The banality of evil in the migrants era.

Abstract

In early November the Italian government, after having prevented two NGO ships with 751 migrants on board from docking in the port of Catania, allowed disembarkation only to migrants in critical health conditions, refusing it to others and ordering then to the ships to set sail. This episode, the latest in a series started in Italy between 2018 and 2019 during the previous right-wing government, is part of a sovereignist ideal and political framework, while the racist tendencies are clearly growing up in the country long ago. The event referred to and the social and political climate in which it took place evokes the theme of banality of evil about which Hannah Arendt and Primo Levi have written after the experience personally lived during the Nuremberg trial by the first author and in the Auschwitz killing field by the second one. The article offers a reflection on this matter and provides an answer to the question whether today it is still possible to speak in regard of the banality of evil and, if so, in what forms and meanings and with what responsibilities compared to those originally given from the two authors to the saying.