When Aboubakar Soumahoro was a teen in his native Ivory Coast, he used to wash footwear and dream of going to Italy, filling a scrapbook with footage of Italian style designs that he minimize out of magazines.
He made it to Rome in 1999, aged 19, however was shocked by the cruel actuality of migrant life in a rustic he had idolised.
“Sleeping tough within the streets was traumatic, particularly once I realised that this was the results of a political determination that focused the migrants,” Soumahoro instructed Reuters information company.
Now an Italian citizen, the 42-year-old has a singular alternative to reshape such decision-making – from inside parliament.
He received a seat within the decrease home for the Inexperienced and Left social gathering within the September 25 nationwide election and hopes to make his mark from opposition ranks, dealing with a victorious conservative coalition that has promised to crack down on asylum seekers.
“One factor I’ll attempt to do is be sure that nobody finally ends up residing within the streets like me. Folks have to be handled as human beings no matter what passport they’ve,” he mentioned, talking prematurely of the October 13 opening of parliament.
He’ll stand out as the one Black lawmaker within the decrease chamber of 400 deputies – one among solely a handful ever to have been elected within the 160-year historical past of Italy.
Soumahoro says with a smile that he could have the “finest suntan” in parliament, however is adamant that he intends to talk for the poor and disfranchised, no matter their color.
“I don’t wish to symbolize only one a part of society. I wish to be sure that everybody, each the dispossessed and those that wrestle to make ends meet, can recognise themselves in what we do,” he mentioned.
‘Us’ and never ‘I’
Soumahoro’s election is the end result of an astonishing private journey that included choosing crops within the fields, laying bricks, working at a gasoline station, finding out sociology at Naples College and writing a ebook: Humanity in Revolt.
He’s reticent about his private life, saying solely that he has a younger baby and stays in contact along with his household in West Africa. “It’s extra necessary to speak about ‘us’ and never ‘I’,” he mentioned, including that Italian politics was far too personalised.
Inside a number of years of his arrival in Italy, he turned an activist serving to migrants with out official paperwork, specializing in the exploitation of farm labourers. He subsequently based a union representing agricultural employees.
He says right-wing events which are about to take energy have politicised the migrant concern for electoral achieve.
Each Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy social gathering, which took most votes final month, and Matteo Salvini’s League social gathering, have promised to dam boat migrants from North Africa and adopted what they name an “Italians first” coverage.
“Placing Italians first shouldn’t be going to drag 5.6 million Italians out of poverty,” he mentioned, accusing the precise of failing to understand the severity of issues confronted by widespread households.
The election winners have mentioned they’ll roll again a so-called residents’ earnings, which gives a month-to-month stipend to the poor and unemployed. Soumahoro mentioned as a substitute of being curtailed, it wanted to be expanded to assist extra folks.
“Politicians haven’t seen the approaching hurricane of poverty,” he mentioned, warning that rising power and meals costs would create rising desperation and arguing {that a} extra equitable distribution of wealth would ease gathering social tensions.
“The politics of happiness is actual,” he added. “It may be achieved.”