STOP RAZZISMO 04/10/2008 ROMA

QUALCHE FOTO DELLA GIORNATA...STOP RAZZISMO DI ROMA
DOMANI UN CI SARA' UN LINK PER ACCEDERE ALL'ALBUM CON OLTRE 120 FOTO C RACCONTA LA GIORNATA. ...clicca sull'immagine per ingrandire....
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(some pictures from the-- Stop Racism day in Rome. Tomorrow a link will lead
you to more than 120 news/story pictures .....click on the picture to enlarge)
Charles.

ANTI RAZZISMO

NIGERIA@48

French Muslims Find Haven in Catholic Schools Franco Zecchin for the International Herald Tribune Nadia Oualane, right, and Amina Zaidi may wear head scarves at St. Mauront, a Roman Catholic school in Marseille. The scarves are forbidden in state schools. By KATRIN BENNHOLD Published: September 29, 2008 MARSEILLE, France — The bright cafeteria of St. Mauront Catholic School is conspicuously quiet: It is Ramadan, and 80 percent of the students are Muslim. When the lunch bell rings, girls and boys stream out past the crucifixes and the large wooden cross in the corridor, heading for Muslim midday prayer. Enlarge This Image Franco Zecchin for The International Herald Tribune Amina at the blackboard. In a French magazine's recent ranking of high schools, 15 of the top 20 were Catholic schools. "There is respect for our religion here," said Nadia Oualane, 14, a student of Algerian descent who wears her hair hidden under a black head scarf. "In the public school," she added, gesturing at nearby buildings, "I would not be allowed to wear a veil." In France, which has only four Muslim schools, some of the country's 8,847 Roman Catholic schools have become refuges for Muslims seeking what an overburdened, secularist public sector often lacks: spirituality, an environment in which good manners count alongside mathematics, and higher academic standards. No national statistics are kept, but Muslim and Catholic educators estimate that Muslim students now make up more than 10 percent of the two million students in Catholic schools. In ethnically mixed neighborhoods in Marseille and the industrial north, the proportion can be more than half. The quiet migration of Muslims to private Catholic schools highlights how hard it has become for state schools, long France's tool for integration, to keep their promise of equal opportunity. Traditionally, the republican school, born of the French Revolution, was the breeding ground for citizens. The shift from these schools is another indication of the challenge facing the strict form of secularism known as "laïcité." Following centuries of religious wars and a long period of conflict between the nascent Republic and an assertive clergy, a 1905 law granted religious freedom in predominantly Roman Catholic France and withdrew financial support and formal recognition from all faiths. Religious education and symbols were banned from public schools. France is now home to around five million Muslims, Western Europe's largest such community, and new fault lines have emerged. In 2004, a ban on the head scarf in state schools prompted outcry and debate about loosening the interpretation of the 1905 law. "Laïcité has become the state's religion, and the republican school is its temple," said Imam Soheib Bencheikh, a former grand mufti in Marseille and founder of its Higher Institute of Islamic Studies. Imam Bencheikh's oldest daughter attends Catholic school. "It's ironic," he said, "but today the Catholic Church is more tolerant of — and knowledgeable about — Islam than the French state." For some, economics argue for Catholic schools, which tend to be smaller than public ones and much less expensive than private schools in other countries. In return for the schools' teaching the national curriculum and being open to students of all faiths, the government pays teachers' salaries and a per-student subsidy. Annual costs for parents average 1,400 euros (less than $2,050) for junior high school and 1,800 euros (about $2,630) for high school, according to the Roman Catholic educational authority. In France's highly centralized education system, the national curriculum proscribes religious instruction beyond general examination of religious tenets and faiths as it occurs in history lessons. Religious instruction, like Catholic catechism, is voluntary. And Catholic schools take steps to accommodate different faiths. One school in Dijon allows Muslim students to use the chapel for Ramadan prayers. Catholic schools are also free to allow girls to wear head scarves. Many honor the state ban, but several, like St. Mauront, tolerate a discreet covering. The school, tucked under an overpass in the city's northern housing projects, embodies tectonic shifts in French society over the past century. Founded in 1905 in a former soap factory, the school initially served mainly Catholic students whose parents were French, said the headmaster, Jean Chamoux. Before World War II, Italian and some Portuguese immigrants arrived; since the 1960s, Africans from former French colonies. Today there is barely a white face among the 117 students. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/world/europe/30schools.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Cosa tocca fare per poter mettere il velo!

