With ten minutes remaining in a match, amateur Italian team ASD Nuova Casteltodino recently walked off the pitch after one of its players, Narciso Egwu, was called a ‘dirty Negro’ by an opposing player. Narciso and his brother, Emeka, who also plays for Nuova Casteltodino, are of Nigerian descent, but both born and bred in Italy. According to Club President Maurizio Venturi, Narciso is 200% Italian, which by my calculations (and I’m no mathematician) is 100% more Italian than most Italians. It was supposedly the fourth time this season that the two brothers faced racism on the pitch. Venturi has stated that one of the incidents involved abuse from the match referee.
Nuova Casteltodino Club Secretary Francesco Ribeca invoked an interesting parallel when explaining the club’s decision to walk off the pitch.
“If you think of Rosa Parks in America and how that one gesture of sitting down on the bus sparked a whole civil rights movement, we felt that we had to take a stand too. Even if we manage to change just a few people’s minds that will be a huge success for us. We threw away a football result to get a result for society.”
Ribeca’s statement suggests that he believes the the fight against racism in Italy is in its infancy. You’ll notice a few parallels between this incident and the Mario Balotelli incidents that we discussed in an earlier piece on race in Italy. The most obvious parallel is that in both cases skin color is the conduit through which Italian identity in the 21st century is discussed. “Who is Italian’ is a hot topic in Italy these days, fueled by the recent influx of immigrants in increasingly challenging economic times. For many, being born and bred in Italy and having an Italian passport is simply not enough to be Italian.
Italian writer Francesco Pacifico eloquently makes the case that these incidents reflect deeper cultural issues. According to Pacifico, “You have to understand that in Italy there’s not really the notion of a few rotten apples … we’re all rotten apples.”
Pacifico suggests that it’s not enough to think, “so let’s get rid of a few rotten apples and things will work. Because we are the rotten apples, and I think we basically know this.”
“So when they say let’s shut down the section of the stadium where the racists are. You know that … people are helping out in booing the guy. There’s no moral integrity. Moral integrity is a protestant concept … idea. We don’t have them. Everything is so blurred and impossible to reform. And authorities of all kinds in a way know this in Italy.”
Pacifico doesn’t think that general campaigns are enough to “really chang[e] society in any way.” He suggests that “the kind of left-wing spirit that just wants to do as if we’re a northern European kind of country is just misled. Because this is not the reality. We have a much more morally complex reality. That basically sucks, but it’s ours.”
Pacifico raises a very interesting notion about developing solutions to cultural problems. You can’t always take a solution to a problem in one culture and apply it to another expecting the same results. As much as people like to talk about the success of England’s anti-racism football campaigns, England is not Italy. England is a much more diverse country than Italy and has its own unique set of complex realities, which presented a unique set of challenges to overcome. Similarly, Italy’s race problem is unique in many ways to Italy, and therefore, the solution must be an Italian one.
But how do people outside of Italy participate in an Italian process? Other historical examples show that increased external pressure can play a role in accelerating internal change. In South Africa, for instance, the external pressure exerted on the apartheid government was instrumental in bringing about the downfall of the apartheid regime. Left to its own devices, the apartheid government would surely have continued ignoring the plight of black South Africans. Those suffering from racial abuse in Italy need others to take notice. More reporting on these issues is necessary. Nations often deal with their own internal cultural issues at their own pace, often prolonging the harm inflicted on recipients of abuse. So when Italian clubs like ASD Nuova Casteltodino stand up, it is necessary for others to stand up with them in the same way that people began to stand up with Rosa Parks or anti-apartheid activists. We can write about these stories, pass them on to our friends, and simply pay attention. Italy should be free to deal with this problem in it’s own Italian way, but just not on a leisurely timetable.
I am slow clapping for Nuova Casteltodino. But until society as a whole decides that there will no longer be tolerance for intolerance, these stories will continue to surface.
It is wonderful that one team, albeit a small team, decides to take a stance. As you mentioned on both pieces regarding racism in Italy, it will take more than this small club standing up to this behavior. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of the wave and not a mere disturbance in the water. Clubs like Inter, Milan, Roma, and the most troublesome Lazzio, need to do the same. Coments by the owner or chairpersons about the behavior is not enough. Italians are passionate about futbol and taking that away will allow more public awarenes.
Conceding that racism is present everywhere, many countries have taken stance against this behavior. Take Germany for example, although racism continues there, behavior shown by Italians is rare in comparison, and I believe Spain is doing the same, specially in Barcelona.
It is always difficult to change such and engraved behavior, but the key word is “difficult” meaning there’s the possibility of change, it’s not IMPOSSIBLE for this to happen.
In addition, I hope that specific issues like the Balotelli one raise more awareness about the hidden gems found in the African Continent.
Absolutely. Every country has its issues. Perhaps there’s a historical argument to make explaining the difference between tolerance in Germany and Italy (or Spain for that matter).
I always found the monkey chanting at the England – Spain match a few years back interesting. You heard the ‘bad apples’ argument. That is, it was only a few bad apples who started the behavior and others joined in just to get under the skin of black English players. But if a bad apple can count on a stadium of fellow supporters to join in the chanting, then there are more than a few complicit apples.
You can’t always force people to change attitudes that they’ve had for decades, but you can force them to keep their attitudes to themselves so that others who live in their communities can live free from racial antagonism (or any other type of antagonism for that matter).
Great read lads. I guess the true extent of racism among football supporters is almost impossible to quantify. Extensive speculation and debate on the subject is not supported by much reliable empirical data…
I feel the approach taken by the British authorities to reducing football hooliganism has been largely reactive – increasingly sophisticated policing, surveillance and monitoring techniques, segregation of fans, restrictions on alcohol etc. The British Government has also introduced specific legislation to cover acts of ‘hooliganism’.
While such measures are evident elsewhere in Europe, the German, Dutch and Belgian authorities, in particular, have been more proactive in their approach to the problem. The development of ‘fan coaching’ schemes appears to have had an impact on levels of violence in certain areas. Such schemes, which involve social workers deployed with groups of fans, provide useful models for other countries.
There is, however, a general lack of initiative from the major football clubs in Europe. While German clubs are involved to an extent in the fan coaching schemes, elsewhere there is little contact between club officials and the fan groups. It is suggested that local ‘fan’s forums’, which allow genuine dialogue between officials and supporters, may help to reduce some of the problems.
I’m not surprised at all by these kind of news. I live in Italy and there’s a high degree of racism here that also affects soccer in this country. The Balotelli case is the best example of how things are now in Italy.