Europe
Italy
A Death in Genoa
 |
| Martyr or Menace? Carlo Giuliani, shot by Italian police during protests at the G8 summit in Genoa (Photo: AFP). |
The leaders of the world’s most industrialized nations, guarded by an army of police, met in Genoa in July to take up such weighty matters as debt relief and funding for AIDS research. But the event was overshadowed by the first death in what—since the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle—has become an increasingly strident series of protests at global economic forums.
Around the world, newspapers and TV stations showed images of protester Carlo Giuliani preparing to hurl a fire extinguisher at a police vehicle as an officer aimed a pistol at him. Later, felled by gunfire, Giuliani was run over by the same vehicle.
To many, the Italian citizen was globalization’s first martyr: a symbol of the destructive logic of unfettered capitalism. To others, the menacing figure of Giuliani and events in Genoa were proof of anti-globalization’s bankruptcy as a movement.
Regardless of their different perspectives, world leaders and anti-globalization organizers took advantage of the misfortune to consider future strategies and tactics. And in Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi retook the prime minister’s seat this spring on a law-and-order platform, an inquiry was launched into allegations that police used excessive force against demonstrators. The Italian press and the rest of Europe found little to admire in what passes for Italian leadership.
In a July 23 editorial, London’s liberal Guardian captured a widespread sentiment: “The protesters must not succeed in stopping the planet’s leaders [from] talking to each other. But if they can put an end to a summit industry that has become wasteful, vacuous, and dangerous, then they will have done some good.”
Thanos Economopoulos in Athens’ conservative Kathimerini wrote of Giuliani’s death (July 24): “[W]hoever insists on being an individual within the globalized collective is an enemy—and he will be crushed! Dead or alive.” Writing in Warsaw’s centrist Rzeczpospolita, Maciej Rybinski said of Giuliani’s ilk (July 21-22): “They have no material concerns, and they are looking for an idea to give meaning to their lives.”
Weeks after the summit, Italian officials and media were still making sense of the violence. At a parliamentary hearing, Gianni De Gennaro, Genoa’s police chief, admitted “excessive use of force” but, according to the leftist Rome-based Il Manifesto, said that a “criminalization of the police was unacceptable” (Aug. 9). He disavowed any failure of leadership on his own part: The officers answer not to him but to the prefect and police commissioner.
 |
| A lone protester faces a police cordon during the G8 summit in Genoa in July, 2001 (Photo: AFP). |
In a front-page editorial in La Repubblica, Giuseppe D’Avanzo questioned whether De Gennaro should be allowed “to hide behind rules and regulations to evade his responsibility” (Aug. 9). Just as important, he asked: “Do the government and the majority have the strength to assume their own responsibility, for the past and the present? Will they do so in the near future? If this question is not resolved, what will happen at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Naples, or at the [United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization] summit in Rome?”
Some protesters, including 16 members of the Austrian comedy troupe VolxTheaterKarawane, were held for more than three weeks. The arrests threatened to sour Italian-Austrian relations. They also prompted charges that Austrian officials had done too little, too late, to defend their fellow citizens. All of the performers had been freed by Aug. 16.
VolxTheater’s Birgit Hebein told Vienna’s liberal Der Standard that it was necessary to clarify “the role of Austria in criminalizing Karawane” (Aug. 15). During the Italian investigation, she charged, “only incriminating material was provided by the Austrian side.”
Deputy Prime Minister Susanne Riess-Passen, chief of the right-wing Freedom Party, added fuel to charges from VolxTheater’s supporters. In the same paper, she asserted: “The whole debate around these people is hypocritical, and it is unbelievable that professional demonstrators are turned into martyrs.”
December 2001 (VOL. 48, No. 12)Overline Overline Overline OverlineHeadline Headline Headline HeadlineName
ID Tag
City
Date
