Massimo Cacciari on the alarm and Italians: “Hysterical? Of course they’re afraid. It’s the governments that are in a state of panic.”

Rome. Are Italians being a little hysterical in the face of the multiple bomb threats issued by the self-styled Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan, or are they justifiably anxious? “Of course people are anxious and afraid,” says the philosopher Massimo Cacciari, “in a disturbing context of real wars, many of which are close by and interconnected, and of false alarms and manufactured panic: how can one not be concerned when governments, instead of working to resolve the situation and settle conflicts, fuel these fears in every possible way, even by issuing advice on ‘how to survive for three days’ in the face of phantom attacks, as Britain has done by advising citizens to keep a supply of water, a wind-up radio and a rucksack with tinned food and a torch to hand?”

Most of the pupils in the evacuated schools, however, immediately thought the bomb threat was a hoax. “Clearly, young people are infinitely better than many governments. It is the governments who are responsible for the war psychosis and the normalisation of the idea that a war is underway. Panic begets panic.” What, then, should governments do? “The situation over the last few days shows that there are no adequate defence systems: systems that help to quickly determine whether an alert is credible or not, intelligence systems capable of analysing information in a coordinated manner. Today, 99 per cent of our security stems from this, not from the number of police officers on the streets’. Was Defence Minister Guido Crosetto perhaps right to play the role of Cassandra when, a year ago, he proposed a super-task force to tackle hybrid warfare, a proposal that subsequently ran aground within the very ranks of his own majority? “I say that today’s wars,” continues Cacciari, “and those of tomorrow, will all be decided by the power of communication, intelligence and AI systems, capable of taking the enemy’s networks offline and defending our own. That is what we need to invest in, not guns and tanks.” Why not on both fronts – cyber and military security? “We need to invest in intelligent defence. The events of recent days prove it: we do not have an adequate level of security from a technological point of view.” Faced with emails similar to Andropov’s – whether he is a mythomaniac, an idiot or a dangerous hacker in the pay of foreign powers – are there actions we should take as individuals? Self-control, common sense? And are Italians – a people often described as mama’s boys and gullible – capable of this? “Italians, on the other hand, seem to me to be generally endowed with a sense of proportion and a sense of humour, but I repeat: the situation today is extremely serious and we must be afraid of it, and from that fear may arise a push from European public opinion for the EU to finally start implementing mediation policies.” What would Cacciari have done in the place of the headteachers who received the threatening email? “In a situation where there is no government to tell you, ‘Look, these alerts are false; we’ve checked them ourselves, so rest assured’, what do you expect a headteacher to do?” Some schools did not evacuate, but yesterday the first meeting of the Interministerial Committee for the Security of the Republic was held to update the protocol for cases such as these. “But what protocol? It’s a complete shambles. A headteacher, if they read that there’s a bomb, can’t just sit there weighing things up. It’s the government authorities who must tell them it’s a false alarm, if they’re able to establish that. Is it possible that in Italy and Europe there are no adequate decryption systems to help determine whether a threat is genuine or a hoax? If we’re lagging behind on this, it’s serious, because this is the ground on which the conflicts of the future will be fought.” Some fear the ‘cry wolf’ effect, copycats and desensitisation. “If the prank works, copycats will follow – that’s obvious. What’s ridiculous and dramatic, rather, is seeing that nobody is making any sense of it, even though Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says the Russians are behind the email attacks. Either he knows for certain – in which case he should explain himself better – or he’d be better off keeping quiet. So far, I’ve seen a very high level of amateurism in dealing with the alarm.” Is the rucksack recommended by the UK just round the corner? “It feels as though we’ve gone back to the days of the Korean War, when, in the midst of the Cold War, many people – including my mother – rushed to stock up on food. But back then, the memory of the hunger suffered during the Second World War was still fresh. Have we reached that point? If so, I hope there are, somewhere, intelligent and capable people who, as back then, can avert catastrophe. In the meantime, we must invest in technological security; tanks would be of no use whatsoever in a Third World War – which would be a nuclear one.”