Francia, le musulmane nelle scuole cattoliche per indossare il velo
Migliaia i giovani di fede islamica che frequentano istituti cattolici per aggirare la legge sulla laicità
Le ragazze nel collegio di St. Mauront, a Marsiglia (foto dal New York Times) MARSIGLIA (Francia) – Frequentare una scuola cattolica per indossare il velo islamico. In Francia sono ormai decine di migliaia le ragazze musulmane che studiano in istituti cattolici privati per aggirare la legge sulla laicità dello Stato che vieta di ostentare simboli religiosi nelle scuole pubbliche francesi. Il New York Times dedica un ampio reportage a questo crescente fenomeno e sottolinea che le giovani musulmane scelgono gli istituti cattolici proprio perché qui sono tollerati tutti i simboli religiosi, anche quelli appartenenti a religioni diverse da quella cattolica romana.
CIFRE - La maggior parte degli studenti, in alcuni istituti privati cattolici, è di religione musulmana. Addirittura nel collegio di St. Mauront, a Marsiglia, la presenza di alunni di fede islamica raggiunge la percentuale record dell'80%. Gli istituti musulmani in Francia sono solo quattro e per questo le 8.847 scuole cattoliche sono diventate l'ultimo rifugio per quei tanti musulmani che considerano la legge sulla laicità dello Stato qualcosa di ingiusto e liberticida. Secondo le statistiche diffuse dagli insegnanti francesi oggi le scuole cattoliche transalpine sono frequentate da circa due milioni di ragazzi: oltre il 10% degli studenti sono di religione musulmana.
TOLLERANZA - Gli alunni di origine musulmana che frequentano la scuola cattolica di St. Mauront si dichiarano felici di non studiare in un istituto pubblico: «Qui almeno c'è rispetto per la nostra religione» taglia corto Nadia, studentessa di 14 anni di origine algerina. «Nelle scuole pubbliche non potrei mai indossare il velo». Anche gli esponenti del mondo religioso musulmano fanno notare le contraddizioni insite nella scuola francese. «La laicità è diventata la religione di Stato e la scuola repubblicana il suo tempio» afferma Imam Soheib Bencheikh, ex Gran Muftì di Marsiglia e oggi fondatore dell'Istituto di Alti Studi Islamici. «È ironico, ma oggi la Chiesa Cattolica è molto più tollerante dello Stato francese quando si parla di Islam» conclude Bencheikh che ha una figlia che frequenta una scuola cattolica. Gli istituti cattolici in Francia hanno un costo relativamente basso rispetto ai collegi privati delle altre nazioni: in media i genitori spendono 1400 euro per le scuole medie inferiori e 1800 euro per quelle superiori.
LIBERTÀ RELIGIOSA - Jean Chamoux, direttore dell'istituto di St. Mauront, lavora in questa scuola da circa 20 anni: «A differenza della scuola pubblica noi crediamo nella libertà religiosa» afferma il preside. «Se proibissi alle ragazze di portare il velo, la metà degli studenti che oggi sono in queste classi non andrebbe a scuola. Preferisco averli qui, parlare con loro e spiegare che esse sono ragazze fortunate perché possono scegliere». Naturalmente anche nel collegio di St. Mauront non regna sempre l'armonia. È lo stesso preside Chamoux a confessare che probabilmente una minoranza delle studentesse è costretta dai genitori a portare il velo. Inoltre quando vi sono le lezioni di nuoto, tanti familiari fanno rimanere a casa le proprie figlie per evitare che mostrino parti del corpo o che nuotino in piscina con dei ragazzi. Infine Chamoux sottolinea che anche le libertà religiose hanno un limite: quando gli studenti musulmani gli hanno chiesto di togliere dalla classe il crocifisso per poter pregare «liberamente» durante i giorni del Ramadan, egli non ha voluto sentire ragioni e non ha mosso dalla parete il simbolo cristiano.
CRITICHE – Le considerazioni dei fautori del secolarismo sono totalmente diverse da quelle del preside Chamoux. Secondo costoro bisognerebbe rafforzare ulteriormente lo spirito laico dello Stato affinché alcuni dei valori occidentali quali il rispetto della donna e le libertà personali continuino ad essere principi inviolabili: «Il velo è un simbolo sessista e attesta la sottomissione della donna all'uomo» afferma Xavier Darcos, ministro dell'educazione francese. «Nella nostra scuola repubblicana non vi può essere posto per la discriminazione sessuale».
Francesco Tortora
Dal Corriere della Sera on line

