but he speaks the same language: “Why does it take one daynfor a Swiss worker to make something that takes two days innLombardy and a week in the South?” The Liberals blamengovernment corruption and deplore the Lega’s “politics ofnresentment.”nThe resentment in the North is captured in one of thenLega’s most successful posters. A hen is shown layingngolden eggs into a basket held by a fat woman in a traditionalnSouthern dress: PAY AND SHUT UP, LOMBARDnDONKEY, is the heading, while the rest of the posternexplains: “The Lombard hen lays golden eggs for Rome andnlower down. They all stay fried in the pan, and return nonmore to us.”nBut everyone in Italian politics complains about corruption,ninefficiency, and the Mafia. What is different aboutnBossi is that instead of pointing the finger at Palermo andnNaples, he denounces “the parties of Rome,” by which henmeans all the major and minor political parties that divide upnpower and offices after elections. What others talk aboutnonly in private, he discusses openly: why could the governmentndefeat the Red Brigades but is powerless in the face ofnorganized crime? In late September another anti-Mafianjudge was murdered in Sicily, and even the establishmentnpress began writing of the “crocodile tears” of the politiciansnwho refused to do anything but make impassioned speechesnat funerals. A writer in the anticommunist Milan daily IInGiornale wondered if the inertia had anything to do with thenfact that while the Red Brigades killed politicians, the Mafianonly kills judges.nBossi is more direct. At a rally, he tells his followers,n”Many of us were once Christian Democrats, and many stillnare tempted to support the PDC. But I tell you that that isnthe very worst thing a Lombard could do. And I will tell younhere what I have not hesitated to say elsewhere: that a votenfor the Christian Democrats is a vote for the Mafia.” Later,nwhen I question him about the Mafia, Bossi explains thatnthe Mafia and Camorra by themselves are nothing: it is theirnlinkage with the parties that trade government contracts fornkickbacks and votes that makes it impossible to suppressnthem. The only solution to organized crime in Italy is “tondisentangle it from the political system.”nBut if the question of the Mafia is bound up with thenItalian political system, it is also part of the North/Southnconfrontation. The Italian newspapers and magazines havenbeen filled, this past year, with accounts of the Mafia’s movennorthward into Bologna, Milan, and Turin. Americans whonare familiar only with the more domesticated manners of thennaturalized Mafia in the United States will not easilynappreciate what is going on in a country where the forces ofnorganized crime routinely murder anyone who stands inntheir way, and when the Lega Lombarda rails against theninfiltration of Southerners into Northern Italy, their case isnonly strengthened by the increased level of Mafia activity.nThe Lega claims it is not anti-Southern per se, only that itnwants the Lombards to be able to manage their ownnresources. They also resent what amounts to an affirmativenaction program that results in disproportionate numbers ofnSouthern Italians in government jobs, particulariy as teachersnand as carabinieri. In Central and Northern Italy, thenfavorite form of humor is the carabinieri joke — “Why don14/CHRONICLESnnnthe carabinieri have stripes on their pants? So they can findntheir pockets”—but these jokes are not so subtie digs at thenSoutherners who seem to dominate the national policenforce. The Southerners I talked to were very blunt. Onenarmy colonel of Sicilian ancestry (who is also an artist andnjournalist) told me quite simply that he hated the LeganLombarda because “They hate us.” However, it is true thatna Lega is being organized in Sicily, where its principal focusnof hostility is the Mafia.nBut more controversial than this anti-Southern resentmentnis the Lega’s position on immigration. The streets ofnItalian cities are now swarming with Tunisian and Moroccannvendors of cheap merchandise. They don’t pay bus fares,nthey sleep in churches and on park benches, and they hectornthe tourists at an outdoor cafe: “Buy a book matches? Comenon, buy book matches.”nIn late September a group of Pakistanis occupied anchurch in Milan, refusing to leave until the city “finds us anplace to live.” Many Lombards asked me the inevitablenquestion: “Why is it up to us to provide housing for them?nWhy don’t they just go home?”nThe Lega is on to a popular issue in Italy. In February thenmajor parties ramrodded a liberal immigration law (the LegenMartelli) through the parliament over the protests ofnLiberals, Republicans, and Bossi. The new law appeals tononly two groups, immigrants and politicians, and Bossi’snresponse has been to call for a referendum, explaining to thenpress that the governing coalition can either reform thenimmigration law or face the rising tide of popular discontent.n”Immigration,” he told the Corriere delta Sera, “conceals anconcerted plot to acquire authoritarian power. They want tonarrive at a multiracial society as a means of creating tensionsnand confrontations among the populations and then tonlegitimate a solution of strong authoritarian government.”nThe Lega’s critics accuse the members of racism, but Insaw littie evidence of it in the days I spent with them. Onenday at lunch, I ask Conti directly how he responds to thencharge. He points to a Moroccan sitting across the roomnfrom us. “Do you see that man? I don’t hate him. If he isnwilling to work, I would give him a job. I am proud to be anLombard, true, but that does not mean that I hate othernpeople for being what they are.”nIn fact, the Lega’s attitude toward Southerners and NorthnAfricans seems typical of the Northern Italians I met. Afternmy talk a journalist who has spent some time in Canadanasked ironically if I thought that the Lega represented truendemocracy. Nothing but racists, he exclaimed. “Italy’s realnproblems are economic,” he tells me. “The Lombards,nPiedmontese, and others in the North are willing to work,nbut the Southerners refuse. They come up here only to gonon welfare, and even when they do take a job, they are verynunproductive, and everywhere they cause trouble.” I tellnhim he sounds like the Lega Lombarda. “I did not say theynwere wrong about everything,” he says, smiling, “but theynhave gone mad with history.”nTo an American he seems to have a point. What othernpolitical party in the world takes its name from the 12thncentury? The original Lombard League was formed inn1167, when several cities banded together to resist thendepredations of Friedrich Barbarossa, who had succeeded inndestroying the great city of Milan. They met at the village ofn