The outspoken Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni is in the news for stating that Islam is at odds with the values and rights of the European civilisation at a political gathering.
This event was attended by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and American billionaire Elon Musk.
“I believe there is a problem of compatibility between Islamic culture or a certain interpretation of Islamic culture and the rights and values of our civilisation,” she said, adding that it does not escape her mind that most of the Islamic cultural centres in Italy are financed by Saudi Arabia.
Meloni made these potentially explosive comments after she hosted a political festival Atreju organised by her far-right party — the Brothers of Italy — in Rome.
Further, Meloni went on to talk about how Saudi Arabia as a nation at home applies Sharia — “Sharia means lapidation (stoning) for adultery, death penalty for apostasy, death penalty for homosexuality”. And added that she believes that these issues need to be raised.
However, she quickly pointed out that she was not generalising on Islam but it had to do more with flagging the problem of the Islamization process in Europe that is very distant from the values of European civilisation.
Meloni’s comments are stemming from Europe’s battle with the ongoing influx of thousands of refugees, mostly African or West-Asians. These refugees are fleeing war or economic hardship back in their home countries and a huge majority of these refugees happen to be Muslims.
Sunak backs Meloni on migration approach
Meanwhile, Sunak who was on a visit to Rome, backed Meloni’s migration approach and warned that the growing number of refugees could ‘overwhelm’ parts of Europe.
“If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow,” said Sunak and it will overwhelm their countries and hinder their capacity to help those in need of help the most.
“Making that deterrent credible will mean doing things differently, breaking from consensus. And both Giorgia and I are prepared to do that,” Sunak said, and added that if it meant updating their laws and leading an international conversation to amend the post-war frameworks around asylum, then they must do that.
Sunak’s controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has been hearvily criticised, while Meloni has been slammed for her attempts to curtail the work of charity rescue ships operating in the Mediterranean Sea.
Cultural identity
Meanwhile, Elon Musk who had made a rare appearance at the meeting said there is value in cultures and they did not Italy as a culture to disappear.
“…we want to maintain a reasonable cultural identity of those countries or they won’t be those countries,” Musk pointed out.