In Italy, between June 8 and 9, there will be 5 popular abrogative referendums, that is, citizens will be called to the polls to cancel, in whole or in part, some existing laws. The institution of the referendum is one of the “novelties” of direct democracy introduced by the Constitution of 1948, but made operational only with an implementing law of 1970. Through it, changes can be made, and they do not require any subsequent ratification by Parliament: they are immediately enforceable. This is the most direct form of government in which the citizen-sovereign is invested. Italians had already exercised this right two years before 1948, by universal suffrage, when in 1946, at the end of the Second World War, they were called to choose between monarchy and republic. On that occasion, women also voted for the first time, who until then had been excluded. The monarchy was the loser and from that moment on Italy became a republic, almost a hundred years after Mazzini’s attempt in 1849.
Today, Italians are called upon to make choices that are no longer as crucial as that one, but are nevertheless important for the civil and political life of the country. One of them concerns the reduction of the term within which a foreign resident can request Italian citizenship, from 10 to 5 years, the other four concern issues relating to the world of work. Since these are referendums that tend to cancel existing laws in whole or in part, the voter will be asked to say “yes” to cancel, or “no” to maintain. Partial cancellation, which eliminates only some articles of the law, in fact modifies it significantly.
However, to be valid, referendums must reach a voter turnout of at least 50 percent plus one of the potential voters, otherwise, even if the “yes” vote wins, it would be as if the majority had voted “no” because the threshold of 50 percent plus one of those entitled to vote would not have been reached. Therefore, as is understandable, not going to vote is not only equivalent to voting “no”, but convincing voters to boycott the polls serves a double purpose because it determines the invalidation of the electoral consultation and therefore the maintenance of the law to be repealed. This is the reason why the right-wing parties in government, opposed to the repeal of these laws, have made propaganda for abstention from voting, which is legal in Italy, as well as for going to vote without collecting the ballot (which is equivalent to abstaining). The opposition did not avoid blaming Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for this last trick when she proposed it for herself and, in a way as astute as it is subliminal, for all her supporters.
In fact, this last option – going to vote but not picking up the ballot – was the answer given by Meloni when asked if she would go to vote in the referendums: for an institutional figure like hers, it is completely unseemly to make propaganda for abstention from a constitutional institution like the referendum, so this “tricky trick” was well noted, both by those who, following her suggestion, made propaganda for it, obtaining a fair amount of consensus, and by those who stigmatized it.
One could joke that going to vote and not picking up the ballot is equivalent to going to lunch and not eating, or going to the cinema and not watching the film, or getting married and “not consummating” the marriage. Other ironic equivalences would be possible, but it is useless to joke about such serious things: the Prime Minister was harshly criticized by the opposition for this statement, made on June 2, that is, exactly on the anniversary of the referendum with which seventy-nine years ago the Italian people, with a turnout of 89.08%, decided to go and vote, and chose that republic the political party from which Meloni comes would not have wanted.
However, propaganda in Italy must by law stop the day before the vote; anyone who does so is breaking the law.
Those who do not go to vote, or those who do not make any marks or cancel the ballot in the voting booth, do so anonymously, out of sight, and this is permitted. However, some jurists have objected that those who, showing up to vote, declare to the president of the polling station that they do not want to collect the ballot – carrying out this act publicly, openly, ostentatiously in front of cameras and journalists, especially if it were an institutional members, such as the Prime Minister, who did it – would be carrying out an act of propaganda for abstention at a time when it is prohibited. One could object that even a member of a party who goes to vote by withdrawing the ballot is making propaganda against abstention, but while the withdrawal of the ballot is an activity consequent to the exercise of the vote (voting which is a civic duty according to Art. 48 of the Constitution), it does not constitute a solicitation to vote, while it is precisely the non-withdrawal of the ballot, which being a practice different from such activity consequent to the exercise of the vote, if made public and flaunted, can constitute a propaganda solicitation for abstention.
Therefore, the Prime Minister who, when it was permitted to do so, had announced that she would not collect the ballot, if she wants to continue on this path, will have to avoid any overt or veiled declaration during the period of electoral silence (from 7 to 9 June) and, once she arrives at the polling station, she will have to ask the president of the polling station to prohibit the press and cameras from accessing the station during her meeting with the scrutineers and she will have to privately exercise her right not to collect the ballot, so as not to make this act the object of political propaganda during the elections in progress.
We will see.
