On Saturday 18th of February, a group of high school students, members of Collective Sum , peacefully occupying their school in protest at a variety of problems, were attacked by a group of fascists from an organisation called Azione Studentesca (Student Action) which has its Florence base beside the Fratelli D’Italia party headquarters. Here is the student’s own description of the attack:
“This morning, Saturday 18 February 2023, a group of fascists belonging to Student Action and Casaggì showed up in front of our school under the pretext of handing out flyers. The now ritual screen was placed in front of the entrance, to ensure that no one could even look at what they are trying to spread. At the sight of the dissent of the school students, four of them violently pushed one of the boys and they were then joined by four other squadristi, who were waiting to be able to beat up a group of young people. At that point, their true intention became clear: a full-blown squad attack.”
The article ends with the student’s motto: “For a school, for a city, for a world free of fascism”
So far the neofascist government of Giorgia Meloni and her party Fratelli D’Italia have remained either silent or have expressed hostility to the students.
Shortly after the attack, the director of the Da Vinci School of Florence, Dr Annalisa Savino, published a powerful open letter to students and parents expressing her support for her students and openly naming the group involved in the attack as fascist, a controversial statement considering that Azione Studentesca is effectively a youth wing of the governing party Frattelli D’Italia.
Since its publication Dr. Annalisa Savino has been attacked and harassed and, in particular, one minister, Giuseppe Valditara of the Lega, who is Minister for Education, claiming, in a highly critical intervention, that ‘there is no fascist danger in Italy’.
There has, however, been an outpouring of support from the public and from left leaning parties and unions. Including from Enrico Letta, outgoing head of the PD, Elly Schlein at present a candidate for the leadership of the PD, from the ANPI (National Association of Italian Partisans), from major newspapers such as Il Manifesto and La Repubblica, and even from former PM Matteo Renzi.
Here is my translation of Dr Savino’s letter.
Re. The Recent events in the Via Colonna
Dear Students,
With reference to what happened on Saturday in front of the Liceo Michelangiolo of Florence, to the public debate, to the reactions and non-reactions, I maintain that everyone of you has already formed your own opinion, reflected upon and formulated by your selves, bearing in mind that the episode involves your classmates and that it occurred outside a high school such as yours. Therefore I won’t bore you, however I would like to recall two things.
Fascism in Italy was not born of a great mass of people. It was born at the side of an ordinary street, with the victim of a politically motivated beating who was left to his own devices by indifferent passersby. ‘I hate the indifferent’ said a great Italian, Antonio Gramsci, whom the fascists locked up in prison until his death, terrified like rabbits of the power of his ideas.
Furthermore, you are well aware that in moments like these, in history, totalitarians set out to try their fortunes, destroying, in the process, the fortunes of entire generations. In times of uncertainty, of collective distrust of the institutions, when our gaze is directed inwards, we all need to place our trust in the future and to open ourselves to the world, always condemning violence and arrogance. One who sings the praises of the border, who honours the blood of the ancestors in opposition to that of others, who continues to raise walls, should be avoided, called by his true name, fought with ideas and culture. Without deluding oneself that this disgusting regurgitation will pass by itself – a hundred years ago many respectable Italians thought that way and it did not happen as they thought it would.
The Scholastic Director
Dr. Annalisa Savino
