Stolen passport nearly leads to deportation in Rome

On Wednesday, my good friend went to the police to report that his passport and permisso di soggiorno (permit to live in Italy) had been stolen. He's Sudanese, but carries a diplomatic passport and studies with me at the the American university here. He's lived in Rome for five years.

Once he finished filing the police report, the police told him, "Ok, so since you don't have any documents, we're going to arrest you now."

My friend was baffled. He was put into a police car and driven to an immigrant detention center outside of the city.

"Can I have my phone call now?" he asked.

"No."

He was placed in a holding cell and kept there for around five hours. After a while, he started talking to some of the other detainees, to pass the time. One of them is Ukrainian. "So, what are you in here for?" my friend asks.

"Oh, I raped a girl."

That ended the conversation.

My friend tried unsuccessfully to get the guards to let him out or at least give him a phone call. "I'm not a criminal!" he told them. "I've done nothing wrong!"

They refused.

Finally, they told him he would be deported. He was told to leave the country within fifteen days and was forbidden to return to the European Union for five years and from setting foot on Italian soil for ten. They made him sign his deportation papers.

Then they let him go. But they don't tell him how to get home - they just let him out of the detention center somewhere outside the city at around 10pm.

The next morning he went to the Sudanese Embassy, which told him it could help but that this should be his last resort, and his university should deal with it. So he came back to the university and the guy in Student Life, God bless him, made one phone call and sorted the whole issue out. My friend was no longer required to leave the country, and what's more, he now had the right to sue the police.

I wish I could say this was a fluke case in Italy, but that wouldn't be true. In the northern part of the country, the Lega Nord runs (successfully, I might add) on a political platform which calls for kicking out all the immigrants. Some of its propaganda uses images of Native Americans and says the immigrants will soon force Italians onto reservations. Already, the Lega Nord has outlawed the opening of foreign food restaurants in areas where it has significant influence (the law is aimed mostly at kebab shops).

This is the reality of being a minority, particularly black and Arab, in Italy. Trying to work within the framework of the law to report stolen identity documents nearly results in one's deportation for failure to possess said documents. In reality, the relationship between the people and the state and the police is similarly dysfunctional across the Mediterranean. Take a look at what's happening now in Greece for another example: I've heard transcriptions of confrontations with police which are eerily similar to situations I've seen or heard about in Egypt.

Perhaps the advantage of being on this side of the Mediterranean, and attempting to be 'European,' is that my friend now has the right to sue the police, and can do so without fear of repercussion. He now has the law on his side.

Why is the washing machine in the kitchen? Contemplating gender roles in the Meditarranean

If you have ever spent time around the Mediterranean, you may have experienced the peculiar phenomenon of finding the washing machine in the kitchen. I've seen this in many apartments from Rome to Cairo. Some argue this reflects Mediterranean societies: putting the washing machine in the kitchen keeps women in their place.

The traditional view of Mediterranean societies, from Italy to Egypt, says men are in charge and women are subservient to their men. Men dominate the public sphere. They gather in cafes or in shisha (water-pipe) bars, discussing politics and football. Women, on the other hand, are relegated to the private sphere. They appear in public accompanied by a male relative or keep out of the way, perhaps congregating in homes or on side streets, and they discuss happenings in their communities.

But the traditional view taken by the social sciences is exceedingly Euro-centric and male-dominated. The social sciences today remain essentially what they were as disciplines 100 years ago, when they were created by Western male academics attempting to fit everything into terms they were familiar with. Stagnation and resistance to change within the disciplines was the result, according to Lisa Anderson, a specialist on politics in MENA. Considering this, the gender situation in the Mediterranean can be viewed very differently.

Women’s interest in subjects dealing with interpersonal relationships has been referred to as ‘gossip’ for decades. This gossip, however, is actually discussion of issues over which women have direct influence and can wield actual power. The ‘important’ discussion of politics and soccer, on the other hand, are topics over which men have no influence: they are removed from the place of action and have no power over what happens.

It is true that men typically dominate the public sphere and women the private, but the motivations behind this division may not be as clear as they seem. For example, in rural areas of Italy men can be seen sitting in their cars along country roads, reading a newspaper or otherwise idling their time away. Why? Their women, viewing them as nuisances, have kicked them out of the house until supper time.

A curious result of the division between public and private spheres is seen by Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Veiled Sentiments, who conducted an extensive case-study while living with a Bedouin tribe in the western Egyptian desert. She discovered that the women were always abreast of all happenings in the public sphere of men, usually thanks to sons and younger men of the family. Women have an extensive grasp of both the public and private spheres; Men, however, only have access to public knowledge. The women’s world is almost entirely closed to men. If, then, knowledge is power, the power balance in the Mediterranean may not be quite what the social sciences have traditionally deemed it to be.

The traditional views are not wholly without merit. It is true that gender roles in the societies around the Mediterranean are strictly divided. Change is difficult, as these roles are commonly accepted as preserving and protecting society. While mobility between the spheres is possible, particularly among the upper class, it is also true that in many areas the role of women is forcibly made subservient to men. Some may believe the suggestion that women actually have a more powerful role in Mediterranean society than traditionally thought to merely be wishful thinking. Yet at the same time, perhaps the question of why the washing machine is in the kitchen deserves a bit more thought.