No migratory tsunami from Libya will hit the southern coast of Italy. At least in the times, ways and proportions forecast by the keyed-up predictions that have been concerning the Italian public opinion. An actual oversight maybe due to an excess of caution of the Ministry of the Interior, which in the past was unprepared to face unexpected emergencies. Such as the “human discharge” from Albania which in a night away back in the first 1990s overflowed the city of Bari and its surroundings.
However, it is undoubted that much, or very much, of the excessive alarm over the migratory disaster was generated by a vague and rough analysis of the situation. Because of at least two reasons. The first one is that Libya is a huge but depopulated country. Around 6 million people, more or less the people living in Rome and the surroundings, live in a territorial extension which is equal to the sum of those of England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium together. Many of them are foreign immigrants looking for work. Not only from the neighbouring nations but even from China. And in these hours they are all trying to come back home storming the harbours docks and the check-in desks of Tripoli airport, without the slightest intention of heading for the Italian coast.
Excluding these ones, the other potential incomers could be the Rais’ subjects and the members of the sub-Saharan army, which many talk about but few have ever seen. As for the first group, it has a social, economic and cultural profile opposite to that of the Albanians, who had been forced by the Communist regime of Enver Hoxha to watch Italy through the keyhole of the spectacular Italian television. As for the army of the undocumented Central African soldiers it is even simpler. Even if this army really existed, today it would be discouraged by the political catastrophe that is shaking Libya from heading for the northern El Dorado, at least for the moment.
Illegal immigration, as any other activity, needs tested, well-known and reliable anchors, for the documents, checks and transport. Which today in Libya maybe still work in the remote oases of Girubab and Giofra.
(Translation: Francesca Cannino)
On the inside: