At the Gates of Roma

[Charles Phillips]

Originally Posted by adriatica

many Italian newspapers are saying now that its time to stop this sort of reporting of every incident in terms of right wing extremism and linking it to centre right politics when they are just the norm of everyday city life here where extremes from either side... generally involving people who enjoy fighting are labeled instead as hooligans... a far simpler and most probably more correct version of what is happening here than anything to do with political movements...

So long as the Italian press doesn't stop reporting the incidents at all, that way would lie disaster. At least the Italian media show Alemanno looking genuinely distressed by the attacks, unlike the holier than thou International press.

[Nardini]

Originally Posted by adriatica

...however to suggest that the attack on the shopkeepers is something to do with politics of either side...the leader of the attack had a tattoo of Che Guevara ... so i guess would commonly be understood to be of a left leaning and also included a good friend of his... a black person... hardly making the whole gang part of an extreme Nazi right... in fact the whole thing was a personal confrontation to do with a stolen wallet and had a lot more to do with the perceived problems in these areas of that when you call the police nothing gets done...

There would seem to be a divergence of views as to both the political leanings of the attackers and also the purpose of the attack.

"The trendy Rome neighborhood of Pigneto was invaded last month by swastika-wearing thugs who beat Chinese, Indian and Bangladeshi shopkeepers and chanted "Get out, bastard foreigners." Coming after violent attacks on Romas in Milan and Naples, the attacks were condemned by authorities but also, it seems, inspired by them. "

I would suggest that it is unlikely that a group of "swastica-wearing thugs", chanting "Get out, bastard foreigners" were thinking about a missing wallet at the time.

Newsweek carried the story in the context of a changing Europe. Here.