“Violent protesters are damaging the public square and the left”. Nichi Vendola speaks out

Nichi Vendola, the leading figure of the left. National President of Sinistra Italiana: has the red line been crossed in Milan and other cities? “Routine condemnation serves no purpose,” the former MP tells Il Foglio. “The movement itself is the first to pay the price for this violence. The smashed shop windows, the injured police officers, the extent of the damage: all this overshadows the hundred thousand young people who marched demanding affordable rent and a job that isn’t a pittance.” So, a firm condemnation? “Of course. Violence does not harm those in power; on the contrary, it provides them with an alibi: that is why we need to build public spaces capable of protecting themselves.”

Could the progressive camp, as the driving force behind the demonstrations, have done more to prevent the uproar? “The protesters have a responsibility to organise themselves and not to provide cover for those who cause trouble. However, maintaining public order remains a duty of the state, and cannot be outsourced to the demonstrators.” The right wing argues that the excuse of infiltrators no longer holds water. “Infiltrators and agents provocateurs have certainly existed, and I’m not saying this to suggest a conspiracy theory: let’s remember the Molotov cocktails brought into the Diaz school in Genoa, as confirmed by court rulings. But that’s not enough to explain what we’re seeing today, and I’m not talking about infiltrators; I’m not using that as an explanation.”

It is a good starting point: can we try to make a cross-party appeal? There can be no place for criminals in a state governed by the rule of law. And if the perpetrator – as is becoming apparent in this case – also has a migrant background, it is not racism or Islamophobia to distance oneself from them. “Those who commit a crime are held criminally liable: it is a cornerstone of the social contract,” says Vendola. “But we know that criminal liability is individual. This is precisely why it is so serious to turn an individual’s case into a judgement on an entire community. And besides, these young people are Italian in every respect except on paper, due to a citizenship law that the right-wing drafted and the left-wing did not have the courage to change. Punish the crime, not the background of those who break the rules.” Undoubtedly. At the same time, denying a correlation that exists and is becoming increasingly apparent – just look at France – merely plays into the narrative of the far right. “France has reached this breaking point after decades in which the Republic promised equality yet sent mainly police patrols to the banlieues. Every riot since 2005 has been dismissed as a public order issue, and each time the cost has risen: Mélenchon is the only one who stands up for them, mingling with these young people in the streets and listening to them.” No chance: the myth of the left remains unshaken. “It would be petty to think that this complex struggle – which a young European generation has waged against its ruling classes and against its own social cages – can be resolved solely with an iron fist.” But in Limoges they burnt down the town hall. Milan was attacked with sledgehammers. “The perpetrators of this violence are often fifteen-year-old boys: a society that calls them ‘rotten apples’ has already given up on them. The real question is: where do we isolate these young people? If we isolate them in a youth detention centre, we’ll find them worse off. If we isolate them in an open school, a sports ground, a workshop, perhaps we’ll have rescued them from the streets.”

It is a desirable course of treatment. But if, for a sick patient – and European cities are sick today – long-term treatment is prioritised over emergency surgery, the patient will die. And in the meantime, we end up with mayors acting as sheriffs. Or generals at Palazzo Chigi. “The sheriff is not the answer; he is half a painkiller and half a stimulant. In other words, a dangerous distraction: it promises order but delivers only control.” Yet voters are shifting to the right: can we at least say that the left has made a serious miscalculation by neglecting the debate on security? “For me, it is a mistake to deny people’s fears, to fail to realise that loneliness, old age, disability and poverty have become multipliers of vulnerability and incubators of fear. But the real mistake was chasing the right on its own ground – that of the illusion of security – without re-emphasising the value of due process, even in the face of the poisons of racism. I may be old-fashioned, indeed anachronistic: and yet I never cease to believe that security is, first and foremost, a social right.” One that needs to be re-established, based on the facts.