What do my students think of the terrible incidents that have taken place in Milan in recent days?

Does school have anything to do with the recent events in Milan? Yes and no. Yes, according to reports, because most of those responsible for the most extreme behaviour are of school age. No, if I consider the school where I teach, where pupils still believe in education – or at the very least do not see it as a place of oppression to be overthrown – whilst those young people, it would seem, do not attend the grammar schools in the city centre. Nevertheless, every school community is likely to be involved to some extent; it is a privileged vantage point and will have something to say.

I therefore decide to ask the students in one of my classes off the cuff. Some of them are already of age, whilst others are not far off. It is not much of a representative sample, but I have nothing better. Although few speak up – or rather, very few girls do (boys seem more inclined to take the initiative) – they manage to reiterate all the main positions already voiced publicly in recent days. One might say they are doing so by imitation (of social media, above all); they are playing a part they have assigned themselves, and consequently come across as clumsily caricatured – and for that very reason, they are exemplary. The sympathisers, or at least the lenient ones, prevail, perhaps simply due to generational affinity. At first, everyone ritually condemns the devastation, whilst at the same time devoutly upholding the nobility of the mobilisation’s intentions. One student reports that her sister was present in person—who seems to be the equivalent of Italy’s proverbial cousin or brother-in-law, an authority figure and opinion-maker for the average Italian citizen. In short, her sister apparently immediately identified the troublemakers, who, at first glance, were completely distinct from the majority of the peaceful demonstrators. One student quietly adds that, in any case, a bit of force is necessary if the protest is to make itself heard. ‘Looting shops, no,’ another replies, ‘but attacking the police, yes.’ My sister chimes in again: she claims to have seen, once again with her own eyes, the police randomly arresting peaceful demonstrators and then loading them onto their vehicles, just like that, for no reason at all: at that point, and only as a result of such ‘South American-style abductions’, it is only natural that exasperated people should react to such blatant abuse of power, even if it means resorting to bad behaviour. The grumbling pupil plucks up his courage and solemnly proclaims that, regardless of provocations, nothing has ever been achieved in history without violence. Other female pupils agree that in France and then in Russia a revolution was needed, and that even the ‘weaker sex’ only secured the right to vote by resorting to strong-arm tactics. I ask in vain what form of aggression would have secured the vote for Italian women. I ask, again to no avail, what exactly the positive achievements of the aforementioned revolutions might have been. Nor do I manage to obtain even a rough estimate of the human lives sacrificed for such glory. Instead, the silence of the majority rings out – the typical reticence of the majority.

The vanity of all the rhetoric mechanically repeated in every school at every level in support of the rule of law, rights, constitutionalism and democracy (whose sole genuine justification lies precisely in its ability to bring about change peacefully) could not have been more blatantly exposed. Beyond all that, the total failure of civic education and all related teaching programmes is evident, whether or not they are supported by volunteers and experts. Here at the sixth-form college, the students I spoke to have not yet come across anyone who said that ‘violence is the midwife of history’ or anyone who remarked that ‘revolution is not a gala dinner’, yet they have already uncritically adopted those dogmas. They have not yet studied either the French or the Russian Revolutions, let alone examined the Guevarists, Maoists, Sandinistas, Mau Mau and Fedayeen. And yet it will be extremely difficult to venture to chip away at their myths and prejudices later on, at the end of their school career, when, by law, they will be fully-fledged adults. It is therefore all the more surprising, conversely, to see the value they attach to a motley collection of childish little ideas: how wonderful a world without wars, climate problems and the high cost of living would be! On the basis of such platforms or other expressions of vague discontent, there would be nothing better to do than organise a nice march, even better if accompanied by a spot of vandalism. One cannot help but be dismayed, moreover, by their implicit faith in the omnipotence of the state: if only the institutions were willing to listen to every grievance, they would possess the magic wand capable of appeasing it. After all, this is no different from what certain propaganda keeps repeating; yet, on closer inspection, it is the adults who are pathetically mimicking the childish expectations of children in the presence of their parents.