2 - When Signor Esposito runs for British PM

Postwar Italian immigrants and their descendants are part of the UK's multicultural mainstream

NEWCASTLE, Britain - During a visit to the distant Roman colony of Britannia in 122 C.E., Hadrian, the philosopher emperor also known for his brutal suppression of a Jewish revolt in Palestine, realized that Rome's defence system had a hole right here, near the far north of this country; a hole that allowed the Celts to descend undisturbed from Caledonia, as Scotland was then called.
He therefore ordered the construction of a massive wall, 76 miles long, stretching from the mouth of River Tyne on the North Sea, where today's Newcastle stands, to the Salway Firth, the great fjord on the Atlantic where Carlisle was built, that became known as Hadrian's Wall.
It was not an impenetrable barrier, and in fact the Celts crossed it more than once. But from the forts (castra) located at regular intervals along the wall, the Roman legions launched timely counterattacks against the barbarians, and the military balance was re-established.
The system held for almost three centuries, until the fall of the Roman Empire turned the Wall into an near inexhaustible mine of ready-made construction materials: the stones used to build it were systematically looted for building houses in Northumberland and Cumbria. But ever since, Hadrian's Wall evoked in the collective imagination of Mediterranean-tempered Italians a faraway place, on the borders of the known world; a cold place, difficult to reach and to go beyond.
In the last century, Italian immigrants to modern Britain reached Hadrian's Wall and went beyond it. To the descendants of the staunch warriors who had caused so much trouble to Roman legions they taught how to eat gelato and pasta, introduced baba and panettone, medlars, figs and artichokes; and that thin-crust pizza baked in the oven is much better than thick-crust pizza baked in a pan or, even worse, fried.
The pax romana that arms could not guarantee is nowadays ensured by food. This is proved by almost 150 Italian restaurants in Newcastle, the highest number among non-Italian cities of 280,000 people.
Estimating the number of Italians living here is difficult. "A lot," people reply when asked. "Mostly Apulians, Calabrese, Sicilians, Ciociarians and Sardinians." But guessing is gambling, as the Italian community is well camouflaged, having adopted the British mainstream, although it never gave up the Italian mainstream either. People with two souls and two languages (especially the first generation), who saw and experienced the world (for many of them, Great Britain was the final stop of a long pilgrimage across Europe), who managed to earn the respect of the British - who were not overly enthusiastic, right after the World War II about accommodating former Fascist enemies. These people could have given Italy much more than money if only Italian governments had understood that it could be a resource. Is the creation of a Ministry for Italians Abroad enough to recover the time lost?
Data from the Italian Embassy in London mention 156,776 paisans in Great Britain, but these are merely those who are included in Consular Registries, so the figure must be considered far lower than the truth: enrolling in Consular Registries, all over the world, is far from a priority for our fellow nationals. The same source states that 94,815 Italians reside in the Consular District of London, 30,298 in that of Manchester, 20,768 in that of Bedford, and 10,895 in that of Edinburgh.
Following Italy's recent introduction of the right to vote for citizens living abroad, these people will be called to elect and be elected. Also in the United Kingdom the recognition of this right was, in the past, one of the battles waged by Italian politicized elite. (Here, like everywhere else, the politically apathetic mass of our fellow nationals never lost any sleep on voting). The battle was substantially lost, however, because the right only came when the immigrants arriving just after the war had largely lost their political interest and sentimental reasons. By now, practical considerations have replaced them: "How can I vote for the Parliament of a country I left 40 years ago?," an elderly Italian told me in Daniela's Bar in Jesmond. When I asked him his name he waved his hand in refusal. "Moreover, what do I know about Italy beyond what I read in British newspapers, not always tender with Rome?"
What about younger people? How fascinated are they by this right, so troubled in coming? Rebecca Cryer, 34, a marketing consultant, is the daughter of Italians. After coming to Britain to study, she stayed and got married. She carries two passports, one Italian and one British, and is therefore among those Italians living abroad who will be entitled to vote in the next elections. "I have a deep bond with Italy", she said, "because I know that a part of my cultural roots are there. However, I must say that being a citizen of the country where I was born is one thing, and being a citizen of the country where I live is another."
What does this imply? Mrs. Cryer: "I mean to say that voting gives a citizen a possibility to influence the choices of the country where she lives, so that the benefits of change reflect on her life and on her community. Now, if voting is meaningful for those Italians who are temporarily living abroad, for one or two years maybe. What possible meaning can it have for people who, like me, left Italy nine years ago? I feel uneasy thinking I could influence foreign policy, taxation, services, reforms, education and the health system of a country where I do not live and where most likely I will never live again. It feels contrived, and that makes me uneasy. But there is more than this."
What else? Mrs. Cryer: "If what I told you is true for me, who in any case lived for over 25 years in Italy and have now become Italian-British, it is even more true for the children and grandchildren of the early Italian immigrants to Britain, the British-Italians. These young people, about my age, may hold a double citizenship but are completely British; they have a distant perception of Italy, even though they often spend their holidays there. I know who Berlusconi and Rutelli are, what Ulivo and Casa delle Libertà are, but for many of these people these politicians and coalitions are mostly unknown."
The United Kingdom was the first country after the war that tackled the issue of multiculturalism. It happened in the late Forties, when the country received successive waves of Indian, Pakistani, and Caribbean immigrants from the crumbling British Empire. They came looking for jobs, and jobs were available, but their presence in increasing numbers had a strong impact because it changed the concept of "British People": suddenly, for the first time in history, the British were forced to compare their identity with that of the newcomers.
In an essay published in December 2001, emblematically titled The Trouble with Multiculturalism, Kenan Malik wrote that "since the Fifties it became apparent that the idea of 'Britishness' would not survive. That identity, rooted in Britain and in the Empire, was crumbling."
The United Kingdom did not entrench, but reacted. It did so pragmatically, i.e. acknowledging the changes. People began to talk about integration, but not without precise rules. In those early years, an aphorism by MP Roy Hattersley, explaining the path being followed by the British Parliament, gained fame: "Without limitation integration is impossible, without integration limitation is inexcusable."
It wasn't an easy process (there were clashes and protests), but in the end Britain managed to create the first kind of multiculturalism after the war, thus summarized by Roy Jenkins, Minister of the Interior in the Labour cabinet: "Cultural diversity, coupled with equal opportunity, in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance." Racial discrimination, which had been a flag of the irreducible supporters of the "British People", was replaced by cultural diversity.
Is this the reason why Italians had very few problems in integrating within the British society? "Yes, it is", replied Rebecca Cryer, "so much so that they needed no special protection, unlike other ethnic groups. They aren't considered extraneous."
Does this mean that, should a Gennaro Esposito run for Prime Minister tomorrow, nobody would complain?
"Nobody would bat an eyelid", she concluded.



This article is the 2nd in a continuing series on Italian expatriate communities around the world.

Publication Date: 2002-07-21
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1595