There are things that never go away, like the right-wing's all-out defense of the police. It is such a battle of identity that Mattarella's words about the officers' attacks on students in Pisa – we know: “Authority cannot be measured by batons” – have infuriated Salvini, the guardian of the honor of the police, who is not the minister of the Interior and the representatives of the Fratelli d'Italia, despite Meloni's silence. But the more moderate members of Forza Italia also had their say. In short, everyone on the police side was convinced that the attack by the President of the Republic was a personal attack, including on the eve of the elections in Sardinia. In fact, the point is that it is the right that associates itself with the police forces, in front of the opposite: the police unions are known to be on the side of those who defend them based on their possibilities, they go where the wind blows.
And all this, in short, at the risk of telling untruths, denying the evidence, not even admitting that the accusations were exaggerated and that the scenes of violence and anger in a country like this are at least unnecessary and terrible to watch our. So much so that, according to background information, even Interior Minister Piantedosi was shocked by the images on Friday evening. “But what did they do?” he blurted out at a meeting at the Home Office. Then the phone call with Mattarella, actually conciliatory. And finally the change of direction: “We intervened to defend the synagogue of Pisa.” Let us not forget that we acted to protect sensitive targets.” In fact, the government had enforced a hard line at all costs. And so, according to what he reconstructed today republic, the minister would have lied: the fact that the students were on their way to the synagogue when the attacks began still needs to be proven; It was not marked on the map of the procession, so not even the police patrolled this place (except for a small unit, which is routine in such a tourist area).
Meanwhile, the usual “hands off the police” rhetoric reigns around him. Among many was the group leader of the Italian Chamber of Brethren Tommaso Foti, who was interviewed today The pressure, for which “mistakes were made but the police should not be attacked”; or the deputy leader of Forza Italia, Raffele Nevi, according to which “the police must be defended without any ifs and buts”. But the real showman is apparently Salvini: “If someone goes out into the streets with all permissions, without spitting, insulting, threatening, he has no problems at all”; “I cannot accept the ban on the Italian police as a group of sinister torturers”; and above all: “Anyone who attacks a police officer is a criminal,” ignoring the fact that most of the protesters were unarmed minors. If you count the blaming of the police that, in short, she might even have exaggeratedGiven the scenes of students on the ground, the blood and the batons, these are very few compared to those blaming the protesters.
While an investigation has been launched into the incidents, Mattarella – who also called Meloni – fears that similar scenes could be repeated at the G7 summit to be held in Puglia next June, in a macabre repeat of what happened in Genoa in 2001. And while the opposition speaks of an “authoritarian drift” and difficulties in expressing dissent, the League in particular seems more interested in defending the police force than in Piantedosi himself, whose resignation the PD (but not the Quirinale) demanded.
Why? More than the electoral calculation – the banal vote of the police officers – it is a question of instinct. For example, if right-wing extremist movements are often hostile towards the police due to clashes on the streets, Lega, Forza Italia and Fratelli d'Italia are trying to respond to this need of order which apparently many people feel within themselves. In short, this idea that demonstrating is always a bit wrong, those who take to the streets are ultimately looking for it, and a calm regime is better than an unstable democracy. It is better not to express differences of opinion, even if they are our own, than to question everything. Ultimately, this is how fascism emerged, from the same need for calm.