HOLOCAUST FOR ........THE STORY

HOLOCAUST FOR NIGERIAN GAYS? 2

As I was saying… I really did not know much of homosexuals and homosexuality in Nigeria except those ........’it happens in the north ……….girls do it in the dormitories and call it SUPE or SHUPE…’ and other naive stuff like that .

In the early ‘80s as young African students in Rome we noticed that in the public urinary at the Stazione Termini some men used to ‘crane or giraffe ‘ their neck as to see your p.. while urinating. Oh Dio !! we did not understand anything; The first day we wondered all through the 30 minutes ride on metropolitan to Ostia Lido what and why a man should be interested in seeing the p….. of another male. The last day we used that urinary was the day one of us was touched on the buttocks by a vulgar homosexual fellow. This poor newly arrived African boy thought in his anger that the best revenge was to urinate on the man, but he was disappointed when the man instead enjoyed the mess…... ..We ran out in disgust and fear. That was the last such public urinary saw us for a very long time. In the second year we took some lessons in psychology and sociology where we had refs on homosexuality etc.

While doing my NYSC in the North and a period I worked as a guidance counsellor in girls schools in the south , I observed some ambiguous relationship between teenage girls very few cases were unequivocal though. I was particularly careful because I knew many parents would not understand if they learnt you handled a report of ‘SUPE’ relationship of their daughter. You might even be blamed for that even if they understood. It wasn’t easy for me as a young graduate and the first guidance councillor in that female school. However, we regarded such as ‘behaviour that will pass with the time’. We believed some did pass with time - did they?

Back in Europe at the beginning of the 90’s I lost my job and had to hang on a job with a Stylist and high fashion designer… (a world name). I was shuttling cities- Rome, Milan, Paris etc on fashion exhibitions with our models and other staff. I was at the back stage and kept records of the dresses and accessories so it was imperative I had to be in the dressing rooms always; a great embarrassment to me in the first days. Imagine a ‘poor Christ’ landing from Enugu directly into a hall full of nude, half nude and uninhibited girls I only see in magazines and televisions. It was a mental torture I must say, even physical also..… hahahahah. Wetin man pikin no go bear for money? I felt dehumanized or ‘demanized’, no matter most of them were like sticks and lacked most of the elements in my fantasies. About 80% of them were underfed, underweight, unmannered, uneducated ; The only thing most of them had more or over were doses of things that did not do them any good rather the cause of their depreciation. I am not a cannibal but do not like bones. I respect peoples tastes but still wonder what a man would do with a mass of bones?

However I was encouraged and brushed up to face the job and the girls by a nice designer from the Rome arts academy weighing more than two of our models put together and had size 4+ of the brassier: we became friends immediately because we were among the few that ate what human beings ate. We became a pair in everything ,yes everything. She saved me from confusion.

During the coffee break the first day , I went with two gentlemen in our team and they also booked seats for the lunch. They were in charge of the cosmetics, hair and general body beauty of these models . They were very easy, funny and well-mannered but were always critical of any girl I proposed I would check out after work that evening :Rome is nice in the evening. I initially thought they were as people already in the sector protecting me; then I later became suspicious of their changing topics whenever I went to conclude how to end my evening.

