Hat tip LGF.
Aug. 23 issue - Foreigners are not strangers to the old spice shop on Genoa's Via del Campo. The narrow little street near the port was first built up during the Crusades. In legend and song, it's glorified as a place where people on the edges of society find their way, and for several decades many of those people have been North African. But when a couple of middle-aged men walked into the shop the other day and asked for some dried fruits in Arabic instead of Italian, the old woman behind the counter blew up. "If they talk their language, then we talk our language!" she shouted—in a Genoese dialect which even many Italians wouldn't understand.
| Yeah, speak English, lady! |
Such outbursts aren't unique to exasperated shopkeepers. Resentment of immigrants, along with fear of Muslim terrorists, is fueling intolerance almost everywhere in Europe. Some incidents, like recent desecrations of Muslim and Jewish graves in France, draw wide attention. But Italy is fast acquiring a reputation for pervasive racism that's at once more passive and more passionate than elsewhere.
| So says a smug Newsweek columnist. |
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