Italy: Bosses, Pope Gang Up on Migrant Workers

ROME, September 3 — As the war in Syria spreads, those who have the financial means to leave are escaping. Many have fled to Turkey, while others risk their lives and many die — just as do migrants from Latin America to the U.S. — boarding small boats heading to Italy. Almost 3,000 have drowned or died of dehydration since 2011. On August 31, more than 300 migrants, including many from Syria, landed in three different places in Italy. The Italian government reports that 24,277 migrants have landed in the last twelve months, 8,932 of whom arrived from July 1 to August 10 of this year.
In June, 95 people were rescued, but seven drowned, while clinging to the floats of a tuna net. Their deaths prompted a politician of the racist Northern League to comment that it would have been “better to save the tuna than the foreigners” and “here is one more reason not to eat tuna.”
Not all Italians agree. On August 16, the President of Italy tried to sound noble by praising those in Sicily who swam out to sea to help Syrian refugees reach Sicily safely. “The television broadcasts of dozens of swimmers generously assisting refugees coming from Syria, many of whom were children, to reach the shore and safety, make Italy proud,” adding that, “humanity is stronger than prejudice.”
What the proud President failed to mention, however, is that Italy’s rulers made aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants “illegal,” ever since Italy criminalized undocumented migrants in 2002. He also neglected to mention that the Italian Coast Guard escorted all of these migrants to the detention centers that undercover reporters have denounced as concentration camps staffed by fascist police. Hundreds of migrant men and women from a center in Sardinia, for example, blocked traffic with a sit-down strike in the street in September to protest their conditions. The President’s “humanitarian” language hides the ugly political and economic reality.
 The Pope of the Catholic Church plans to visit a refugee center in Rome. This follows his earlier publicity stunt of visiting a detention center for migrants on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, where he celebrated mass and prayed for the migrants who cross the Mediterranean from North Africa each year. He threw a wreath into the sea for the thousands who have died during those voyages. Such public performances of humanitarian sorrow hide imperialist geopolitical strategies behind prayers and handwringing.
The Catholic Church’s NGOs actively recruit immigrants to fill low-paying jobs in wealthier countries. Monsignor Giancarlo Peregeo, the director of the Church’s Migrants Foundation, has recently called for the creation of “humanitarian channels for those fleeing the situations in North Africa and the Middle East,” but he noted “patrols are needed to help these migrants reach their destination.” What this means is armies and charitable organizations will help to swell the ranks of the reserve army of the unemployed, needed by capitalism to keep wages low and profits high.
This is not new. The Catholic Church has worshiped at the shrine of capitalism since 1891 when Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum (“The Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor”) condemning Socialism, which continues to be the Catholic Church’s fundamental social doctrine.  Pope Pius XII later reinforced this teaching by excommunicating anyone who so much as read a communist newspaper at the end of the Second World War.
U.S. imperialist war, proclaimed as “humanitarian intervention,” is anything but that. Obama’s hypocritical words about bombing Syrians to save them from poison gas is more imperialist violence to control resources and to guarantee the subservience of North Africa and the Middle East. The “War on Terror” is a war on workers everywhere in the world. Join PLP and fight for communist revolution to free all workers.