In Italy, Rioting Leads to Recriminations
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — As the smoke cleared Sunday, a day after a peaceful, inchoate demonstration near the Colosseum turned into a riot, Italy fell into national soul searching and finger pointing.
What caused the violence was clear: groups of violent youths smashed shop windows, torched cars and scuffled with police, turning a coordinated march against global economic woes into the worst riots in Italy since the Group of Eight summit meeting in Genoa in 2001.
But what was less clear was why the Italian authorities had failed to prevent the violence, or how it would reverberate in the most volatile political climate in Italy in decades. The demonstrations came a day after Mr. Berlusconi narrowly won a confidence vote in Parliament, a victory that still underscored the deep divisions with his divided majority.
Changing the subject from economic distress to street violence could benefit Mr. Berlusconi.
“It’s too simplistic to say it works in the government’s favor,” Mario Calabresi, the editor of the Turin daily La Stampa. “But today, instead of talking about the problems of the country, everyone is talking about the violence.”
The center-right government also sought to blame left-wing groups. Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa attributed the violence to a tone used by the Italian left in which “everything is justifiable as long as we can get rid of Berlusconi.”
Those arrested, however, did little to bolster that accusation. News reports said that some of the 12 arrested were believed to belong to right-wing soccer fan groups, while others were linked to self-styled anarchist groups.
To many Italians, the vivid images of Rome in flames cast light on the government’s shortcomings. To them, it seemed that a government elected promising law and order and led by a salesman once perfectly attuned to the national mood had lost control not only of the demonstration, but also of the economy and increasingly of public opinion.
“Italians are indulgent toward the government because they don’t see that there’s an alternative,” said Massimo Franco, a political commentator for the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. “But when they realize that the government cannot do anything — and even makes fun of them, especially about the economy — at that point the lack of alternatives isn’t enough.”
“When Italians turn the page, they turn it definitely,” he added. “The big question is whether they’ve already turned the page.”
The demonstration on Saturday, one of more than 900 planned around the world to call attention to economic inequality, gave a platform to young people, who feel shut out of their own futures in a labor market that protects older workers with ironclad contracts and makes it difficult for younger people to get hired except on temporary contracts offering low salaries and little security.
“I’m here because the government doesn’t represent me anymore,” Giuseppe Tommasini, 35, an advertising art director, said before the march turned violent. “My friends and I all work, but our salaries aren’t enough to live on.”
He was wearing a sign that said “Politicians Go Home.” Another sign said “We’ve gone to the whores,” the Italian equivalent of “we’ve gone down the drain” that also works in a reference to Mr. Berlusconi’s sex scandals.
The vast majority of Italians, and of the demonstrators, condemned the violence.
The existing economic order ripped off our future,” one march organizer said on national television on Saturday. “And these hooligans ripped off our present.”
Many Italians saw the violence as a distraction from the debate over the economy.
With a national debt at 120 percent of the gross domestic product and zero projected growth, Italy, after Greece, is seen as the European country most at risk of default if it does not carry out structural changes. The government is deadlocked over several such plans.
But the government’s failure to head off the violence struck others as inept. One opposition politician, Massimo Donadi, called on the interior minister to explain to Parliament why only 12 people had been arrested. The violent demonstrators “did not arrive from Mars,” he said. “We want the interior minister to tell us how it happened.”
Before the demonstration turned violent, groups of young men with hooded sweatshirts, gas masks and helmets hanging from their backpacks walked freely through the crowds, unchecked by the scores of police officers who lined the streets in the area near the Colosseum.
Not long after, some began smashing shop and bank windows, throwing rocks and clashing with police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons.
To some Italians, the demonstrations were an unsettling reminder of the violence lurking below the surface in a country that today shows more resignation than indignation, but which in the 1970s and 1980s lived through intense political violence by both right- and left-wing groups.
As she stood after twilight on Saturday near torched garbage bins that still smoldered not far from the Colosseum, Laura Carrello, a 30-year-old architect on a temporary contract, had tears in her eyes. There was something unsettling in the air. “It makes me so depressed,” she said. “There’s so much rage. It feels as if anything could happen.”
