The images from central Milan were of broken shop windows, burning barricades and police confronting young demonstrators in streets more accustomed to commerce and tourism. Yet the violence followed a march that had begun peacefully, bringing together grievances about living costs, housing and the future available to younger Italians. In “Milan braces for more unrest as debate intensifies over Italy’s ‘lost generation’”, published by the Guardian on 23 October, Angela Giuffrida examines the anger behind the clashes and the divide between young people with opportunities and those who feel excluded from them.
The distinction between protest and disorder matters. Masked groups looted shops and damaged property, actions that cannot be excused by economic frustration; the Associated Press also reported injuries to police officers and the use of teargas and water cannon. But neither should the behaviour of those groups be used to erase the concerns voiced by people who attended the demonstrations without resorting to violence. Public debate becomes especially unhelpful when everyone in a square is treated either as a victim of repression or as a potential criminal.
The government has responded with tougher security measures and the deployment of 500 troops to Milan, while the Guardian reports proposals and measures directed at young offenders and parental responsibility. The need to protect residents, businesses and peaceful demonstrators is real. Still, security policy answers only one of the questions raised by the events. The other concerns the prospects of young people living in an expensive city whose labour market, housing costs and social geography can place stable independence well beyond reach.
Giuffrida’s reporting brings attention to neighbourhoods and families rarely represented in the international image of Milan. Young Italians from working-class backgrounds and children of immigrant households may inhabit the same city as those who benefit from its success, yet experience a markedly different range of choices. That does not make unrest inevitable, and it would be unfair to portray an entire generation or community through the conduct of a violent minority. It does, however, make the language of a “lost generation” worth interrogating: lost to whom, and through whose decisions?
ITALIC’s view.
A city cannot police its way into offering opportunity, just as social hardship cannot justify destruction. The durable response requires both accountability for violence and a serious examination of access to housing, work, education and civic participation. Milan remains one of Italy’s great economic assets, but its success should ultimately be judged not only by what it attracts from abroad or displays in its centre, but by the future its own young residents can realistically claim.