I wish my typical paranoia was working in this situation, but it doesn't. She just goes and comes whenever she wants.

Yesterday, April 25th, was the anniversary of an important day for Italy, the liberation of Milan from the Nazi occupation (y. 1945), which is virtually considered the liberation of Italy from fascism. Every year in Milan there's a march in memory of that important day, and very often the march is an occasion of sparkles among factions.

Usually, since the end of April is a period of elections for Italy (soon we'll vote for the new Mayor here in Milan), a special act takes place on the scene of the march: some eminent member of the right-center coalition walks for a little while in the middle of the left-wing crowd, until people start insulting him, pushing him away, calling him fascist, sometimes coming to blows.
I have recorded episodes like these since when I remember. Since 1994 (the advent of mr. B.): members of Berlusconi's party, members of the Northern League, members of former-fascists parties, conservative journalists, Berlusconi's TVs' reporters... etc.

This happens every time, clockwork, at least when a right-wing representative shows up, if it is useful enough for him or her to run a little risk to gain a lot of respect.
This happens, because the left-wing marches are plagued by handfuls of imbeciles who feel very safe and strong in the crowd, and the examples are countless.

This time the right-wing candidate, the former Minister for Education who is running for Mayor, had to walk only few meters in the crowd before the insults started pouring down. She felt intimidated and left. From what I read, and pretty obviously, news headlines are making a party with it all over the place.
It obviously all turned out to be this huge, gigantic present of the mentioned imbeciles to the right-wing candidate, soon to be new mayor hands down. To humble her opponents even more, in fact, when she received the insults she was actually pushing in the crowd her father on a wheelchair, who is a survivor from a nazist concentration camp.

O-K.

Alas, this is not all. Later during the demonstration, some other imbecile decided to burn an Israeli flag in the middle of the march. Not very wisely, since the two imbecile acts got immediately linked in the news and in public imagination, and will forever be, whether they actually were linked or not. How burning an Israeli flag had anything to do with a march in memory of the liberation against the Nazism, anyway, it's everybody's guess. I think the only reason is what I said before, namely the perverse way by which one can feel safe and strong and cowardly protected in the crowd (reason why I avoid marches whenever I can).

(Mind you, I have many reserves against the Israeli government. I think they committed and are committing many crimes. And on the other hand I wouldn't find that insulting if someone, for example in Lybia, would burn an Italian flag during a march because of what we did there during Fascism. But, when the country you are protesting against is no larger than Tuscany and has thousands of enemies around the world already, and finds itself at the end point of a long line of persecution along the entire history of civilization already, it doesn't take a lot of courage or pride to add your own burned flag to the pire. It is almost convenient, in certain circles, more than it is political meaningful, which obviously isn't).

Anyway, the neat result of the whole thing is that, now, it is out of the question for the left-wing coalition to possibly ever take back Milan from the hands of the dull, greedy, insensitive, tree-cutting and shit-eating Berlusconian coalition. The easiest trick with milanese voters has always been to make one part look not 100% regular and reliable and middle-class. And the trick succeeded.

Not surprisingly, the most known and used tricks are the ones that work better.

Now, as I was saying, I wish my typical paranoia was working in this situation: I wish it was true that somehow these imbeciles were actually placed there in the march by some infiltrated group secretly working for the right-wing coalition. But it is not so. These imbeciles are a genuine product of the communist anti-fascist left-wing Italian galaxy.

Sure, all the left-wing leaders are censuring what happened after it happened: but with this, they just make everyone touch how much they are detached from the crowds.
Sad or not, it is a fact.

What I make of it? Well, I don't like what the left is in Italy right now: but probably I won't like what it will be tomorrow, reduced from the rule of the oligarchs, to the rule of the imbeciles. As Flaubert said talking about the radical left of his times, it's probably for the best, because the kingdom of idiots is always shorter.

-- in picture, above: detail from an engraving by Bruegel