My real problem was not with the models and their behaviour but with the make up fellows. Almost all the high profile make-up specialists, hairdressers in the high fashion biz are males. Those in our team then were all rich professionals and the girls liked and wanted them, I was not rich but liked and wanted most of the girls that liked the make-up men ,my designer girl informed me that all the make-up men liked and may want me. (I hope one can still understand this mathematics of ‘liking and wanting’). Dio mio!! I rushed into the toilet to throw up but didn’t because I bumped on two models (females) in ‘funny behaviour’ there, I remembered the Holy bible-Sodom and Gomorrah.

After the rehearsals I made sure I passed the evening with the designer to make sure ‘everything still functioned ‘ correctly with me. She was happy I was afraid and inwardly wanted me to be frightened every evening for her to reassure me always……. Or reciprocal reassurance I would say.
I left the job later for another job after a lot of 'reassurances that things still functioned' the way I wanted them .
The next job was still more challenging.
Charles Okey C.

Homosexuality in Africa

Among Swahili-speakers on the Kenya coast, particularly in the port of Mombasa, mashoga are
transgenderedtransgendered prostitutes who have all the liberties of men and are also welcome in many contexts in which men are prohibited. The paid partner usually takes the receptive role during intercourse, but it is likely that his inferiority derives from the fact that he is paid to provide what is asked for, rather than from his undertaking a particular sexual role. The one who pays is called the basha (derived from "pasha," a high-ranking official and the local term for the king in packs of playing cards).
Among the Fon, the predominant people in Dahomey (now Benin), Melville Herskovits in the 1930s reported that, after the age at which boys and girls may play together, "the sex drive finds satisfaction in close friendship between boys in the same group . . . . A boy may take the other 'as a woman,' this being called gaglgo, homosexuality. Sometimes an affair of this sort persists during the entire life of the pair" (though he earlier referred to homosexual relations as a "phase" through which adolescents pass).
Egalitarian Homosexual Relations
Most of the reports of homosexual relations not involving differences in age or gender status involved young, unmarried men's sexual relationships with each other. Kurt Falk wrote about an especially intimate bond of association, soregus, among the southeastern African Naman that included sex both between men and between women (with mutual masturbation the most common form of sex, but also males taking turns at anal penetrations and females using dildoes on each other).
An "exceptionally reliable" Nykakyusa (a people living around what is now the Tanzania/Zimbabwe border) reported to Monica Wilson in the early 1930s that male friends, who live in villages of age-mates when not out herding cattle, generally sleep together. The Nykakyusa accepted that male friends who danced together would have sexual relations. "Even if people see them in flagrante delicto, they say it is adolescence (lukulilo), all children are like that: they say that sleeping together and dancing is also adolescence," according to Wilson's elder. He reported that interfemoral intercourse is "what boys mostly do" and also reported anal and oral sex, ("some, during intercourse, work[ing] in the mouth of their friend, and hav[ing] an orgasm").
Female Homosexual Relations
Controversy continues about the purported chastity of female husbands in various African cultures. An Ovimbundu (in Angola) informant, told an ethnographer, "There are men who want men, and women who want women. . . . A woman has been known to make an artificial penis for use with another woman." Such practices did not meet with approval, but neither did transvestite homosexuals of either sex desist.
Among the Tswana (in addition to homosexuality among the men laboring in the mines), it was reported that back home "lesbian practices are apparently fairly common among the older girls and young women, without being regarded in any way reprehensible." Use of artificial penises was also reported among the Ila and Naman tribes of South Africa.
There is more surmise than documentation of sexual relationships in female compounds in various African societies, though there are attestations of female homosexuality in some of the same places in which male homosexuality was more intensively studied (including Mombasa and among the Azande).
The most extensive discussion is of "mummy" and "baby" (that is, age-differentiated) roles in Lesotho. Relationships are initiated voluntarily by one girl who takes a liking to another and simply asks her to be her mummy or her baby, depending on their relative age, according to Judith Gay. "The most frequently given reason for initiating a particular relationship was that one girl felt attracted to the other by her looks, her clothes, or her actions. . . . Sexual intimacy is an important part of these relationships." Over time, a Sotho may undertake both roles (with different partners) or play the same role with different partners.
Conclusion
With reports from hundreds of sub-Saharan African locales of male-male sexual relations and from about fifty of female-female sexual relations, it is clear that same-sex sexual relations existed in traditional African societies, though varying in forms and in the degree of public acceptance. Much of this same-sex activity was situational or premarital, though there were long-term relationships, too. The special Christian animus toward homosexuality was carried to Africa by Europeans and stimulated denials that "the sin not named among Christians" existed among "unspoiled" Africans.


