Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – Calls to arms are proliferating, just like the groups that spread them. Fake videos of private universities being raided and patrols targeting foreigners. Warnings are circulating in student chat rooms on "Maranza," warnings of plans to kill the "future rich" and rape every girl they meet. It's social media panic, which, with fake alarms and fake news, exponentially multiplies the panic generated in downtown Milan by young rioters.
These events "are the result of the hybrid war that someone is waging against our nations with unconventional tools, called TikTok, called social media, called YouTube, without the West realizing it and somehow reacting," according to Defense Minister Guido Crosetto.
The movement, if one can call it that, that devastated Milan on Saturday and Sunday is headless, without banners, and its ideological contours are still unclear.
These characteristics make it difficult—not only for citizens but also for those responsible for maintaining public order—to distinguish hoaxes from real alarms and to anticipate the actions of the mob of young people who destroyed and looted the city over the weekend. The fear that they might do so again is real and concrete.
"There's a lot of concern about Saturday," said Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, who, after a long-distance exchange with Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, will meet with him tomorrow at the meeting of the Committee for Public Order and Safety, convened by Prefect Claudio Sgaraglia. The agenda, inevitably, will include the riots that rocked the city on Saturday and Sunday and the fear of a repeat.
There's particular concern for October 24th, but "it's clear that since these people are calling themselves, it could happen at any time," the mayor emphasized. There's certainly no shortage of events, some were circulating online even for Monday, when no disturbances occurred, but the difficulty lies in distinguishing the real ones from the fake ones. "The 17th was a taster, on the 24th you'll hear us all the way south," promises a poster circulating on social media. However, the event hasn't been relaunched by what calls itself the "official profile" of "Italia in Piazza," the movement that called for last Saturday's demonstrations. "Subgroups formed after October 17th are not us," they clarify in their stories.
However, the followers have already tripled the self-styled original's following: the 'movement 17 ottobre' account, active on both Instagram and Telegram, has called for a permanent mobilization every Saturday in Bologna, Milan, Turin, Rome, Florence, Padua, Bari, and Genoa. And in a statement, it claims: "We are not an acronym, we are a process: an unstructured movement born to take initiative. A movement with a leader has a target. A movement with a direction has an incursion. A movement with a list of members has a dossier. We do not offer targets. Fluidity is a strategy and we embrace it." They reject any attempt to draw closer from "institutional parties and unions," as well as from "movement entities that for decades have sought to profit from and monopolize struggles. For us, they are not up to the cause."
Milan's social centers and student groups are currently organizing their assemblies in preparation for the October 30 strike. The day's agenda is still uncertain, not only because there are ten days to go, but also because the situation is evolving so rapidly in this October of protests—the last autumn, moreover, before the municipal elections.
The election campaign, already underway, is inevitably closely following events in the streets. The first to move, following the weekend's riots, was the center-right, which on Monday gathered in Piazza San Carlo to show solidarity with law enforcement and shopkeepers. However, the banner "We all emigrate" sparked outrage among several young people and sparked moments of tension. Tomorrow is the turn of "National Future," with General Roberto Vannacci scheduled to appear in Via Torino, the site of the worst devastation on Sunday. Half an hour later, the rally organized by the CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour) and center-left parties "for social cohesion" and "against violence" will take place in Piazza della Scala. Mayor Sala, Pierfrancesco Majorino, Democratic Party group leader in the Lombardy Regional Council, and Mario Calabresi, the primary candidate, will also be present.
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