Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – “They run fast, they don't have a flag, they love TikTok and showing off: they don't give up filming even when they loot a store or break a window and then brag about it by posting. Some call it Generation S, a reference to the word 'Selfie' and that need to appear before claiming rights.” A profile of the very young people who took to the streets is provided to Adnkronos by those who, for work, travel miles to protests and who, over at least twenty years, have seen anarchists, antagonists, black blocs, and social centers take to the streets.
We shouldn't generalize, but the faces of those who have been ravaging the city for two days all look alike. Beardless, always dressed in black, with a hood covering their face and often a balaclava. This attire serves to confuse rather than identify them, because it's worn by the majority of very young people. "They call them 'maranza,' second-generation Italians, but rather than shouting slogans and demanding rights, yesterday and today they were all making videos for social media.
The cell phone is the natural extension of their arm, more than a procession or an assault it seems like a live reality show" says the man in uniform bitterly.
And TikTok, the platform they also use to move like pawns on a chessboard, demonstrates with impressive numbers the attention paid to attacks in the city. "There are those who don't hesitate to lower their balaclavas just to be seen...", forgetting that they're not the only ones watching.
It is also through videos that arrests are made in flagrante delicto, but vanity is a sin of many.
The age and speed gap is a major handicap in a square that, for the first time, appears uncontrolled, but there are other differences compared to the past. "They are very young, mostly minors, and they don't belong to known groups, so it's also difficult to know who to try to talk to. Some are driven by the anger of a city that no longer knows how to welcome people, and others by the boredom of knowing it's futile to try to be heard," explain someone who knows Milan well. A choice, that of violence, that many other young people who took to the streets strongly condemn.
Most disconcerting, however, is the ability to move in very small groups and disperse immediately after striking, frustrating those still figuring out how to move vehicles and people. "It's not a question of numbers: with more men and women on the streets, we could stop more violent perpetrators, but the truth is that it's not possible to completely stem this violent devastation," concludes the man who is once again hunting down Milan's violent attackers this evening.
News
webinfo@adnkronos.com (Web Info)