Apr 27: War comes to the campus

'Student' protests in Italy and across the U.S.

Student protests

It’s far too early to get the full picture about who or what is behind the student encampment protests across university campuses in the United States. We can, however, glean some insights about them from developments in Italy after October 8. They seem to be pointing to a disturbing pattern that is emerging. So bear with me on this preliminary account of events about the student protests.

Across university campuses in Italy, pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli groups immediately formed after October 7. They are not in support of Israel as they have not once mentioned the slaughter of Israelis on October 7th, nor have they ever demanded the liberation of the hostages being held by Hamas terrorists. They claim to focus on the ‘Palestinians’, and their ‘plight’ while conveniently omitting that Palestinians are living under the regime of a terrorist group.

The ‘Protests’: Setting the Stage

On October 9, the first university protest at La Spazienza, in Rome, called for students to rally against Israel’s “brutal attack” against the ‘Palestinians’. One of the organisers at La Sapienza is Cambiare Rotta, responsible for the micro-protests, which took place in the early summer 2022. Along with comrades from the latest reiterations of the Italian communist inspired-parties, they organised ‘student demos’ against Italian arms shipments to Ukraine, in addition to railing against then prime minister, Mario Draghi, who they labelled an American puppet and NATO devil. They have never taken their placards and banners to Via Gaeta in Rome, home to the Russian embassy, nor have they even mentioned Russian aggression…ever.

Publicising the event was Robert Fiore, member of the far-right extremist groups, Forza Nuova, and International Third Position—a faction of the British National Front—as well as founder a new ‘project', Alliance for Peace, based in Brussels.

He is currently living in London, having escaped Italian law enforcement, which indicted him for his participation in a violent raid against the CGIL trade union headquarters in Rome in 2021. Fiore has close ties to Russia: In 2015, he attended the Russian Congress of Conservatives in St Petersburg, organised by Rodina. Most recently, L’Espresso revealed that Fiore is very active on VKontakt:

Inside the social network, the pages of Forza Nuova and various local sections of Roberto Fiore's party were created, from Sicily to Lazio, from Veneto to those in the cities of Catania or Padua. There is even a page that unites Forza Nuova and the Northern League, all with slogans like "God, homeland, family, work and freedom" and full of posts in favor of the Russians in recent days: "The war in Ukraine is the real objective, which aims to strike Europe. Putin clearly understands that Russia’s ultimate objective is to get the great powers to pay for Russian oil in roubles, thus definitively demolishing the American dollar system", we read on the Forza Nuova’s page.

Fiore had been posting about Russia’s great power status and its power as the destroyer of the American system, and then he suddenly switched to drumming up support for ‘Palestine’ and providing visibility for student ‘protests’ to his ranks.

Most analysts agree that the extreme left and right in Italy and elsewhere share the same strategic aims: weaken the nation’s political, economic, and social structure so it becomes an unreliable partner in the transatlantic relationship and NATO. Adding to a menu of measures, the tactics are the same as those currently being used across the EU: through staged protests, the extremist groups create the perception of political instability, and dissatisfaciton with the current policy of aid to Ukraine, and most recently, Israel. Italy is not considered to be a big player when it comes to lethal aid to Ukraine, nor is it a great power on the global stage; however, its geostrategic position in the Mediterranean, and its contribution to NATO in theatres across the world is a necessary element to the West’s security architecture. Russia has already captured Hungary and Slovakia. It’s doing its damnest to flip Georgia as well as Italy.

The students occupations and protests began almost immediately after October 8. Alongside La Sapienza, Federico II University of Naples joined the student protest, and Rome Tre soon followed. In the post below, a ‘journalist’, Giuliano Granato, working for the pro-Kremlin rag, Il Fatto Quotidiano, was calling for an increase in protests against the “genocide” at the hands of Israel. He then concluded by saying that only “popular mobilisation can produce change.”

The word ‘change’ is sprinkled like parsely in risotto in all of these posts: it cynically manipulates the hopes of our youth into thinking that a simple protest can lead to significant ‘change’. The organisers are banking on the malaise or perceived malaise that resides deep within so many university students, not only in Italy, but in the EU and across the Atlantic as well.

At La Sapienza in Rome on April 16, the Cambiare Rotta Young Communists organisation, a group of militants claiming to be ‘Free Palestine’ supporters, sought to storm the Dean’s building, and then attempted to occupy other university buildings.

