Commentary
Batons in the streets, cudgels in the chamber
The decree is meant to quell demonstrations, to silence anyone who challenges the government. And it will also serve to pack the prisons with eco-activists, struggling workers, the homeless, the poor and migrants, women – preferably Roma women together with their children.
The police baton to the head received by No DL Sicurezza network spokesman and municipal councillor Luca Blasi, struck while he tried to mediate between protesters and officers, offers a graphic, definitive snapshot of the “vision” driving the current government.
The initial bill was trashed along with months of parliamentary work and replaced by a decree that will be pushed through on a confidence vote. Batons in the streets, cudgels in the palaces of power. The high-handedness goes hand in hand with the relentless bid to delegitimize the opposition (“the left that visits mobsters in prison”) and the suppression of dissent and even of plain common sense.
What the “emergency situation” was that supposedly warranted cancelling the bill in mid-course and passing a decree instead was spelled out by Galeazzo Bignami, leader of the Fratelli d’Italia group in the Chamber – who, it bears repeating, once dressed up as a Nazi. The decree, he said, is meant precisely to quell demonstrations like those on Saturday – in other words, to silence anyone who challenges the government.
And it will also serve to pack the prisons with eco-activists, struggling workers, the homeless, the poor and migrants, women – preferably Roma women together with their children, because for “Mother of Italy” Giorgia Meloni, children’s rights come first only if she likes who the parents are. And since, to quote the bully’s motto that fits this government like a glove, “he who strikes first, strikes twice,” after those same “criminals” will already be crammed into jails, they will be punished again if they so much as stage a passive protest against the unbearable prison conditions.
Malice layered upon malice: that is the prevailing mood, not only on this side of the so-called civilised West, and it explains the elective affinities between Giorgia Meloni and other world leaders. Telling the difference between the premier at home and her persona elsewhere has become an increasingly hollow exercise.
Perhaps the real question is how far institutional and constitutional overreach – decried by so many jurists in this latest decree – can go on this side of the civilised West without meeting serious resistance.
From day one, this “right of the right” government has churned out measures steeped in ideology and identity politics, entirely consistent with the political culture it hails from – sometimes seeming to be mere propaganda exercises yet leading to serious consequences nonetheless. They ranged from the ludicrous anti-rave decree to the Caivano decree, which caused the number of minors behind bars to skyrocket, and others such as the Cutro and Albania decrees. The thread running through them sketches a deadly blueprint for the future, in which, even as we wring our collective hands over the falling birthrate, the youngest and the would-be new citizens are placed squarely in the crosshairs.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio claims that prison overcrowding is not caused by the laws passed by the current majority, but by the judges who send people to jail. The statement is dumbfounding, but Nordio is still the minister and must be taken seriously. More offences, ever more crowded prisons, an overburdened court system and, at the same time, a judiciary kept in check by threats: this is the perverse right-wing mechanism for squaring the circle, and it must be broken.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/manganello-nelle-piazze-clava-nei-palazzi on 2025-05-27