LONDON – do you Speak Italian, neapolitan or sicilian? The question is part of a questionnaire that some schools in the Uk have sent to the families of new pupils for the school year started about a month ago. The initiative had, in theory, one purpose of non-discriminatory: to establish the linguistic area of belonging of children of immigrants to be able to provide both children and possibly parents, with the necessary assistance in the learning of English.
Analyzing the form, you can see the subdivisions for the various types of language in punjabi, chinese, Arabic. And the list contains a category for the sardinian (sardinian), which is considered a separate language. But whatever the intent, the result has been, however, to hear our fellow countrymen as if they were “filed” on the basis of the regional origin. As if there were at least three types of citizen: the English-Italian, Italian-neapolitan and Italian-sicilian. Some Italian family has reported the incident to our embassy in London and the protest was immediate.
“The Embassy of Italy in United Kingdom has intervened to require the modification of certain categorizations that regional referred to in Italy appeared on the online forms for the school enrolment in some districts in England and Wales,” says a note from the press office of our embassy. “The codes that are presented for the selection of the ethnicity, used on the sites of some of the constituencies of the school, was in fact a choice between ‘Italian’, ‘Italian – napoletano’, and ‘Italian-sicilian’. The Embassy has protested to the british authorities, requesting the immediate removal of such categorizations”. In the verbal note of protest reminds us that “Italy from 17 march 1861 a united Country, and”: a comment on the sign of understatement in English, that is, without the need to shout, on the part of our embassy, which in simple words would be a tug on the wrist to the ministry of Education british, don’t you know that Italy is more a geographical expression?
To load further the controversy must have also contributed to the decision, only a few days ago, to exclude the researchers in the uk from a project on Brexit at the London School of Economics. With the difference that this time the Foreign Office the british did not hesitate to apologise to Italy “regrets the incident” and ensuring “an intervention so that they can be immediately removed these categorizations are not justified and not justifiable”. The Foreign Office, among other things, has informed that “will check for what reason, and in a few isolated school districts, have been introduced to these categorizations, and who, moreover, had no intention of discrimination, but simply aimed at ascertaining some of the additional difficulties of language for the children to enter the school system and English and welsh”.
To the apologies of the Foreign Office following the declaration of a spokesman to express his “regret” caused in Downing Street by the error “historic”. “The british government – also explains the spokesman – captures linguistic information such as part of the census of the school to ensure that students whose first language is not English are able to receive the best education possible in the United Kingdom. There has been reported the presence of a historic administrative error in the linguistic codes in use since 2006. Even if such error had no impact on the education received by the pupils of the italians in the United Kingdom, the british government expressed regret for the incident and to the injuries from this eventually caused. The ministry of Education, the british changed the codes in question and from today, all students-native speakers of Italian will be classified under a single code”.
Satisfied with the ambassador Pasquale Terracciano: “to avoid the mounting controversy about what was a mistake due to ignorance and superficiality on the part of some isolated school district more than a real desire-discriminatory basis. It is important to avoid the occurrence of misunderstandings in the delicate phase of post-Brexit”. The first of the apologies of the Foreign Office, the ambassador had been very hard in the report “local initiatives motivated probably by the intention to identify a non-existent language needs particular and to ensure the hypothetical support. But good intentions paved the road to hell, especially when they are unintentionally discriminatory, in addition, that offensive to the south”.
While the undersecretary at the Italian ministry of Education, David Pharaoh, said he was incredulous to the fact that “even today we are forced to face the prejudices of this type. The Italian school has gone beyond these stereotypes, and in Italy, as in the United Kingdom, you must work for the integration and education of future generations.”
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