Senseless death...

The headlines in Rome today showed the picture of a grieving mother whose daughter was killed in a senseless attack. It wasn't just that a young girl was killed, but it was HOW that caused the headlines... Her daughter was stabbed in the eye with the tip if an umbrella while on the metro. She died a few days later. You can read more about this on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6606365.stm

An umbrella... in her eye... dead.

I can't imagine the pain the mother must be feeling, and for her to imagine the death of her daughter, in such a cruel, senseless act.

But what also made the news was the public reaction at the funeral, who quickly took up an anti-immigrant chant... you see, the umbrella belonged to a Romanian, actually a Romanian prostitute. She was filmed soon after the attack walking out of metro, all calm and collected.

As shocking and as horrible as this news was, what struck me is how easy it was to make this into an anti-immigrant attack. Chants such as "we pay all the taxes, they freeload off us" etc. were taken up by many.

Italy is going through a hard time, high unemployment, extra-ordinarily high rents, economic crises, low birth rate (I should add low "italian" birth rate, as the immigrants seem to be having a healthy fertility rate), and all the problems that come when all these things come together. Not a healthy mix.

And I couldnt help but think of this Romanian girl... I am not excusing any part of her senseless, horrible, crime - but let her be tried for her crime, not for the fact that she happens to be Romanian. If she had been Italian, would that have made the crime any less horrible? Or would we have instead focused on the horrible nature of the crime instead of focusing on unrelated issues such as high tax and unemployment.