Un-Italian games

The far-right mayor of Monfalcone, a small town on the Adriatic coast, has banned cricket from being played in the town. Foreigners make up nearly a third of the population of the town and are overwhelmingly represented by Bangladeshis working in the local shipyard. She has also removed benches from the town square, used by Bangladeshis, and criticised the clothes that Muslim women choose to wear on the beach.

“They’ve given nothing to this city, to our community. Zero,” she says. “They are free to go and play cricket anywhere else… outside of Monfalcone.”

Meanwhile, Italy has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe and faces severe labour shortages. Academics calculate that the country will need to import 280,000 foreign workers per annum over the next 25 years to bolster the shrinking workforce and support an ageing population.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5njmgmvq7o

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ninalanyon · 61-69, T

I heard a report on Radio 4 about that a month or two ago. It seems that there is right and wrong on all sides. The town is feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the imported workforce brought in by the shipyard. But without them the town would slowly die because the bulk of the young Italians move away for work and the shipyard would have to find other workers. The shipyard didn't just bring the Bangladeshis in because they are cheaper, they also have skills that are simply not available in the local workforce.

My impression was that the shipyard had not really worked hard enough to sell the situation to the local people and to help the immigrants settle in.

The mayor is obviously a xenophobe but does have a point that there is a substantial culture clash.

It's a problem that everyone will have to face in the future. One day the planet will have a stable population and then we will have no choice but to confront the fact that there will be a lot of old people

SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

@ninalanyon Meanwhile, it's never too late to start being nice to the people who very soon may be funding your pension and looking after you in your dotage . .