The appeal to go “from the stadiums into the squares” was first launched on social media, through a video calling for “the Italians” to protest on Saturday afternoon at the Circus Maximus in Rome “against those who have destroyed our country.”
Then came some flyers that specified the objectives more clearly, announcing that “the time has come to rebel and raise the three-color flag,” against those who “have first put us in chains and now have even muzzled us [referring to face masks]” and who, supposedly “invoking the excuse of the pandemic, have arrested and locked us up at home for weeks.”
Finally, through letters sent to local online newspapers and websites dedicated to soccer, the outlines of the initiative became more clear: it was an attempt by a part of the extreme right to demonstrate against what they call “a government that is a slave to supranational economic and financial cliques,” linked to “globalist financial capitalism,” which has “instituted” nothing short of “a dictatorial drift.”
The group organizing the initiative chose a completely new and deliberately generic moniker, “Ragazzi Italiani” (“Italian Youth”), a front for a number of right-wing organizations from the world of soccer.
But that’s not all. Presented initially as “the protest of the soccer fans,” the Roman march appears to be one of the many signs of the awakening of the radical right which is accompanying the end of the lockdown, while the signs of crisis and possible reshuffling in this area of the political spectrum are multiplying: from the announcement of the evacuation of Casa Pound to the crisis that Forza Nuova is going through, with groups of former militants in search of a common home, or the protests organized in Rome on May 30 under the banner “March on Rome,” all the way to the conspiracy-minded protests of the Orange Vests.
Unsurprisingly, the call to demonstrate on June 6 in Rome has received support mostly from other groups that have always been close to neo-fascist militancy, starting from the Brigata Leonessa of Brescia, tied to the network of the Veneto Fronte Skinheads and the Ultras Lazio. The appeal was shared by the “Voce della Nord,” a direct successor of the Irreducibli after the dissolution of that group following the murder of Fabrizio Piscitelli, nicknamed “Diabolik.” Others who have announced their support are notoriously fascist groups of soccer fans, such as the fans of Verona, Varese and Ascoli, but delegations from Juventus and Roma have also been announced.
It was also clear who chose to clearly distance themselves from this initiative, most notably the Curva Nord group of Atalanta fans. It remains to be seen whether or not the various groups of the radical right will also respond to the call. In the meantime, the provincial ANPI branch has asked the Roman Prefect and Chief of Police to “prevent the dangerous and subversive demonstration” by the neo-fascists.
