Silvia Romano is a 24-year-old Italian woman who, while working at an orphanage on the southeast coast of Kenya, was captured by terrorists belonging to al-Shebaab and taken to Somalia, where she was held captive for 18 months. She was finally freed, upon payment of a ransom of $6 million, and returned to Italy. While in Somalia, she converted to Islam. At the Rome airport, she appeared in a hijab and a green robe, and declared that she now wanted to be known as “Aisha.” Not everyone was delighted.
Here is the Associated Press story (I have retained the tendentious headline):
Bigotry mars return of Italy hostage who converted to Isla
A right-wing lawmaker in Italy was reprimanded Wednesday after he called a young Italian woman who converted to Islam while being held hostage in Somalia a “neo-terrorist.”
First, you are hit with the headline: “Bigotry mars return…” That already tells the reader what to think: someone in this story is a “bigot.” The first sentence then affixes the epithet “right-wing” to Our Bigot even before giving his name – to turn you against him early on. That “right-wing” bigot is Alessandro Pagano, a devout Catholic member of the Italian Parliament from Sicily, and a member of the anti-immigrant Lega (League) Party. Apparently, Pagano had the wrong reaction to the arrival of Silvia Aisha Romano. He was not overcome with joy, as others claimed to be. When he saw the pictures of Silvia Romano being greeted at the airport in Rome, wearing a hijab and dressed in the green garb traditionally worn by Somali Muslim women (green having special status in Islam), and further heard that she had converted – “freely” she said – to Islam, and that from now on she wanted to be known as “Aisha,” he could not contain himself, and called her, in the heat of the moment, a “neo-terrorist.”
Was that an outrage that cried to high heaven, as a number of Italians suggested, including Prime Minister Conte? Calling her a “neo-terrorist” was not politic, it likely was unwise, but should it have created such a storm of indignation? Certainly, if Silvia Aisha Romano converted to Islam, after having read and re-read the Qur’an — her captors having supplied her with both an Arabic Qur’an and an Italian translation — she must have acquired a knowledge of the Qur’an’s contents. She could hardly have avoided reading at least some of the more than 100 Qur’anic verses that command Believers to engage in violent Jihad. She would have read the verses that call for Muslims to “strike terror in the hearts” of the Unbelievers (Qur’an 3.151, 8:12). She would also have read the verses that tell Muslims they are the “best of peoples” and non-Muslims “the worst of all created beings.” She claimed to have embraced this faith, and when she was safely back in Italy, when one might have hoped she would have thrown off any such pretense and confess that she “converted” only to please her captors, she doubled down on her new faith. She really meant it. And we are entitled to draw the conclusion that she understood, and accepted, the more than 100 Qur’an verses that command Muslims to wage violent Jihad, and engage in terrorism. It is neither absurd nor outrageous, given all this, to call her a “neo-terrorist.”
The story continues:
Silvia Romano, 24, stepped off an Italian government jet Sunday wearing the green hijab typical of Somali Muslim women. She reportedly told prosecutors in Rome she converted freely during her 18-month kidnapping ordeal, which included being held captive by Somalia’s al-Shabab militants.
What should have been a joyful time for Romano and her family has been marred by displays of bigotry and intolerance in Italy, a majority Catholic country where racist incidents have grown amid anti-migrant sentiment.
There have been no “racist” incidents involving Muslims and we all know why, so let’s say it again for the 32,698th time: Islam is not a race. No matter how often some insist that anti-Islam views constitute “racism,” this still does not make Islam a “race.”
As for “anti-migrant sentiment,” yes, there certainly is that, or more exactly,there is anti-Muslim immigrant sentiment, and for the most obvious of reasons: Muslim immigrants in Italy have not endeared themselves to a struggling Italian population. They do not exhibit the slightest gratitude toward those Italians who welcomed them into their midst. Instead. they view Italy as a cow to be milked; they have taken full advantage of every conceivable benefit the Italian state offers: free or greatly subsidized housing, free education, free medical care, unemployment benefits (even without any previous record of employment in Italy), even family allowances. All of this money spent on Muslim migrants is no longer available for social spending on the Italians themselves, especially the elderly. Young Muslim males have supplemented those extensive welfare benefits with street crime (muggings, purse snatchings), burglaries of houses and the drug trade. More than 60% of Italians say they are now afraid of being the victims of Muslim criminals. The situation is slightly better in the south, where Italian criminal gangs – the Mafia in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples, the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria – exercise their own sort of extra-legal dominance, holding immigrant criminals in check.
