sharply – in 1990 foreigners made up around 2 percent of Italy’s population, a figure that has now jumped to more than 7 percent.

“Immigration came very late to Italy,” says Tana de Zulueta, a journalist, human rights campaigner, and former center-left MP. “It has taken a while for Italy to accept the fact that it used to be a country of emigration but is now a country that receives immigrants – that the tables have turned. The country hasn’t adjusted to the changed landscape in terms of the color of people’s faces. I think any black footballer will tell you that Italy is one of the worst countries in which to play, in terms of racial abuse.”

At a press conference on Friday, Kyenge generously insisted that Italy was not a racist nation, but conceded that it did lack a "consciousness of others." While Italy had “a well-rooted culture of hospitality...(it) does not see diversity as a resource," she said. She added: "I am black. This is important to say. I emphasize it proudly."

A revolt over the racism directed against Kyenge has already begun. An online petition has been launched calling for Borghezio, the MEP, to be expelled from the European Parliament or at least disciplined.

The petition has been organized by Articolo 21, a freedom of information advocacy group. By Friday it had been signed by nearly 63,000 people.

“Mario Borghezio’s remarks, as well as being gravely offensive towards the new minister, should also be considered an insult towards the European Parliament, of which he is a member,” the group said on its website.

The Italian government launched an investigation on Wednesday into the racial abuse towards Kyenge, one of seven women in the Italian cabinet. The inquiry was ordered by another foreign-born female member of the new government, Josefa Idem.

A former kayaking champion who won five Olympic medals, Ms. Idem was born in Germany, but like Kyenge married an Italian and took Italian citizenship.

Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she has been subject to none of the abuse suffered by her Congolese-born Cabinet colleague. The steep rise in immigration to Italy in the last two decades means that society will have to change its attitudes to non-whites.

“If you look at a classroom now, you see that the demographic landscape has changed very rapidly,” says De Zulueta, the former MP. “Immigrant children consider themselves Italian and are considered Italian by the other kids. So maybe things will change for the better. But in the meantime, for the pathbreakers, it is very hard.”