Many forms of ambiguous sexuality can be found throughout the traditional arts of Africa, including images of androgyny, hermaphroditism, and transvestism; and much of erotic sculpture and theater can also be seen as homoerotic.literature
The treatment of same-sex relationships in African literatures has been influenced by the traditional belief systems of various African societies, the imported views of Christianity and Islam, and the political and legal legacies of European colonialism.social sciences
Anthropology, the first of the social science disciplines to take sexuality--and particularly homosexuality--seriously as a field of intellectual inquiry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has achieved a new impetus in the post-Stonewall era.
social sciences Beginning in the 1960s increasing numbers of ethnographers have conducted research on glbtq issues, spurred by the premise that studies of diverse sexualities are crucial to understanding human behavior and culture.
social sciences "Indigenous" is a concept important in the history of anthropology, particularly as it regards anthropology's treatment of same-sex sexual relations.
social sciences
Santería, Vodou, and related belief systems comprise a complex of religious ideas, practices, and imagery whose origins can be traced to West African traditions.social sciences sciences/situational_homosexuality.
Situational Homosexuality
Situational homosexuality is same-sex sexual activity that occurs not as part of a gay life style, but because the participants happen to find themselves in a single-sex environment for a prolonged period.social sciences
Although evidence of his own homosexual leanings is inconclusive, in his lifetime Sir Richard Burton was regarded with suspicion because of his knowledge and understanding of same-sex sexual activity.


bibliography

Besmer, Fremont E. Horses, Musicians, and Gods: The Hausa Possession Trance. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey, 1983.
Donham, Donald L. History, Power, Ideology: Central Issues in Marxism and Anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Epprecht, Mark. "The 'unsaying' of Indigenous Homosexualities in Zimbabwe." Journal of Southern African Studies 24 (1998): 631-51.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. "Sexual Inversion among the Azande." American Anthropologist 72 (1970): 1428-34.
Falk, Kurt. "Homosexualiät bei den Eingeborenen in Südwest-Afrika." Geschlecht und Gesellschaft 13 (1925): 209-11.
Gay, Judith. "'Mummies and Babies' and Friends and Lovers in Lesotho." Journal of Homosexuality 11 (1985): 97-116.
Herskovits, Melville. Dahomey. New York: Augustine, 1937.
Murray, Stephen O., and Will Roscoe. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Shepherd, Gill. "Rank, Gender and Homosexuality: Mombasa as a Key to Understanding Sexual Options." The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. Pat Caplan, ed. London: Tavistock, 1987. 240-70.
Wilson, Monica. Good Company: A Study of the Nyakyusa Age Villages. 1951. Rpt. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963.

HOLOCAUST FOR NIGERIAN GAYS?

I have followed this debate with a lot of interest but it is not easy to stay quiet in the face of indirect mobilization of people to do harm to others and themselves. Many people may shy away from this topic or address it superficially of falsely because of societal prejudice.

What did we know of gays, homosexuals, transgender etc while growing up in our villages and towns in Nigeria? I dare say almost nothing? Some smart ones in the south who do not even know how to explain its dynamics say ‘it is something evil Moslems (Hausas) do in the north. Probably the case/accusation will be the opposite when you get to the north ………It is always other people’s problems.

Why all these ‘kill them, exterminate them, don’t allow them, the bible said……, God said….., nature said……. etc’ that is going on in our communities now? The rat said that he is not annoyed with the person who hit him with a broom as he is with those who were shouting “don’t allow him to escape”. We should rethink and moderate our words. i.e the weight and influence they might have on others.

This brings to mind the killing of twins and other little complications our level of scientific knowledge couldn’t arrive at until the missionaries arrived. Who would have convienced our ‘ignorant’ grand parents that they weren’t defending nature and the laws set by God. ‘……..A WOMAN SHOULD GIVE BIRTH TO ONLY A CHILD AND NO MULTIPLE GESTATIONS LIKE GOATS…….’ These were considered words of God because 98% of the populace did so.