As for Matteo Salvini of the Lega party, he suggested going to the beach and not going to vote! And the third leg of the right-wing government, Antonio Tajani, has declared that not going to the polls is a right of every Italian voter. This clearly means that the government as a whole is not interested in this referendum. Its leaders certainly hope that less than 50% of eligible voters will show up at the polls and that the entire referendum package will turn out to be nothing more than a humiliation and a mockery of the left wing parties that wanted and supported these referendums. In reality, they are playing on the belief that, deep down, Italians, like any other people in a country with deep roots and traditions, while being very progressive and modern, are and remain fundamentally intolerant of other cultures: which seems absolutely normal to an outside observer (we can make a comparison with the United States, Canada and other countries of past mass immigration, where everyone comes from some other country and we see that, precisely those who were once immigrants, today are the least welcoming towards newcomers, especially if they have foreign accents, complexions, traditions and religions). Why, they think, should Italians worry about a referendum called to grant early citizenship to foreigners (when, moreover, this issue is unknown, because it has not been explained at all by the media, especially the state media and those of the Berlusconi family, all in the hands of the right)?
This referendum could turn out to be a real institutional mockery. It is as if we really lived in a democratic society, with a formidable system of direct democracy, but in reality it is all false. The government parties let the opposition play and have fun with this tool, because they already know well that the cards are rigged and that in the end it will be their dealer that wins and collects the wager (moreover, having procured for themselves an opportunity to accuse the opposition of convening referendums that are clearly unpopular and without hope of exceeding the quorum, only to make the Nation lose a lot of public money in vain).
And what is the opposition’s response? Since immigration is an epochal, inevitable phenomenon, granting citizenship as soon as possible to those who have studied and worked for many years in this country is the best way to integrate them and consequently the best antidote against crime, violence, terrorism and so on: an antidote against exactly those problems that the right wing always points the finger at, but which they address only by intensifying public order strategies: new restrictive laws, a police state, harsher penalties, new limits on freedom of speech and protest, even passive, hiring of new policemen and Carabinieri, and more money for them. Nothing that can integrate into society those who now live among us, but are kept in a long limbo between refusal and acceptance, and who receive only crumbs compared to what they give to this nation, so disadvantaged as they are also in their rights, among which that of obtaining citizenship within a reasonable time is the main one.
The children of immigrants study in the same schools where our children study, they speak our dialects and sometimes they feel more Italian than the Italians themselves. And when they receive citizenship, they swear allegiance on our Constitution, something that we who are Italians from birth do not do: incredible! For them, the obtained citizenship is, and must rightly represent an achievement, a precious honor to celebrate, and to be proud of, while on the other hand for some right-wing politicians, completely short-sighted, such recognition is equivalent to degradation, a loss of sovereignty, a humiliation. Not a precious investment capable of bearing fruit for their future, for society, for all of us, for the Nation.
And the 10-year deadline is only a necessary precondition to start the citizenship application procedure, but it will not be granted immediately, it will only be granted them after many years, after so much bureaucracy and legalized paperwork: why should someone who deserves it be left without it, and receive it only after 15 or 20 years when he could obtain it sooner and start enriching our society as soon as possible with his skills (education, qualifications and experiences that have cost us nothing and that we stupidly undervalue)?
Do we really think that those who ask to obtain citizenship do so out of wickedness? Or that, instead, those who intend to continue living in the shadows, on the margins of society, hiding and not asking to be naturalized are wicked? The answer is obvious, those who come forward must be rewarded!
And finally, as in many advanced countries with low birth rates (we Italians are the oldest after Japan), we lack young citizens who work, produce and pay contributions to pay our pensions. We must ensure that they can do so as soon as possible because we need them.
However, there are some who think about the long-term consequences. In the New World, some immigrants who have worked side by side with locals and other immigrants have taken citizenship very seriously: most of them, those coming from Europe, assimilate the local culture and teach it to their children as other locals would do: they integrate very easily. But others from different cultures, such as Arab, Pakistani and Indian, are very rooted in their way of life and thinking, and tend to pass on their traditions in an integral way to their children: they live in their community, continue to speak their language, do not assimilate and never become true citizens of the country. They still arrange marriages only with other members of their own nation of origin, even after 2-3 generations of living in the country. This is a real problem.
Integration can be a very long process, but there are no alternatives.
This is one more reason why this process should start as early as possible and continue in a structured way, not letting it happen by chance: integration is a serious task that must be carefully planned so that society can achieve the desired result.
The immigration problem cannot be solved with jokes and tricks. Certainly not by going to the cinema and watching the film with your eyes closed.
