Aspects omitted from the protest that is stirring up the South

“Ask. When do the oil mills open? If they open tomorrow, we can start tomorrow too. Let me know and I’ll tell the team. We’re not interested in the strike at all. People want to work.” This is the voice message – word for word – from the foreman of a southern Italian farm, sent yesterday to the farm’s owner. Drawing conclusions based on a single piece of information is always, to say the least, risky. But dismissing that piece of information simply because it is the only one would be wrong. Are we really so sure, in other words, that the protest is fuelling unrest across southern Italy, that the uprising is spreading like wildfire, that the fuel price crisis is in fact becoming a cost-of-living crisis, and that the discontent of this or that group has spread to the point of involving significant sections of the southern population?

Are we really sure we are not confusing the wishes of a specific trade union and/or political leadership with the reality of southern society? Are we really sure that calling for social revolt today – often from the comfort of a television talk-show armchair – or appealing to people’s discontent, does not betray an embarrassing detachment from the reality of southern Italy? Are we really sure that, at times, the election campaign is not an opportunity to engage with that reality but rather a distorting mirror? Are we really sure that those who are currently striving to address the problems faced by specific groups – so as to enable everyone to return to or continue with their usual activities – are the ones who are correctly interpreting that society today? Not because everything is going perfectly, but precisely because, at a time that is far from easy, the most sensible thing to do may well be what the British government envisaged in 1939, when the Second World War was looming: ‘Keep calm and carry on’.