My auntie told me that when they were kids their neighbour had a son very normal and very lively, but they noticed that he was using more his left hand so they hung a stone on that left hand so that he would not use it as it was clear the child was becoming left handed; something not still accepted in many Nigerian cultures. The kid used his right hand and my auntie told us that the very boy at a point became strange and was always strange, did not associate with people and spoke rarely to anyone. When he grew up at about the age of 22 he committed suicide. I do not want too much psychology but any reader will understand the role suppression and psychological repression played here.

The writer from Abuja claims that one is trying to change what God has created by being a gay, transgender etc. Who created the Gay or do we believe he went through a process to learn it or are we associating it to a vice like stealing that should be addressed through re education? There are so many mechanisms and dynamics that one must have undergone before expressing his homosexual attitudes.

Following some of your debates one will even attribute it to God. I do not think that God will punish my father for opening the earlobes of my sisters for the ear rings nor put him in hell fire for circumcising his male children, with the accusation of changing what he GOD has created. Nobody told God how to create him but the society decides who stays in the society; is this against Gods wish? Some people are born genius and some imbeciles; the society takes the genius and the imbecile is condemned to death in one way or the other according to the social education of the populace. How do we put Gods wish here. Why are there less imbeciles, down syndrome persons etc in our Nigerian society? Someone opined that we are more blessed than the Oyibo people who he claims indulge in many unnatural activities. We all know the truth; they are either put to death knowingly or unknowingly in our society. You may see cases of children with such syndromes in many educated/schooled families in Nigeria. Why? High level of Social and cultural understanding which in many cases advances also economic levels as simple as this.

Every religion is claimed to condemn homosexuality. This is alright and true. My preacher in Nigeria whenever he comes in and sees my girlfriend in trousers was always fast in showing me where it is written in the bible that men should not wear clothes of women or the other way round (pardon but I cannot remember that verse). I do not know if that portion is still in the holy book. I do not intend to blaspheme anyway. I had always pointed out to him that Jesus (from the images were made to see and believe) never wore trousers i.e men’s cloth but attires I as a Nigerian may associate with women’s dresses ). Therefore, that the application of that verse is relative and may still change with time and places. Don’t remind me I know “….everything will change but the words of God will remain……” this is also somewhere, but I cannot remember…….heeelp!!! This is just a little insight into how things can change or applications may vary.

Why are we intolerant to things we do not understand instead of getting to know what and why it is happening? Why do we see homosexuals as evil and never wonder if the other person is thinking the same of us who may still be the majority? How have we transformed ourselves to ‘super beings’ quasi gods capable of assigning and interpreting feelings?

I will stop here because I may be having inspection in the office.

Later I will say something of my working experience with homosexuals, Tran’s genders, prostitutes etc.

Charles Okey.C

(Roma-Italia)

GENITAL MUTILATION & IMMIGRATION

AG: Don't deport genital mutilation victim

From Terry Frieden
CNN Justice Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. attorney general is trying to prevent immigration authorities from sending a Muslim woman to her home country, where she was a victim of female genital mutilation.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey ordered an immigration court to reconsider an African woman's case.

In a stinging order overriding federal immigration courts, Mukasey blasted a decision that said a 28-year-old citizen and native of Mali should be expelled "because her genitalia already had been mutilated [so] she had no basis to fear future persecution if returned to her home country."

Calling the rationale "flawed," Mukasey sent the case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals with orders to reconsider.

The woman, a native of Mali, begged the court not to send her back to her Bambara tribe.

The 28-year-old said if she returned and had a daughter, the child also would be subject to mutilation. The woman also said she faced forced marriage if she had to go home.

Mukasey cited what he concluded were two significant factual errors in the court's rejection of her appeal.

Don't Miss

• Read Mukasey's full letter to the court

"Female genital mutilation is not necessarily a one-time event," Mukasey said. He noted that the board in a previous case had granted asylum in to one woman whose "vaginal opening was sewn shut approximately five times after being opened to allow for sexual intercourse and child birth."

