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Rome and its fear of dissent

South Tyrolean separatists were recently denied the chance to express their discontent in the capital.

By Alessio Colonnelli
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south-tyrol-is-not-italian_0[1].jpg

Sign in South Tyrol. Wikimedia. Public domain.

On 18 August, Rome city council forbid Südtiroler Heimatbund (SHB) from plastering walls with a thousand placards. The intended message: “South Tyrol is not Italy!”, spelt out in capitals on a red-white-red background (the Austrian flag).

What’s behind the dissent? South Tyrol joined Italy as part of WWI reparations. Today, only Greater Milan can boast higher median wages than South Tyrol, by a small margin. Nonetheless, the alpine region does have small pockets of urban marginalisation: ageing, working-class Italians, let down in their youth by a split school system that has always kept people apart. Even now.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0