Being black in Italy
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2019
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dickens Olewe meets Italy’s first and only black senator, Tony Iwobi, and hears how a new generation of black Italians are fighting to claim their place in a society that’s still very white.
Born and raised in Nigeria, Senator Iwobi moved to Italy as a young man and carved out a successful career in business. Now he’s immigration spokesperson for the right-wing Lega party and wants to stop the illegal flow of migrants coming to Italy from Africa. BBC Africa journalist Dickens Olewe follows Iwobi in the Senate in Rome and finds out what it’s like to be black in a party that’s widely perceived as racist.
At a festival on the bank of the River Tiber, Dickens meets aspiring politician Paolo Diop from the Far-Right Brothers of Italy. Diop moved to Italy from Senegal as a baby and describes himself as “an Italian nationalist and an African nationalist” who wants to “make Africa great” by sending migrants home.
We also meet the young black activists coming of age in the midst of the migrant crisis and the rise of the political right. Born and bred in Italy, they feel deeply Italian but are not always recognised as such - among them the rapper Tommy Kuti whose work explores his Afro-Italian identity, the founder of Milan’s Afro Fashion Week Michelle Francine Ngonmo and the writer Igiaba Scego, whose parents grew up in one of Italy’s African colonies.
Producer: Helen Grady
(Image: Afro-Italian rapper and musician Tommy Kuti in Milan. Credit: Helen Grady/BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Up to three years ago I never thought to be able to enter this place. |
| 0:07.0 | That is the Senate, the higher Italian House of Parliament, very very important. |
| 0:12.0 | This is where they take decision for the nation. |
| 0:17.0 | I am Dickensulewe and you're listening to assignment on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:22.0 | We are in Rome with a man who has traveled from Nigeria |
| 0:25.1 | to the heart of the Italian establishment. Tony Ewobe is Italy's first and |
| 0:29.8 | only Black Senator. Frankly speaking, I strongly believe that it's my destiny. |
| 0:35.0 | I did all what I can do in the political world |
| 0:39.0 | without having the objective to become a senator. |
| 0:42.0 | But I'm here, it's quite a surprise also for me. |
| 0:46.4 | So what was it like on the first day you walked in? |
| 0:48.6 | Frankly speaking, it's not easy because I keep on thinking of my responsibilities. I try to ask myself why I'm here, what is my duty, |
| 0:56.7 | not only towards my consistently, but towards also my continent. |
| 1:01.2 | So you feel like you're representing Africa. |
| 1:04.0 | Anything I'm doing today, I'm not doing for myself, |
| 1:07.0 | but for the nation I represent and for African Black Race. |
| 1:11.0 | Tony I Wwabi has achieved something many Africans dream of. |
| 1:17.0 | He moved to Europe and became a successful businessman. |
| 1:20.0 | Now he's working to stop illegal migrants making the same journey from Africa to Europe. |
| 1:26.0 | His election to the Senate was part of a surge in support for the right-wing party Legge or the League. |
| 1:32.0 | Once an immigrant himself is now the |
| 1:34.9 | immigration spokesman for a party that wants to restrict immigration. In this program I'll be hearing how the rise of the political right is affecting a new |
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