He also concluded that the Board of Immigration Appeals was wrong to assume that the woman "must fear persecution in exactly the same form [namely, repeat female genital mutilation] to qualify for relief."

Mukasey had been urged to look into the matter by angered members of Congress in the wake of the January decision.

"This recent action taken by the Board of Immigration Appeals is a step backward for the rights of women worldwide," declared Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, in a January letter.

"Female genital mutilation is a gross violation of a woman's human rights and has traditionally been grounds for the granting of an asylum claim," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California, said in the letter.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, issued a statement applauding Mukasey's action, and declaring female genital mutilation a "barbaric practice widely regarded as a human rights abuse."

The Justice Department acknowledged it is extraordinarily rare for an attorney general to jump into a relatively low-level immigration case. The immigration courts decide about 40,000 cases a year, and an attorney general has issued an opinion on a case only three times in the past three years.

Female genital mutilation is common in parts of Africa, Asia and in some Arab countries, according to the United Nations. The operation is viewed by some ethnic groups as a means to control a woman's sexuality and is sometimes a prerequisite for marriage or the right to inherit.

The procedure can cause tissue injury, severe infection and fever, among other complications. The U.N. has recorded cases in which hemorrhaging and infection lead to death.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/09/22/genital.mutiliation.immigrant/index.html?eref=edition

BUCO NERO

Nel buco nero di Castelvolturno dove la vita vale 25 euro al giorno

Eduardo Di Blasi

Si chiama Nency, ma il nome l'ha da tempo napoletanizzato in Nunzia. Viene dal Kenya, anche se quando le poni la domanda risponde: «Da Roma, ho fatto due anni per spaccio di droga a Rebibbia». Ha quasi cinquant'anni, i capelli bianchi, tre figlie e un ex marito che le passa 500 euro al mese. È una madre di famiglia che in questi due anni ha inventato una bugia («ho detto che sono andata in convento») per non raccontare alle figlie una verità difficile da nascondere.

Oggi, uscita da quel convento, è tornata a Castel Volturno e ha lasciato le figlie a Roma. Ha fame, in tasca non ha nemmeno i soldi per le sigarette, gira per strada con uno scialle leggero mentre inizia a fare veramente freddo. Eppure è tornata qui. Perché? Perché solo qui Nunzia può sopravvivere, può arrangiarsi, può grattare qualcosa per se, può nascondersi assieme agli altri suoi connazionali nell'enorme buco nero che da quasi trent'anni cancella le storie degli africani d'Italia. Troverà un tetto, troverà dei soldi, spacciando o mettendosi sul ciglio della strada a vendere quello che resta di se stessa. Ce la farà: sopravviverà. Troverà la sua fetta di vita alle spalle della Domitiana, in queste case basse attraversate da stradine piene di rifiuti e di facce di neri. Manderà i soldi a casa da questo nuovo convento senza indirizzo. Nessuno le chiederà nulla.
Come nessuno chiederà mai niente ad Alex, ghanese di 30 anni, faccia incazzata mentre cerca di mettere in fila due parole in italiano. Nessuno gli chiederà nulla, tranne l'affitto per il letto (150 euro al mese) e le sue braccia, che sono in vendita tutte le mattine alle cinque, in una piazza di Pianura, davanti al bar Ferrara. Una giornata di lavoro senza alcuna copertura assicurativa viene via per 20-25 euro, sei giorni la settimana domenica esclusa, sempre che il padrone non decida che preferisce picchiarti e non darti nulla, perché tu, in fondo, non sei niente.
Ecco perché nessuno chiede loro nulla, perché loro non esistono. Sono ventimila gli immigrati irregolari nella provincia di Caserta, almeno 11mila quelli di Castel Volturno, che sono per la stragrande maggioranza africani.