“The problem is young people have no prospects,” Mr. Carrello said. “But doing this is wrong. We pay for the garbage dumpsters, the banks don’t.”
What caused the violence was clear: groups of violent youths smashed shop windows, torched cars and scuffled with police, turning a coordinated march against global economic woes into the worst riots in Italy since the Group of Eight summit meeting in Genoa in 2001.
But what was less clear was why the Italian authorities had failed to prevent the violence, or how it would reverberate in the most volatile political climate in Italy in decades. The demonstrations came a day after Mr. Berlusconi narrowly won a confidence vote in Parliament, a victory that still underscored the deep divisions with his divided majority.
Changing the subject from economic distress to street violence could benefit Mr. Berlusconi.
“It’s too simplistic to say it works in the government’s favor,” Mario Calabresi, the editor of the Turin daily La Stampa. “But today, instead of talking about the problems of the country, everyone is talking about the violence.”
The center-right government also sought to blame left-wing groups. Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa attributed the violence to a tone used by the Italian left in which “everything is justifiable as long as we can get rid of Berlusconi.”
Those arrested, however, did little to bolster that accusation. News reports said that some of the 12 arrested were believed to belong to right-wing soccer fan groups, while others were linked to self-styled anarchist groups.
To many Italians, the vivid images of Rome in flames cast light on the government’s shortcomings. To them, it seemed that a government elected promising law and order and led by a salesman once perfectly attuned to the national mood had lost control not only of the demonstration, but also of the economy and increasingly of public opinion.
“Italians are indulgent toward the government because they don’t see that there’s an alternative,” said Massimo Franco, a political commentator for the daily newspaper Corriere della Sera. “But when they realize that the government cannot do anything — and even makes fun of them, especially about the economy — at that point the lack of alternatives isn’t enough.”
“When Italians turn the page, they turn it definitely,” he added. “The big question is whether they’ve already turned the page.”
The demonstration on Saturday, one of more than 900 planned around the world to call attention to economic inequality, gave a platform to young people, who feel shut out of their own futures in a labor market that protects older workers with ironclad contracts and makes it difficult for younger people to get hired except on temporary contracts offering low salaries and little security.
“I’m here because the government doesn’t represent me anymore,” Giuseppe Tommasini, 35, an advertising art director, said before the march turned violent. “My friends and I all work, but our salaries aren’t enough to live on.”
He was wearing a sign that said “Politicians Go Home.” Another sign said “We’ve gone to the whores,” the Italian equivalent of “we’ve gone down the drain” that also works in a reference to Mr. Berlusconi’s sex scandals.
The vast majority of Italians, and of the demonstrators, condemned the violence.
The existing economic order ripped off our future,” one march organizer said on national television on Saturday. “And these hooligans ripped off our present.”
Many Italians saw the violence as a distraction from the debate over the economy.
With a national debt at 120 percent of the gross domestic product and zero projected growth, Italy, after Greece, is seen as the European country most at risk of default if it does not carry out structural changes. The government is deadlocked over several such plans.
But the government’s failure to head off the violence struck others as inept. One opposition politician, Massimo Donadi, called on the interior minister to explain to Parliament why only 12 people had been arrested. The violent demonstrators “did not arrive from Mars,” he said. “We want the interior minister to tell us how it happened.”
Before the demonstration turned violent, groups of young men with hooded sweatshirts, gas masks and helmets hanging from their backpacks walked freely through the crowds, unchecked by the scores of police officers who lined the streets in the area near the Colosseum.
Not long after, some began smashing shop and bank windows, throwing rocks and clashing with police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons.
To some Italians, the demonstrations were an unsettling reminder of the violence lurking below the surface in a country that today shows more resignation than indignation, but which in the 1970s and 1980s lived through intense political violence by both right- and left-wing groups.
As she stood after twilight on Saturday near torched garbage bins that still smoldered not far from the Colosseum, Laura Carrello, a 30-year-old architect on a temporary contract, had tears in her eyes. There was something unsettling in the air. “It makes me so depressed,” she said. “There’s so much rage. It feels as if anything could happen.”
“The problem is young people have no prospects,” Mr. Carrello said. “But doing this is wrong. We pay for the garbage dumpsters, the banks don’t.”
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