XENOPHOBIA Xenophobia is a fear and contempt of foreigners. It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "foreigner," "stranger," and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear." The term is typically used to describe fear or dislike of foreigners or in general of people different from one's self.

Racism history Racial prejudices, as the conscience of biological superiority of own races, developed in Modern Age at the end of XXIII century to justify nationalistic and colonialist policy. Classical period, Greece and Rome: persecution were made according to political and religious reasons but not bioological ones. Aristotele said that for a natural law some people command instead other obeys. Also the concept of barbaric people is based on cultural reasons, however barbaric people were biologically considered greater. So the citizenship (which was reputed as the privilege of belonging to a society) was given only to people who accepted civilization values.

Medieval Ages: Catholics thought themselves to be greater according to religious reasons and not only cultural ones. So they persecuted Muslims, Jews and heretics. However, part of the Church defended the equality of men. XVI Century: First racist theories appeared with the birth of colonialism and slave trades. XVIII Century: Biological contempt was born a san adulteration of cultural contempt, it was used to assert an intellectual and moral inferiority.

XIX Century: History became a competition between “weak and strong” races, people thought that decline of big civilization was caused by coupling between person belonging to different races. This theory was used by Nazism to delete races and social classes considered lower. Whereas Fascism thought that from coupling between races could be born better persons; this theory excluded the biological concept of race. However Fascism assert the inferiority of Slavs and black people for justify their subjection.

Second part of XIX Century-Europe: contemporary racism was theorized by Count Goubineau, who wrote a book about races inequality. Later this theory was reviewed by Chamberlain who formulated also anti-Semitic theory and the concepì of Arian race, then used by Nazism. Hitler was against Jews because of political, social and economic reasons and he explained that their extermination was a possible way to create enough spaces for German expansion.

Nowadays racism is caused by social and economic reasons Nowadays racism is caused by social and economic reasons. The word “race”could be used only conventionally to indicate skin colours but all men belong to the same human kind and as a matter of fact they have the same DNA. So we think that no one can say that there are differences between races caused by particolar attitudes. Whereas all differences are only caused by historical, geographic and social events: time can’t be used as a standard for the civilization development. For this reason interculturalism must be practice to favour the progress and the dialogue between all countries.

XENOPHOBY IN ITALY In the 1990s, Italian press coverage on immigration was dominated by negative themes of illegal immigration, crime, problems related to housing and ethnic relations, and political conflicts. The division between legal ('good') and illegal ('bad') immigrants often preceded the exclusion of immigrants from Italian 'territory', be it at the borders or in metropolitan areas. Indeed, the solution to the most prominent immigration problems were reported as public order and military-type interventions, which clearly did not favour a positive perception and attitude towards groups of people who gradually integrated into Italian society. Reports on racist violence often tended to minimise the acts or even hold the victims, or the group to which they belonged, somehow responsible; at the same time, editorialists claimed that 'racism' would decline if harsher immigration policies were introduced. Pernicious stereotypes were also identified in the coverage of Islam.