Private property that unknown. Years pass, governments change, but the Italian left remains true to itself. Always on the side of those who attack, always against those who, with sacrifices and years of work, chose to invest their savings in real estate.
The government’s decision to toughen the penalties for those who claim to live in real estate that they don’t own and to streamline the practices and (above all) the timing of evictions sparked protests from Karl Marx’s grandchildren. Among the first to raise the tone of the political clash Alessandro Luparelli and Michela Cicculli, councilors of Campidoglio for the Ecologist Civic Left.
«We are on the side of those who claim the right to housing. The bill from the parent company of FdI, Foti, reaches the Chamber, which provides for the amendment of article 634 of the penal code by introducing the crime of violent disturbance of possession or possession of real estate, precisely aiming to affect occupations. We would like to remind the government that occupying real estate is not a lifetime aspiration; it is most often a forced and painful choice, a condition of precariousness that does not find a response in public housing policies».
Following the reasoning of the two Capitoline counselors, if a person finds himself in difficulty, because he has lost his job or has never found one, he would therefore have the right to occupy other citizens’ living quarters. Laying on these last burdens that don’t belong to them. A kind of big blame game: the State invests (according to this reasoning) little in supporting the weakest (despite the use of more than six billion euros per year for basic income), public housing is often degraded, the rankings hard to climb. So what to do? Stop paying the rent, knowing that, at least for two to two and a half years, no one will dare to evict them. Or occupying vacant housing, owned by insurance companies and banks, but also by ordinary citizens.
“Arrest, eviction, fines. It’s unconstitutional. The right to housing is in the Italian Constitution – argues Marzia Mecocci, spokesperson for the Florentine Movement for Housing – Do not limit the need for housing with more severe penalties, imprisonment or fines, alternative solutions are needed for those who are homeless, without job and can’t wait for assignments: he stays on the street. There is often no alternative but to occupy. In Florence at the start, after the pandemic there were 2,400 evictions in a year, 140 per month if you are desperate, in the middle of the street it is almost a legitimate defense: there seems to be no alternative to the occupations ».
The progressive trombones never miss the opportunity to side with those who, perhaps in the name of a just cause like the environmentalist one, are willing to ruin and destroy the most important and prestigious monuments of the beautiful country. “It is not tolerable that peaceful protests against climate change are improperly considered and managed as dangerous acts of violence – decided the leader of the Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra group in the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber, Filiberto Zaratti, who addressed a question to ministers Piantedosi, Pichetto, Fratin and Sangiuliano – Last Generation activists made non-violence their own inalienable principle. Other environmental groups organized flagrant and equally non-violent actions: Extinction Rebellion blocked a bridge in Bologna, while Rome Climate Strike stormed the airport in Bologna. Ciampino to block the private jet terminal.
Recently, searches were carried out in the homes of young people who spray-painted the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence: undoubtedly a disproportionate measure in relation to the alleged crimes, almost a muscular escalation that seems to be due to the strong media coverage of initiatives in defense of the environment groups . The three state-of-the-art young men who graffitied the Senate door on Jan. 1, caught red-handed and released, are charged with aggravated damages and face up to five years in prison. All this is disproportionate: if this government does not intend to deny climate change, it reverses course to meritorious and deliberately sensationalist initiatives». Yes, you read that right: staining the door of the Senate, staining the Palazzo Vecchio orange or blocking the Ciampino terminal represent “worthy initiatives”.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
