The ridiculous proposal to give Italian citizenship to those who know saints and festivals

Try to imagine the scene, because if we don't visualize it we struggle to grasp its almost theatrical absurdity. A girl or a boy who was born in Italy, or arrived here from another country within the age of 12 together with their parents, after a five-year school cycle, could be asked when issuing citizenship what the festival of pan of Camogli or when the party of Santa Rosalia is held. All featuring children from ten years of age if not younger, considering nursery schools. Not only festivals and popular traditions: they will have to master Italian history and traditions from antiquity to today with the utmost competence, rattle off the main festivities of the country, prove themselves competent in music, food and wine customs and the inevitable nativity scene. Practically a degree in ethno-anthropology of the Italian peninsula.

This is the grotesque picture that would emerge if the 651 amendments presented by the Lega and Fratelli d'Italia in full sabotage were approved and therefore came to modify the already very timid bill on ex ius soli transformed into the ius scholae. Among other things, to give citizenship to those who have always been Italian, the leaguers would also like to bind the recognition of the right to academic merit (diploma with a final grade of at least 90/100 or an average of 9).

What is the ius scholae It is a norm contained in the basic text for the reform of citizenship, which would allow minors children of migrants to obtain Italian citizenship after having attended at least five years of school The scheme it is always the same, some things do not change: you become Italian not because you were born here, you grew up in this country and here you have your whole life or an important piece of it, or at the most because you attended schools, but if anything because you you deserve. You have to earn that right. As such, for the nearly 900,000 girls and boys who are waiting for that recognition, it is no longer a right. The line of reasoning is the same as that from time to time, among the glories of the Quirinale or the Viminale, rewards some non-EU citizen with citizenship when he dives into the sea and saves a child or maybe it is a promise of sport: the heroism of rights, which instead should be the most natural and obvious that can be enjoyed only on the basis of requirements that give a legal framework under the de facto conditions.

We do not need the "sporting ius soli": we need the ius alone The Constitutional Affairs Commission, where the go-ahead for the basic text has already arrived, will evaluate today, 4 April, the admissibility of the 728 amendments (including those of the other political forces) to the text drafted by the president of the commission and rapporteur, Giuseppe Brescia of the M5S, which has always followed the issue. If most of those provocations, because this is what we are talking about, will be filed in the cabinet of Italian shame, the drawing could arrive in the courtroom in May.

Even Forza Italia, which also voted in favor in the first green light on the general system, proves to travel with a crazy compass. Hear the words of Annagrazia Calabria, vice president of the commission: "For us, the line is that of a citizenship reform that must start from a premise: being Italian is a reason for pride and awareness, and cannot ignore the culture and value that characterizes us Italians ". And she specifies that she has "put forward proposals for changes that aim to eliminate any automatism for the acquisition of citizenship: regular attendance and the successful conclusion of an entire cycle of education, elementary or middle school, must be demonstrated. This alone would demonstrate the necessary adhesion to a cultural and value universe. This qualitative criterion should be valued and not a purely quantitative requirement ".

If possible, the rationale of the measure - as it was already in the previous ius soli - is the exact opposite. And after all, the challenge between the so-called progressive parties that have been fighting their own battle for years without achieving half a result and the conservative ones is all here: automatism against conquest, recognition against merit. Arriving in Italy at an early age, residing there continuously, building your own cultural and value universe to take up the words of Calabria, and tackling a school cycle should be enough to trigger that automatism of citizenship that the usual right-handed theater intends to block at all costs. . Nothing else.

On the other hand, just as there is no merit in being born Italians, there must be no merit in being able to become one, if there are some essential requirements dictated by the direction that has taken its existence rather than by particular successes or milestones. If this were the case, that is, if a right were intertwined with a result or some political-legal evaluation, the opposite mechanism should also be possible: to remove Italian citizenship from Italians who, for example, commit serious crimes.

There are specific cases in which citizenship can be renounced or cases in which it can be revoked, even for crimes such as terrorism, but as long as that provision does not lead to the statelessness of the person. This is stated in Article 22 of the Constitution but also in the Convention on the reduction of statelessness signed in 1961 and entered into force in 1975 to which Italy joined in 2015, with a good delay of forty years. This means that an Italian who does not have the opportunity to acquire another citizenship or already has it, the Italian one can never be revoked. Not even if you confuse Sant'Agata with Santa Rosalia or the artichoke alla romana with that alla giudía.

No boy born to an Italian parent is subjected to the humiliation of a cross test at the truffle fair in San Miniato , on the infiorata of Spello or on the Horatii and the Curiazi in order to maintain or not their citizenship, at most we talk about it for a research work in the classroom. Why should it be imposed in the framework of a law that already includes a good number of requirements and is the mutilated reincarnation of a more sensible ius soli? Really all Italians feel proudly such, do they sincerely share the values ​​of our homeland (I am following a comment on Libero), do they know its history, do they identify with the narrative of freedom, equality, respect for the human person, protection of pluralism?

The answer is no, just leaf through a newspaper or read some sentence against Italian citizens. So what is the point of looking for "new generations of patriots" within a mechanism that aims to recognize rights and duties but which nothing should decline based on thoughts, opinions and perspectives? All patriots with the rights of others. Not to mention that society needs citizens, not patriots, saints or heroes.