It’s telling because the attempt mirrors events at La Sapienza in 1968, and in many other academic centres in Italy and France. The student chaos had actually started in 1967 in Trento and Milan where “students held occupations in protest against attempts to increase fees or restrict access, protests that mushroomed into discussions about what universities were for and what should be taught by whom,” Michael Burleigh explains. He adds:

There was much conformist experimentation, whether involving sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, or collectivised housing and squatting. Remote conflicts, in Latin America and South-east Asia; or in the race-torn cities of the USA, added visceral moralising passions while inclining young people to admire guerrilla-type violence. ¹

The transformation from continuous sit-ins and occupations to violent terrorism occurred around 1968-69 when Soviet agents infiltrated university groups. The ‘autonomous’ left-wing groups which emerged developed their own security and intelligence units. The radical groups had officially ended their support for and alliance with the Italian Communist Party, which they perceived as traitors to the ‘proletariat revolution’. They were disgruntled because the Italian Communists had broken with the Soviet line on the surface, and decided to work within Italian parliamentarism to enact a revolution aimed at changing Italian society and institutions. That said, red roubles were still flowing into CPI coffers.²

Events transpiring on Italian campuses and in urban centres today may be pointing to the disturbing pattern of the development of terrorism as expressed in the late 1960s. The extremist groups, their followers, logos, flags, banners, chants, slogans, and proclaimed objectives indicate a radicalisation of student groups. To my knowledge, the process was seeded in the Spring 2022 (some even posit during the COVID-19 pandemic), but Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine did not mobilise students in great numbers. What really got them going was the anti-Israeli sentiment coupled with anti-Americanism. It’s all there for us to see as it plays out on social media platforms, Telegram chats, and national TV news programmes.

Student Protests Turn Violent

Protests don’t work without visibility, and the YouTube channel, Local Team, has certainly been providing that. A là Radio Genoa, it’s been litering social media with postings of violent events in Rome, Naples and Milano since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, reminiscent of the early years of the Rumble channel. Local Team always seems to magically appear wherever aggression is about to take place. That said, it’s also important to add that the organisers have purposefully chosen large, well-known Italian centres so as to increase their visibility. Protests in smaller towns would never make it on the national news.

On April 16, as extremist groups tried occupying La Sapienza, Local Team was there. In the video, undercover police blocked the entrance to the Dean’s building, while ‘protesters’ chanted slogans and insults almost identical to what we’re hearing on American campuses: Jews and the authorities are ‘fascist’ murderers, followed by ‘free Palestine’. Please note the age of some of the ‘student’ protesters.

This particular group in Rome claimed that “Rothschild” (sound familiar?) put pressure on the faculty members at La Sapienza to close down the demonstration, and arrest the protesters. The group then called a hunger strike, demanded a ceasefire ‘in Gaza’, and the nullification of all Italian university contracts signed with Israel.

In the video below, police push back on protesters. From the video, it is unclear where they are at La Sapienza, or what exactly they were trying to do. That’s the point: it’s the circulation of the video that’s important, not succeeding in the mission.

Student agitation continued throughout the winter: mini-protests were called in most Italian cities hosting medium- and small-sized universities.

By April 2024, new associations claiming to be ‘Committees for Palestine’ had formed, which seem to be connected to national ‘organisations’ of unknown reputation or origin. The literature spread by these groups no longer bears the logos of the original organisers, Cambiare Rotta, or any other student union for that matter. This could be for various reasons: they may want to hide their identity or it may reflect the diverse phases in the formation of extremist groups. Normally, extremists on the left and right are quite fluid: a group will disband for a number of reasons (for example, members move, are arrested, or they’ve given up the fight) or be absorbed into another, bringing with it personnel, material and know-how. However, their message remains the same, as the literature calling for a demonstration on March 21 indicates:

“Public assembly for the academic boycott of Israel! Stop the genocide and the colonisation of Palestine! Stop the accords with Israeli universities! Stop the research for military objectives!”

“At the assembly, you will find material to get informed on the international campaign BDS (boycott, disinvestment, and sanctions), the academic boycott, and the specific accords that our universities have with Israel and private entitites which are involved in the commerce of war.”

Let’s unite on Isreal Genocide Week for the academic boycott against Israel! Participate in the assembly!

Get Israel out of the University! Get the military out of the university!

New groups have also joined in the protests. In the pictures below, we can see the resurgence of the ‘autonomous’ groups, once active from the late 1960s into the 1970s. This particular group, Collettivo Autonomo Lavoratori Portuali (the Autonomous Collective of Port Workers) is based in Genova as per Matteo Pugliese’s findings. They may also be some sort of off-shoot of the port workers who were active in the fall 2021 in Genova and Trieste. This remains to be investigated.

Photos courtesy of Matteo Pugliese

In a careful reading of the literature in distribution, the groups haven’t used the ‘68 expression—the ‘industrial military complex’—but that may show up down the road or it may have been discarded because it simply doesn’t resonate with a younger target group. They’ve also dropped the ‘Zionist’ slur attributed to all Israelis. Translating ‘industrial military complex’ into Italian doesn’t work well, and would not gather hits on social media, while words like military, war, colonisation, genocide, propaganda boycott, resistance, and occupation do. The word ‘Zionist’ would not register with Italian students, who wouldn’t know what it actually means. That said, further investigation into the so-called national NGOs, their local proxies, and these particular communication aspects is forth-coming.

