by EMMA VOLONTE
Ten years ago this past July, protests were organized against the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy. All of us in Europe had images of the movement born in Seattle in our eyes, and all of this Genoa business seemed to us like a date that you couldn’t miss—the chance to affirm that we were not a generation lacking ideals.
In the first few days, the tension was so thick that you could practically touch it: a packet-bomb exploded in a carabinieri barracks, another in the headquarters of a right-wing channel. The city was occupied by over 11 thousand men from the police force and—according to the BBC—the Italian government purchased some 200 body bags.
On Friday, July 20th, 2001, there was a veritable battle in Genoa. An authorized march of 15,000 activists that were dressed in protective/padded clothing, ready to react only if provoked, were attacked suddenly by the carabinieri. Looking at the pictures it’s hard to believe that they were taken in Italy: police beating bloody protesters lying on the ground; doctors with their Red Cross shirts struck with batons; police wagons barreling towards the crowd; protesters hurling rocks and other objects in a reaction that, according to the judges, was “justified” when faced with the “unjustified aggression by the carabinieri.” It is in those hours that Carlo Giuliani, 23 years old, died from the impact of a bullet fired by a young carabiniere, who then ran over his body two times with his Land Rover Defender. “1-0, us. I hope they all die”, said another cop over the radio to his colleague, referring to the violence against Giuliani.
Not long before, a platoon of police entered Plaza Manin, where the Rete Lilliput pacifists had gathered: they were beaten and insulted; some were arrested. Marina Pellis Spaccini, a doctor who found himself in the plaza, notes: “I am traumatized terribly because of that experience, and if this is true for me as an adult, then imagine how destructive this kind of thing could be for youth, who might have had, for the first time, the chance to express their ideals with joy.”
He was right: rage fills my eyes with tears when I see images from that day, and there are thirty year old men who still cry as they recount their experience in the Bolzaneto barracks or in the Diaz School. For years, many youth who had been in Genoa woke up in the middle of the night screaming, thinking that they were still in that hell.
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