What were the “displays” of “bigotry and intolerance” shown toward Silvia Aisha Romano?
Police were called to the Romano family home in Milan after a glass bottle was thrown against the residence.
That’s it. That’s the one physical “display of bigotry and intolerance”: a single bottle thrown against the Romano family home. Should that even be considered a “display of bigotry and intolerance”? Isn’t it, more exactly, a protest against someone who wholeheartedly embraced the “bigotry and intolerance” of Islam, expressed in the Qur’an, toward Infidels? Or could it be a protest against Silvia Romano for another reason. For by choosing to work in what was within the “kidnapping zone” of al-Shebaab fighters, where European tourists and aid workers had been kidnapped by al-Shebaab in the past, Romano was insufficiently solicitous of those who, were she to be kidnapped, might have to risk their lives to rescue her. In the end, no rescue mission was necessary, but a huge ransom was paid to obtain her freedom; to judge by similar cases, it may have been as high as $6 million. That money will be used by al-Shebaab to pay for other acts of terrorism against Somalis, Kenyans, and the odd European, like Silvia Aisha Romano herself. More people will die as a result of her folly. This hijabbed, green-robed “Aisha” (as she insists she must now be called) has identified with, and embraced, her captors. She has praised them for never tying her up, and for treating her well, even giving her books to read. Her case presents the Stockholm Syndrome on stilts. Why shouldn’t Italians be angered at her attitude? And now what is in store for her? She’s made herself into a walking advertisement for wonderful Islam. Will she continue to do so? Will she become a media personality on Al-Jazeera? No matter how grotesque, anything is possible.
Negative comments on social media have focused on Romano’s decision to convert to Islam, as well as her decision to volunteer in the remote part of Kenya where she was abducted in 2018.
When Silvia Romano left Italy to work in an orphanage on the southeast coast of Kenya, in Kilifili country, she gave no thought to the very high probability that she might be kidnapped by al-Shebaab fighters from Somalia, who would hold her for a ransom that would be used to further their terrorist enterprise. There was a precedent for her plight. Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist (and a Communist), was reporting from Iraq when she was seized in 2005 by terrorists belonging to the Organization of Islamic Jihad. A ransom of 5 million euros was reportedly paid for her release. The head of the Italian Secret Service (SISMI), Nicola Calipari, was shot and killed while accompanying Sgrena to safety. Many have criticized Sgrena for having ignored safety warnings and being in a particularly dangerous part of Iraq; some have blamed her for setting in motion the events that led to the death of Nicola Calipari; Sgrena angrily rejects any such charges. The same charge has been made against Romano: she was surely aware that Al-Shebaab had been known to kidnap people in Kenya, including those whose skills were needed by Al-Shebaab, such as medical personnel and mechanics, or were foreigners who could be held for ransom. Nonetheless, she went to work on the Kenyan coast.
The government has also been criticized for having apparently paid a ransom to her captors.
Alessandro Pagano, a lawmaker from the anti-migrant League Party, drew jeers and a reprimand from colleagues in the lower house of parliament after he mentioned Romano while complaining about the government’s refusal to reopen churches during the coronavirus lockdown.
Pagano alleged there is a “strong anti-religious bent” in Italy’s current coalition government, adding “and yet when a neo-terrorist comes back …” His remark was an apparent reference to the decision by the Italian Premier and Foreign Minister to greet Romano at Rome’s Ciampino airport upon her return.
Why did the Italian Premier and Foreign Minister go to the airport to greet Romano? Was she a great hero? Had she done something marvelous and made the nation of Italy proud? Should the Italian state have signaled to the world that this woman, who converted to Islam, and cost the state a small fortune to obtain her release, was to be celebrated? Why? Neither the Prime Minister, nor the Minister of Foreign Affairs, ought to have been at Ciampino Airport to greet her. That gave exactly the wrong message. There was no need for any high official to have shown up. At most, a low level member of the security services entrusted with the task of tracking Islamic terrorists might have been sent, to demonstrate that the government regarded “Aisha” Romano not with admiration, but with suspicion. There should have been no crowd of journalists, no television cameras whirring, no personal greeting from the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister as Romano stepped down onto the tarmac. She should have been whisked away with her parents to her home, given time to rest up before, in the following days, being called in for extensive interrogation about her experience as a captive of Muslim terrorists.