{"id":18928,"date":"2018-07-11T09:17:17","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T07:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/?p=18928"},"modified":"2025-05-27T12:33:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T10:33:16","slug":"italy-racist-objections-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/italy-racist-objections-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy: Racist Protests at Pride? Let\u2019s Keep R-Existing!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attending the Gay Pride – for a gay immigrant from the Middle East<\/strong> – is a miracle that repeats itself every 365 days! For the past ten years I have not missed the Pride at my favorite city: Bologna.<\/p>\n

An immigrant who speaks of immigrants<\/h3>\n

When two members of my association, Il Grande Colibr\u00ec, invited me to be part of the Bologna Pride Committee 2018 to present the requests of the LGBTQIA migrant community<\/strong>, I immediately accepted. During a meeting in preparation of the event, I found out this was another important moment of the Pride: a Pride within the Pride!<\/p>\n

I was struck by the sensitivity, warmth and joyous reception of the people present at the table when they became aware that I am a gay immigrant: finally an immigrant talking about immigrant issues!<\/strong> I was asked to prepare a speech. Immigrants usually passively attend to political and social life. I felt “under scrutiny.” I wrote the speech and shared it with some members of Il Grande Colibr\u00ec, who helped me to summarize some concepts and improve others. It was a good team collaboration.<\/p>\n

We have involved the Migrabo\u2019 association and we got on the stage at the Pride in-arms. Once on the stage, I realized how big the audience was and for a moment, I panicked. Some people extended their applause as if they understood my strain. I spoke to the crowd about my wounded Syria. People listened and applauded. People\u2019s faces were bright with joy and amazement<\/strong> before this immigrant who, all things considered, knows the Italian language well and has enough courage to touch upon certain topics.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo back to Syria, Italians first!\u201d<\/h3>\n

Unfortunately, someone in the crowd told me to: “Go back to Syria!” At first, I thought I had misunderstood. I carried on with my speech and the crowd seemed overall enthusiastic. However, the insults kept coming, especially from a woman dressed in black who was standing near the stage, but she was not the only one. I heard statements like: “Go back home!<\/em>“, “Us (Italians) first!<\/em>“<\/strong> and while discussing how the 35 euros per diem is used by projects dedicated to asylum seekers, the tones became even more insistent: “It\u2019s 45 euros!<\/em>“, “It\u2019s 100 euros!<\/em>“, “Italians first!<\/em>“, “Fuck off!<\/em>”<\/p>\n

At some point I felt confounded and lost my voice<\/strong>. I tried to evade the situation by looking away, far beyond the crowd and thanks to the waving flags, I\u2019ve recognized a group of people with whom I share a long history of activism, which helped me to collect myself and to resume my speech. I then talked about asylum seekers who engage in socially useful jobs at ZERO euro, contrary to some politicians claim of asylum seekers getting paid 1,000 euro a month to sweep the street, helping in cafeterias or retirement homes.<\/p>\n

Jasmine, president of the Migrabo\u2019 association, spoke after me. The audience was very receptive to her speech. At the end, the event host delivered a firm and direct message<\/strong> to those who challenged us, inviting them – using a quite colorful language – to leave.<\/p>\n

To say I am very appreciative to the organizers of the Pride is pure rhetoric. So I will say that Saturday, July 7, 2018 I was at the utmost height of my pride as a gay man belonging to the LGBTQIA community in Bologna. Despite the chilling and gloomy political times and the soul eaters that are surfacing to the light, we are and remain a solid, warm and welcoming nursery<\/strong> for flowers of all colors and spice. We all exist and resist! Long live the Pride Wave !<\/p>\n

Paolo Ayoubi<\/strong>
\ntranslation by Barbara Burgio<\/strong>
\n\u00a92018 Il Grande Colibr\u00ec
\nphoto: Il Grande Colibr\u00ec<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attending the Gay Pride – for a gay immigrant from the Middle East – is a miracle that repeats itself every 365 days! For the past ten years I have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":18909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[565,533,566,569],"tags":[8434,5134,2639,2638,2636,2637,1831],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18928"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33689,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18928\/revisions\/33689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilgrandecolibri.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}