Among the issues that episodically agitate Italian public debate, there's one that the 2024 Olympic Games have indirectly helped to bring back to center stage. In a country governed by a far-right-dominated government, the performances of the national women's volleyball team, led by Nigerian-born prodigy Paola Egonu, gold medalist in Paris, have led to renewed talk of an old bone of contention: the conditions for obtaining Italian citizenship for the children of immigrants.
The issue now divides even Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's coalition. Her party Fratelli d'Italia (national conservatives) and, above all, Matteo Salvini's Lega (radical right) defend the current system, based on the right of blood, while Forza Italia (center right) is promoting a reform designed to link naturalization and schooling, while the right to nationality remains a deterrent.
On Wednesday, August 21, Antonio Tajani, vice president and national secretary of Forza Italia, went so far as to make an assertive plea for diversity in an interview with the left-leaning daily La Repubblica: "Guys, Italy has changed! In two years, we've welcomed 170,000 Ukrainians. It's our history. The Roman Empire welcomed [foreigners]. Sicily is full of last names of Arab origin. We have Arbereshe communities [Albanians settled in Italy from the 15th century onward], but they're Italians, aren't they! My own last name is of Arabic origin."
Tajani, who lays claim to the liberal heritage of Forza Italia's founder, entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi (1936-2023), also announced that his party's elected representatives could launch an initiative on the reform of access to nationality after the summer recess. This initiative could converge with the proposals along the same lines that have flourished within the opposition in recent weeks.
Once again, this political and media period of identity introspection has begun around the figure of Egonu who, at the age of 25, continues to serve as a catalyst for tensions over diversity issues in Italy. The volleyball player, who has represented her country with rare success in international competitions, is a regular target of the far right, who have attacked her for denouncing the widespread racism in Italian society, or simply because of her skin color.
In 2023 before entering politics, General Roberto Vannacci, a rising figure on the most radical right, wrote in the best-selling reactionary pamphlet that made him famous, Il Mondo al Contrario ("The World Upside Down," self-published) that Egonu's traits did not represent Italianness. He has since been elected to the European Parliament with the Lega, while laying the foundations for his own reactionary, pro-Russian political movement. The soldier has reiterated his stance on the athlete in the context of the Olympic Games.
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