RIGHT-WING ITALIAN YOUTHS TRY TO DISRUPT MIGRATION
Identitarian movement claims aid ships collude with human traffickers and believes migration amounts to a Muslim invasion of their country
As dawn broke over a quiet Milan suburb, Lorenzo Fiato lugged a silver suitcase packed with windbreakers and anti-seasickness gum out of the bedroom he had decorated with stickers (“Enough Immigration”) and shelves filled with medieval knight toy soldiers.
At the front door, Fiato, 23, hugged his mother goodbye and set out to catch a flight to Sicily, where he planned to embark on the last leg of what has become Europe’s alt-right odyssey.
It began in May, when Mr Fiato, a leader of the Italian branch of a European rightwing movement that calls itself identitarian, joined his allies in using an inflatable raft to momentarily delay a ship carrying Doctors Without Borders personnel that was chartered to rescue migrants at sea. The tactic appalled human rights organisations, which argued that the activists, mostly in their 20s, threatened the lives of desperate migrants making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.
But it also attracted publicity, new members and, identitarians say, at least $100,000 (3.35 million baht) in private donations. That money went to Defend Europe, a project that included as its centrepiece the chartering of a 40-metre ship previously used off the Horn of Africa.
Mr Fiato and his allies around Europe suspect aid ships of colluding with human traffickers and believe migration amounts to a Muslim invasion. They wanted to disrupt and monitor the operations of rescue vessels and make sure they did not cross into Libyan waters, cooperate with human traffickers or bring more migrants to Europe’s shores.
“I certainly wish them the best,” said Richard Spencer, a white nationalist in the US who is a leader of the so-called altright, a far-right movement. “This sounds like a wonderful mission.”
Except that, as of now, Mr Fiato’s ship still has not come in. On Thursday morning, the boat was stuck in Egypt, where he said inspectors seemed to be looking for “any misplaced hair” to hold up its arrival. In Italy, members of Parliament have excoriated the mission, and others have wondered if the band of activists might not come under attack by armed smugglers.
Migration has set off political upheaval across the continent, but it has especially dominated Italy’s attention. It has left the government scrambling for solutions, from furnishing Libya with patrol boats, to floating the possibilities of closing Italian ports to ships that do not fly Italian flags, to granting travel visas to migrants so they can go north.
As Italian politicians have physically scuffled over whether to extend citizenship to the children of immigrants born in Italy, the left-leaning government, keenly aware that the issue is fuelling the conservative opposition, has grown exasperated by the reluctance across Europe to open up borders and ports and share the burden of a mass migration.
Much of the focus has recently fallen on the ships run by non-governmental organisations, or NGOs, which, according to Italy’s interior minister, Marco Minniti, operate 34% of rescue missions in a sea where about 2,000 migrants have drowned this year.
More than 93,000 migrants have been rescued and taken to Italian ports so far this year. There is a concern the arrivals could top 200,000 by year’s end.
Right-wing groups have particularly latched onto an Italian prosecutor in Sicily who, without providing any evidence, began investigating potential collusion between aid groups and human traffickers.
Mr Fiato argues that the aid ships become a magnet for more immigration, and that they end up benefiting smugglers and mobsters who exploit reception centres, all the while costing more lives by drawing more migrants into the water. The United Nations immigration agency called this argument baseless.
In Milan on Wednesday, Mr Fiato seemed eager to get out to sea. He sat at Bar Magenta with his grade school friend and fellow identitarian Lara Montaperto. The two spoke against multiculturalism and forced integration as threats to traditional European cultures.
Ms Montaperto, who recently started an identitarian women’s chapter, argued that Europe’s overly welcoming posture resulted from excessive guilt over transgressions during colonialism and World War II. She said she was not alone in thinking there was a horrible paradox in Europe creating refugee centres, which she called “not totally different from concentration camps”.
Critics of the identitarians have questioned the competence of the right-wing movement beyond its ability to briefly bother an aid ship or publish sleek YouTube videos of non-white people looting and laying waste to cities. The identitarians bristle at critics who say they are endangering the lives of desperate migrants by slowing rescue ships.
“There are life vests so we can help,” said Mr Fiato.
“We are not murderers,” Ms Montaperto said.