A day of ordinary madness [that was the italian title for Falling Down: Un Giorno di Ordinaria Follia, ed. note]: in Bari, three young men, aged 17 to 18, were arrested for using a homeless man as a target to test a weapon. In Rome, students staged a flash mob, smearing blood on pictures of government ministers and the Prime Minister. In Turin, students escalated protests by throwing a tear gas device, injuring 15 police officers during clashes. Elsewhere across Italy, protests turned chaotic with scuffles, egg-throwing, and torn photos of Giorgia Meloni. This was the “No Meloni Day,” organized by youth demanding a better education system. Quite the call for change.
Meanwhile, a video emerges from Naples showing a teenager shooting another over a scuffed shoe. In Massa Carrara, a tragic case unfolds as an 18-month-old girl dies after being erroneously discharged from the hospital. Details also surface about a young woman who lost her life undergoing a nose job.
Between politics—or what passes for it—and grim headlines, what is happening to you, Italy? A spiral of violence, unrest, and the erosion of values seems to stretch from North to South, from bustling cities to small towns, like a relentless moral virus. Perhaps it’s just a gloomy journalist’s perspective, a distorted anthology of events, a sweeping, flawed generalization. Perhaps… if only.
