Watching and Waiting

This summer the Italian government put the Italian army on the streets of Naples. The army then arrived, after a bit of practice during the rubbish crisis, in major cities throughout the peninsula. The soldiers are there to end the waves of petty anti-personnel crime that blight city centres and the close periferia: the organised begging gangs, the illegal street markets, the fake and copied goods, the juvenile pick-pockets with their adult handlers, the drunks, the drugged, the sick denied asylum, the sheer, frightening presence of potential violence.

The police and Carabinieri are quite capable of dealing with it all - the Carabinieri are part of the army, after all, and every last figure of authority is armed to the teeth in Italy, right down to the parking meter attendants and forestry employees. But the army needs rehearsal for the interventions that will be needed when the wages are not paid, the welfare payments break down, the pensions don't arrive in the bank accounts that are wiped out along with the banks. When the assertion of property rights by the landowners threatens the housing of the working people, and the unpaid teachers, medical staff, and the police service itself, start to fail.

It must have felt like this in the sun-bathed summer of 1914