Referendum on Italy’s citizenship

Sonya Operati was born in Rome and lived all his life in Italy, but the country he calls the house does not recognize him his own.

In Italy, Sonya is a Nigerian, like his passport, and a 39-year-old man is welcome only as long as his last residence permit.

“I was born here. I’ll live here. I’ll die here,” the dancer and activist tells me what he calls “pasta” an Italian-English language under the palm trees.

“But not to have citizenship is what he has been discarded from your country. And I don’t think it’s a feeling we should have.”

That is why Sony and others campaign for the vote “yes” in the national referendum on Sunday and Monday, which proposes to reduce the time required to apply for Italian citizenship.

Cutting off expectations from 10 to five years will bring this country to most others in Europe.

Georgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister, has announced that it would boycott the vote, announcing the law on citizenship is already “wonderful” and “very open”.

Other parties associated with it urge the Italians to go to the beach instead of the election station.

Sony will also not participate. He has no right to vote.

The question of who will become an Italian is sensitive.

A large number of migrants and refugees come to the country every year, assisted throughout the Mediterranean from North Africa, smuggling gangs.

The populist government Meloni has done a big deal about reducing the number of arrivals.

But this referendum is aimed at those who have legally traveled to work in a country that is rapidly shrinking and aging.

The goal is limited: to speed up the process of obtaining citizenship, not to alleviate strict criteria.

“The knowledge of the Italian language, without a criminal case, continuous accommodation and so on – all different requirements remain the same,” – explains Carl Taiba of the Liberal Party, more Europe, one of several supporters of the referendum.

The reform will affect the long -term foreign residents already occupied in Italy: from those who are in the factory in the north, to those who care for pensioners in plush Roman neighborhoods.

Their children under the age of 18 will also be naturalized.

Up to 1.4 million people can immediately claim citizenship, and some estimates increase.

“These people live in Italy, study and work and contribute. It is about changing their perception so that they are no longer strangers – but Italian,” Taiba says.

The reform would also have practical consequences.

As an Italian, Sonny cannot apply for a job in the public sector and even fought to receive a driver’s license.

When he was booked on the hit -realist -sho -sho -show -he arrived in Honduras last year, because he had so many problems to get the right documentation.

For a long time, Meloni fully ignored the referendum.

The media belonging to Italy, guided by the close ally of Meloni, also paid the vote of scanty attention.

There is no significant “no” company, which makes it difficult for a balanced discussion.

But the real reason looks strategic: in order for the referendum to be real, more than half of all voters must be.

“They do not want to increase awareness of the significance of the referendum,” explains Professor Roberto D’Alimonte of the University of Luis in Rome. “It’s rational to make sure that 50% of the threshold will not be reached.”

The Prime Minister eventually announced that he would come to the polling station “to show respect for the ballot box” – but to refuse the vote.

“If you do not agree, you also have the opportunity to refrain,” Meloni said on a television chat this week after critics accused her of disrespecting democracy.

She claimed that the Italian citizenship system was “excellent”, already providing citizenship to more foreign citizens than most countries in Europe: 217,000 last year, the National Istat Statistics Agency reports.

But about 30,000 of them were Argentines with Italian origin on the other side of the world, it is unlikely to visit.

Meanwhile, Roberto Bodanachi’s coalition partner has accused those who for the “sale of our citizenship and erasure of our personality” for the referendum.

I ask Sonya why he believes his own application for citizenship took two decades.

“It’s racism,” he replies immediately.

At one point, his file was lost completely, and he was told that his case was “considered”.

“We have ministers who tell about the rule of white – racial replacement for Italy,” the activist of the Minister of Agriculture from his own Meloni party recalls.

“They don’t want black immigration and we know it. I was born here 39 years ago, so I know what I say.”

This is the accusation that the Prime Minister has repeatedly denied.

Insaf Dimassi defines itself as “Italian stateless”.

“Italy let me grow up and become a person I am today, so it is not considered as a citizen very painful and unpleasant,” she explains from the northern city of Bologna, where he studies for a doctoral degree.

Isaf’s father went to work to work when she was a child, and she joined him with her mother. Her parents finally received Italian citizenship 20 days after the Insaf turned 18. This meant that she had to apply for herself from scratch, including prove stable profits.

Instead, he decided to study.

“I came here at nine months, and perhaps at 33 or 34 – if everything goes well – I can finally be a Italian citizen,” she says, annoyed.

She remembers exactly when the importance of her “outsiders” got into the house: it was when she was asked to run for the election with the mayor with a candidate in his hometown.

When she shared the news with her parents full of excitement, they had to remind her that she was not Italian and had no right.

“They say this is a question of Meritocracy to be a citizen that you have to earn on this. But more than being, what do I need to demonstrate?” Insaf wants to know.

“It is not allowed to vote or be presented, invisible.”

On the eve of the referendum, students in Rome wrote a call for polls on the city square.

“Vote” yes “June 8 and 9)”, they prescribed in giant cardboard letters.

With a government boycott and such miserable advertising, the chances of cracking 50% of the turnout threshold seem slim.

But Sonya claims that this voice is just the beginning.

“Even if they vote” no “, we will stay here – and we think about the next step,” he says. “We must start talking about the place of our community in this country.”

Additional Julia Tomas reporting