Berlusconi and the ‘Mamma the Turks!’ strategy

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Berlusconi and the ‘Mamma the Turks!’ strategy | Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist.

As an anthropologist, I find the connection that Berlusconi and his team propose between Muslims and Gypsies very interesting. Italy has been rebuked by the European Union for the intolerable condition in which Gypsies (many of whom have been Italian citizens for centuries) are left, and the lack of religious spaces for minorities in the country, with the paradoxical situation that the Catholic Church supports the construction of mosques. But the similarities end there: Gypsies in Italy tend to be Catholic or are Muslims in they own way, and the number of mosques (there are only three ‘official’ ones in all Italy) as well as the ‘unofficial’ garage-based prayer spaces (likely no more than 750 in all Italy) cannot be compared with the larger number of Gypsy camps.

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