Here is what a senior Italian politician said the other day of his country’s first black cabinet minister: “I love animals – bears and wolves, as everyone knows – but when I see the pictures of [Cécile] Kyenge I cannot but think of, even if I’m not saying she is one, the features of an orang-utan.”
The words were uttered by Roberto Calderoli, a senator and member of the opposition Northern League, at a political rally in the northern town of Treviglio. He was talking about Cécile Kyenge, the minister for integration in Enrico Letta’s coalition government.
As ugly as such views are, there has been something even more chilling about the episode. Mr Calderoli is still in his post as a vice-president of Italy’s Senate. A couple of half-apologies and a shrug of the shoulders, and he has been permitted to sit tight in parliament’s second chamber. Italian politics, long troubled by deep undercurrents of racism, has been profoundly shamed as a consequence.