«Non esiste un posto così nel mondo», avvisa Antonio Casale, direttore del centro Fernandes, da 12 anni fiore all'occhiello della Caritas di Capua nel cuore di questo buco nero. Non esiste, non fa fatica a rispondere, perché qui, in 30 anni, non è successo niente. «Prima arrivavano i francofoni del Benin e della Costa D'Avorio, poi è stata la volta dei ghanesi, dei togolesi, dei nigeriani. Oggi arrivano i sudanesi, i liberiani, sempre più poveri e più ignoranti». Arrivano a Castel Volturno per due motivi fondamentali. Il primo è che in nessun posto del mondo un immigrato irregolare potrebbe trovare una casa. Non ci sono barboni a Castel Volturno. Tutti hanno un tetto dove ripararsi in questo paradiso di seconde case cadenti. La seconda ragione è che qui ci sono gli altri africani, da sempre. E allora puoi creare una microcomunità.
Eccolo il «modello Castel Volturno», la non integrazione di bianchi e neri che ha portato a quella che Casale definisce «la separatezza». Nel buco nero senza legge, dove anche un occupante di casa napoletano può chiedere l'affitto a un africano e la cosa sembra normale, dove le automobili non solo non hanno l'assicurazione esposta, ma alcune nemmeno il posto dove esporla, le comunità vivono per conto proprio.

«Hanno i loro negozi, i loro quartieri, anche le loro chiese». Tutti. Ognuno per sè. Ecco perché anche quelli che vivono qui da dieci anni non parlano una parola di italiano: perché sembra non dovergli servire. «Se ne accorgono appena vanno via da Castel Volturno». È un circolo vizioso che crea questi mondi paralleli, questi traffici leciti e illeciti. È l'obiettivo di trovare i sessanta euro a settimana, le due-tre giornate di lavoro.

«Cacciar via gli immigrati non è la soluzione al problema di quest'area. Per Castel Volturno e il litorale Domizio occorre altro: un organico progetto di riqualificazione». A parlare è l'arcivescovo di Capua, monsignor Bruno Schettino, che presiede la fondazione Fernandez, che accoglie ogni giorno 60 immigrati con un servizio mensa che offre il pranzo a 100 persone. «Hanno paura ed è comprensibile: per mia esperienza personale questa è gente che non fa alcun male». Ma quel che ci vuole è una strategia: «Il discorso è più ampio e non si risolve mandando via alcune centinaia di stranieri, che qui fanno lavori che altri non intendono svolgere».

Fabio Basile, anche lui da anni nella trincea di Castel Volturno a metterci tutto quello che può metterci la società civile in un processo del genere (è tra gli animatori del centro sociale "Ex canapificio" di Caserta da sempre impegnato sul mondo migrante), non fa fatica a descrivere il modello suddetto: «È così, e nessuno se ne importa. Il governo, ancora una volta, pensa di farne un problema di sicurezza pubblica, ma qui è chiaro che stiamo parlando d'altro».
Vediamo bene di cosa stiamo parlando allora. «Noi siamo un piccolo comune campano con i problemi di una metropoli», sintetizza il sindaco di Castel Volturno Francesco Nuzzo e per fare un esempio dell'enorme mole di lavoro che si trova a fronteggiare nella sua scomoda posizione spiega: «Abbiamo ventimila irregolari, venti vigili urbani e una sola assistente sociale, perché con i tetti di spesa non possiamo assumerne nemmeno un'altra, e non sto dicendo che ne servono due».

Non va meglio a polizia e carabinieri che dovrebbero presidiare un territorio in cui le regole non solo non esistono, ma sembra quasi non possano esistere, con la camorra che possiede case, negozi e bar, che spara e commercia, costruisce, investe, interra rifiuti speciali e fa mozzarelle. E queste centinaia di facce scure, schiavi composti di questa terra, che solo per identificarli ci vorrebbero 5mila giorni e per sequestrargli la macchina un deposito giudiziario di diversi chilometri quadri. Angelo Papadimitra, segretario della Cgil di Caserta, non ha dubbi: «Da questa storia si esce solo con una legge speciale per Castel Volturno. Ci vuole una sanatoria». Invece il governo si fa portabandiera di un nuovo «ordine pubblico», in un posto in cui i sei africani ammazzati giovedì scorso aspettano ancora un funerale. Tra sabato e domenica non si è trovato nessuno che facesse l'autopsia di quei corpi crivellati di colpi.

http://www.unita.it/view.asp?IDcontent=79205