by Giulio Meotti, Gatestone Institute
Describing Italy, Gerard Baker, former editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote:
“In much of the country… depopulation is advancing. Moving into the empty spaces have been waves of immigrants, many from North Africa and the Middle East. The migrants have filled vital gaps in the labor force, but the transformation of Italian towns has left increasing numbers of citizens resentful, fearful for their identity.”
He went on to call this transformation, “a kind of pioneer of Western decline.” Already, the effects of mass migration are becoming dramatically visible in many of Italy’s elementary schools. In just the last few days, examples from two large cities have surfaced.
The first was in Turin, Italy’s fourth largest city, where there are now elementary school classes with not even one Italian child: “In all classes, school principal Aurelia Provenza explained, the percentage of foreigners is very high, equal to 60% of the total number of pupils.”
The second example comes from Bologna. “In my son’s kindergarten there is a serious integration problem, I have to take him away,” says Mohamed, a 34-year-old of Moroccan origin who arrived in Italy when he was 4 years old.
“I don’t want to be seen as a racist myself as I am Moroccan, but the municipality must know that there is no integration by putting more than 20 foreign children into classes.”
At the time of enrollment, Mohamed explained, they had seen drawings with flags of all nationalities in the school, but, “when we arrived at school the first day, we found ourselves in a class with all foreign children. The teachers are even struggling to pronounce the children’s names.”
We have now reached a paradox: immigrants are taking their children out from classes where, under multiculturalism, segregation is surging. “School performance falls when classes exceed 30% foreigners; it is a crucial threshold that should be avoided or otherwise monitored,” said Costanzo Ranci, professor of Economic Sociology, and author of a recent report.
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