Liberation Day Celebrations hacked by ‘The Protesters’

April 25 marks the Liberation Day Celebrations in Italy when the Allies and partisans of all political stripes defeated Mussolini’s and Hitler’s forces. Over the past few years, it’s been used as an occasion to whitewash fascism as well as reiterate the illusion that the Soviets were angelic heroes. This year, the protests for ‘Palestine’ hacked the Liberation Day celebrations in at least three major Italian cities.

In Milano, groups affiliated with Cambia Rotta, Potere al Popolo, and un-known individuals, insulted the families of the Hebrew Brigade, which was one of the units that fought alongside the Allies to liberate Italy. The ‘protesters’ purposefully singled out those present to honour the Hebrew Brigade, and for about 4 minutes, law enforcement officers didn’t step in to disperse them.

A little afterwards, the protesters paraded against Israel and for ‘Palestine’: in the video, it seems as though the crowd were responding to instructions. You will also hear the chant: “Se non cambierà, intifada pure quà!”—if change doesn’t happen, intifada here too!.

Feeding off each other

As I pointed out earlier, groups ally with each other and/or find fellow-travellers. Moving over to the other side of the Atlantic, Cambiare Rotta has now declared its solidarity with the students at Columbia University. They have recalled ‘Vietnam’ and the student protests in 1968, and profess their solidarity with protest movements across the world. Why Columbia? Because it’s getting the most press.

For weeks prior to the student emcampments in the U.S., posts on social media praised the Khmer Rouge for the ‘decolonisation’ of Vietnam and Cambodia, shockingly omitting that they murdered an estimated million people when they took power. But that’s history and most young people are severely ignorant about the mass genocide at the hands of Pol Pot, and a myriad of other nationalist/militarist Soviet satellite and client regimes in Africa, Indochina, not to mention Communist China under Mao.

How the protests across U.S. university campuses will play out remains to be seen. For the moment, the protesters are chanting the same slogans as their counterparts in Italy, the Czech Republic, and elsewhere. To be sure, there may believers who have nursed the ‘idea’ of Palestine for years; however, in my view, these people had protested early on, and belonged to an older generation. What we’re seeing now is a younger cohort at ivy league universities in urban centres. It’s in keeping with the protests in the U.S. and Europe in 1968.

I’ll continue monitoring events in Italy and in the U.S. to see if they fall within the pattern of nascent terrorist violence, if they simply peter out, or transform into something else. They seem to be on their way to taking a more sinister turn. I don’t want to give the impression that public protest is something not to be cherished: I have been on many demonstrations in my life, and it’s vital that we have the freedom to do so. However, if the Russians are involved in some capacity, they may have penetrated the protest movement by now, and will seek to escalate and intensify their activity and violence through the use of proxies.

When it comes to capturing organic protest movements, and subverting their activities, the Russians use the “red wasp and a spider” method, as discussed by Zarina Zabrisky, a journalist currently based in Odesa. Over the course of the 20th Century, under the right social and political conditions, the Russians exploit, indoctrinate, and provide funds and materials to extremists in order to destabilise their target state, and more importantly, bring it towards Russian positions:

[It] “paralyses a spider by injecting poison and lays an egg inside it. The spider’s vital organs are still working. It is alive but can’t move. The egg hatches, and the larva eats the spider from the inside out. No blood is shed. The adversary corrupts the minds slowly and inconspicuously by injecting myths and narratives into the public information space and contaminating individual and collective minds. The attacked country is paralyzed. The adversary takes over.”³

I haven’t commented on the social and political milieu currently underpinning Italy, other EU nations or the U.S because it is far too nuanced to plop into a short post. Suffice it to say that if the Russians or any malign actor have managed to penetrate the protest movement, they found fissures of access within which they pumped tons of propaganda and disinformation. They cannot penetrate a formidably resilient state.

Something to expand on in a future post as well as incorporate more information concerning the protesters and their leadership once it becomes available.

Thanks for reading

1. Burleigh, Michael. Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism, E-Book (HarperPress: 2008) p 3709-3744.

2. Crozier, Brian. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Prima Publishing, Forum (Rocklin, California: 1999) pp 556-558.; For the genesis of terrorism in Italy during the Years of Lead, please see: Committee of the Judiciary, United States Senate, “Terrorism and Security: The Italian Experience: Report of the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism”, (Washington: 1983-85). https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/101561NCJRS.pdf

3. Zabrisky, Zarina, “A Mind War: A Red Wasp and a Spider”, Byline Times (7 Aug 2018). https://byline.com/2018/08/07/a-mind-war-a-red-wasp-and-a-spider/