Italy Referendum on Citizenship Polarizes the Country

Sony Olumya was born in Rome and has lived in Italy throughout his life, but the country he calls a home does not recognize him as his own.

For Italy, Sony is a Nigerian, similar to his passport, and the 39-year-old is welcome, as long as his latest residence permission.

“I was born here. I will live here. I will die here,” the dancer and the activist in what he calls “macaroni” Italiano-English under the palm trees of a scarce Roman park.

“But you have no citizenship is like … to be rejected by your country. And I don’t think it’s a feeling we need to have.”

That is why Sony and others are campaigning to vote “Yes” in a national referendum on Sunday and Monday, which offers half the time it takes to apply for Italian citizenship.

Cutting the wait from 10 years to five would lead to this country in accordance with most others in Europe.

Georgia Meloni, the solid Prime Minister of Italy, has announced that he will boycott the vote by announcing the Citizenship Act already “excellent” and “very open”.

Other parties associated with it call on the Italians to go to the beach instead of the election station.

Sony will not participate either. He has no right to vote.

The question of who becomes Italian is sensitive.

A large number of migrants and refugees arrive in the country every year, helping the Mediterranean from North Africa from the smuggling of bands.

Meloni’s populist government did a great deal of work to reduce the number of arrivals.

But this referendum is aimed at those who have traveled legally to work to a country with a rapidly shrinking and aging population.

The goal is limited: to speed up the process of obtaining citizenship, not to facilitate the strict criteria.

“Knowledge of the Italian language, without criminal accusations, continuous residence and date – all different requirements remain the same,” explains Carla Taibi of the Liberal Party more Europe, one of several supporters of the referendum.

The reform would affect long -term foreign residents who have already been hired in Italy: from those of factory production lines to the north to those who care for retirees in the plush neighborhoods of Rome.

Their children under the age of 18 would also be naturalized.

Up to 1.4 million people can qualify for citizenship immediately, with some estimates varying higher.

“These people live in Italy, study and work and work. This is about changing their perception, so they are no longer unknown – but Italian,” Taibi said.

The reform would also have practically consequences.

As a nomalles, Sony cannot apply for a job in the public sector and even fights to receive a driver’s license.

When he was reserved for the hit reality show of the reality show last year, he eventually arrived two weeks late on the set in Honduras, as there were so many problems with getting the right documentation.

For a long time, melons completely ignore the referendum.

The Italian publicly owned media, ruled by a close ally of Meloni, also paid sparse attention to the vote.

There is no significant “no” campaign, which makes it difficult to balance the debate.

But the real reason seems strategic: in order for a referendum to be valid, more than half of all voters must be.

“They do not want to raise awareness of the meaning of the referendum,” explains Professor Roberto D’Alimonte of Louis University in Rome. “This is rational to make sure the 50% threshold will not be reached.”

In the end, the Prime Minister announced that he would appear at a construction station “to show respect for the urn” – but he will refuse to vote.

“When you do not agree, you also have the opportunity to abstain,” Meloni told a television chat show this week after critics accused her of disrespecting democracy.

The Italian citizenship system was “excellent,” she says, which already provides citizenship to more foreign citizens than most countries in Europe: 217,000 last year, according to the National Statistics Agency, Istat.

But about 30,000 of them were Argentines with Italian origin on the other side of the world, unlikely to even visit.

Meanwhile, Meloni’s coalition partner, Roberto Vanachi, has accused those behind the referendum on “selling our citizenship and deleting our identity”.

I ask Sony why he thinks his own citizenship claim has taken two decades.

“It’s racism,” he replies immediately.

At one point, his file is completely lost and now he is told that his case is “hanging”.

“We have ministers who talk about the rule of white – a racial replacement of Italy,” recalls an activist comment from 2023 by the Minister of Agriculture of the Meloni Own Party.

“They don’t want black immigration and we know it. I was born here 39 years ago, so I know what I’m saying.”

This is an accusation that the Prime Minister has repeatedly denied.

Insaf Dimassi defines itself as “Italian endless citizenship”.

“Italy allowed me to grow up and become a person I am today, so that it is not perceived as a citizen is extremely painful and disappointing,” she explains from the northern city of Bologna, where she studied for a doctoral degree.

Isaph’s father travels to Italy for work when she was a baby, and she and her mother then joined him. Her parents finally received Italian citizenship 20 days after the Insaf was 18 years old. This meant that she had to apply for herself from scratch, including to prove a stable income.

Insaf chose to study instead.

“I arrived here at nine months and maybe at 33 or 34 – if everything goes well – finally I can be an Italian citizen,” she says, excited.

She remembers exactly when the importance of her outsider status hit the home: it was when she was asked to run for elections with a mayoral candidate in her hometown.

When she shared the news with her parents, full of excitement, they had to remind her that she was not Italian and was not eligible.

“They say it’s a matter of Meritocracy to be a citizen, that you have to win it. But more than being me, what should I demonstrate?” Insaf wants to know.

“You are not allowed to vote or be represented is invisible.”

On the eve of the referendum, students in Rome wrote an appeal to the urban cobbles.

“Voting Yes” on 8th and 9th (June), they wrote in giant cardboard letters.

With a boycott of the government and such scarce publicity, the chances of hitting a 50% turnout threshold seems small.

But Sony claims that this vote is only the beginning.

“Even if they vote no, we will stay here – and we will think about the next step,” he says. “We have to start talking about the place of our community in this country.”

Additional reporting from Giulia Tommasi