New Italian MP recalls hard life after migrating from Ivory Coast

When Aboubakar Soumahoro was a teenager in his native Ivory Coast, he used to clean shoes and dream of going to Italy, filling a scrapbook with pictures of Italian fashion designs that he cut out of magazines.

He made it to Rome in 1999, aged 19, but was shocked by the harsh reality of migrant life in a country he idolised.

“Sleeping rough in the streets was traumatic, especially when I realised that this was the result of a political decision that targeted the migrants,” said Soumahoro.

Now an Italian citizen, the 42-year-old has a rare opportunity to reshape such decision-making — from within parliament.

He won a seat in the lower house for the Green and Left party in the September 25 election and hopes to make his mark from opposition ranks, facing a victorious conservative coalition that promises to crack down on asylum seekers.

“One thing I will try to do is make sure that no-one ends up living in the streets like me. People need to be treated as human beings regardless of what passport they have,” he said before Thursday’s opening of parliament.

He will stand out as the only black legislator in the lower chamber of 400 deputies — one of only a handful yet to have been elected in the 160-year history of Italy.

Soumahoro says with a smile that he will have the “best suntan” in parliament and he intends to speak for the poor and disfranchised, regardless of colour.

“I do not want to represent just one part of society. I want to make sure that everyone, both the dispossessed and those who struggle to make ends meet, can recognise themselves in what we do,” he said.

Soumahoro’s election is the culmination of an astonishing personal journey, that included picking crops, laying bricks, working at a fuel station, studying sociology at Naples University and writing a book, Humanity in Revolt.

He is reticent about his personal life, saying only that he has a young child and stays in touch with his family in Africa. “It is more important to talk about ‘us’ and not ‘I’,” he said. Italian politics is far too personalised.

A few years after arriving in Italy, he became an activist, helping migrants without official documents, focusing on exploitation of farm labourers. He  founded a union representing agricultural workers.

Block migrants

Soumahoro says right-wing parties poised to take power politicised the migrant issue to get votes.

Both Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which took most votes last month, and Matteo Salvini’s League party, have vowed to block boat migrants from North Africa and adopted an “Italians First” policy.

“Putting Italians first is not going to pull 5.6-million Italians out of poverty,” he said, accusing the Right of failing to grasp the severity of problems faced by ordinary families.

The election winners have said they will roll back what is called citizens’ income, which provides a monthly stipend to poor and jobless people. Soumahoro said that it should be expanded to help more people.

“Politicians haven’t seen the coming hurricane of poverty,” he said. Rising energy and food prices will create growing desperation but a more equitable distribution of wealth will ease rising social tension, he said.

“The politics of happiness is real. It can be done.”

Reuters