ITALY: MISLEADING BY EXAMPLE
October 27, 2022 -Durt Fibo

One of the repercussions of having an openly fascist party enthroned –by election or otherwise– is that it emboldens regular citizens and many civil authority structures to more freely express their own antipathies, which they see as validated by the ascent of the party. Much of the world is experiencing this these days. In Italy, it occurred within the first week. Three days after Giorgia Meloni was formally installed as Prime Minister, heading a coalition of the right wing, including her own Brothers of Italy (neo) fascist party, police squads with shields, helmets and clubs began attacking protesting students at Rome’s Sapienza University.

Outside the Political Sciences campus, a group of students had gathered Tuesday to protest a rally/recruitment drive featuring Daniele Capezzone, the former spokesman of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Fi; one of the 3 main parties in the new government), and and Fabio Roscani, who was ushered into parliament as a member of Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia -FdI). Roscani’s career mirrors Meloni’s own; he began as a member of the National Alliance ( Alleanza Nazionale -AN), which sprung from the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano -MSI) formed in 1946 by genuine members of Mussolini’s Fascist party (and later the German-run Republic of Salò). And, just like the 15-year old Giorgia Meloni, he rose to the pinnacle of Youth Action –the student league of the National Alliance.

Italian media at first disseminated the story that a group of students, appalled at the presence and purpose of the 2 representatives of the new government led by avowed fascists, stormed into one of the halls and caused enough ruckus that the police were summoned to drive them out with extreme force. As reports, interviews and an overwhelming amount of cell phone footage reveal, it was in fact the other way around: it was instead the police, charging protesters, who drove them into the building.

Because of the violence employed, now the University and the Italian news media have been obliged to retract and restate their earlier descriptions of the near-riot. As said by Senator Ilaria Cucchi, of the Green and Left Alliance, “It was clearly a disproportionate use of force by the police compared to the protests put forward by the student movement.” Italy’s national trade union, the Italian General Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro -CGIL) had far earlier issued a statement together with other unions expressing their “solidarity with the female students and students hit hard inside the University Citadel today. This morning, at the Sapienza University of Rome, the students were charged by the police. Young people peacefully protested. We consider the reaction of the police unacceptable. We never tolerate that dissent is repressed with violence, and that this happens within the places of training, especially against a generation already hit hard by the pandemic, climate and economic crises. We ask for immediate clarification of the incident from all institutions, in particular to clarify who authorized this violent intervention.”

The student movement Cambiare (Change) today sent out messages calling for the resignation of the University’s head, and a promise that no such attacks be directed at them ever again: “Our requests are clear: we want the immediate resignation of the rector Polimeni and the guarantee that the police will never again enter the university. Simple requests, aimed at re-establishing minimum levels of democracy and livability in the university, noting that the highest internal institutions of Sapienza have not been able to guarantee the safety of students.” The students are temporarily encamped outside the building where Tuesday’s assault surprised them and have now hoisted banners reading “No more violence against students! Let’s take back our spaces!” and “Your government. Our anger.” Today their main choral refrain is: “We are all anti-fascists!”