This morning I woke up to an extremely upsetting piece of news on the BBC. Residents in Naples, Italy banded together and burned down Roma encampments outside of town. It seems many Roma have come to Italy from Romania in search of work in the wake of the Schengen Agreement.
This pogrom happened after an Italian woman accused a 16 year old Roma girl of trying to steel her baby. To me this smacks of old-school European prejudices of the blood-libel kind. As a person my heart goes out to the Roma who were chased from their homes. As a European Jew the incident sends chills down my spine and brings to mind aspects of Europe I would rather (but can never) forget.
Apparently there is a larger context of Italian authorities cracking down on illegal immigrants, anti-immigrant rhetoric and other vigilante attacks on immigrants.
I know a lot of people who like to say that Europe has moved beyond this kind of thing. That we live in a brave new world, that we have learned from the past, etc. Unfortunately this is not my perception of which way the wind blows. I see xenophobia on the rise and people retreating into their own narrow-minded little corners.
A sad day to be a human, as usual.
