An old institute, a stone’s throw from the headquarters of the Emilia-Romagna Region, built in the center of a small park, in the shade of a handful of trees spared by the ‘Soviet rationalism’ of the tower blocks built all around in the 1970s. This is the brief portrait of the Besta middle schools in Bologna and the Don Bosco park, where they are located. A place that has become a pretext for conflict, following the start of work for the redevelopment of the institute, which involves the cutting of several plants. In a crescendo of tensions and protests that are shaking Bologna, now also extended to the works for the red tram line (with adjoining cycle path) which will pass through Viale Aldo Moro. Tensions that resulted in death threats, street clashes, continuous intimidation, on social media and in person, of politicians and journalists.
The latest ones date back to Friday evening, when two hundred anarchists, on behalf of and with the support – not even silent – of the Besta Committee, which opposes the redevelopment project of the institute, smeared the entire neighborhood (in particular the headquarters of the Pd club ), damaged the vehicles of the companies involved in the work, left the words ‘Borsari die badly’ under the house of the person concerned, councilor for public works of the municipality. The day before, sixty of them had violently resisted police and carabinieri, there to allow the workers in charge of working safely on cutting some plants.
And now, the mayor Matteo Lepore and the councilor Simone Borsari have been placed under protection, with frequent passages of police and carabinieri under the homes and in the places they frequent. Then on Wednesday, in the Prefecture, there will be discussion about extending the same measures to the deputy mayor of the Civic Coalition Emily Clancy – who declared that there was a lack of dialogue regarding the Besta, instead condemning the clashes over the tram – and to the councilor for urban planning Raffaele Laudani , in turn recipients of insults and intimidation on social media. But to understand how this delirium began, we need to take a step back. At least fifteen years ago, when the Municipality began to discuss the need to redevelop the Besta schools. A project that remained in the drawers until 2021, when the council approves it, to present it, at a cost of around 9 million, in May following the school. Various meetings and neighborhood councils follow, while the project continues (and rises to 17 million). In July 2023, when the works are about to be awarded, the first flyers signed ‘Comitato Besta’ appear. A group of citizens who oppose the moving of the school to another point of the park (with the obvious consequence of cutting down the trees), to which the Greens, Legambiente and Pap wink – in open contrast with the administration. The Committee tries to block the works with three complaints to the Foresters – to protect the woodpecker that nests on the plants -, one to the Superintendency, to declare the existing building protected (rejected), even with an appeal in court, which was also rejected. Meanwhile, the anarchists from Tribolo and the former Xm24 social center begin to gravitate to the park. They approach the committee and become, in short, its ‘armed wing’. They build tree houses and settle there as lookouts, with their faces covered by balaclavas. And when the workers arrive for the first interventions, they take to the field as they know how: brandishing sticks, bottles, stones; using construction site barriers as andirons. The first contact, a light one, occurs in January, when a local agent is thrown to the ground. Then on April 3rd the police arrive to escort the workers and there is the first day of passion. Which is repeated, identically, last Thursday, when the workers, however, were there to ‘clear the way’ for the tram. Distinct projects, same tension. And if the Municipality, after the riots in April, had interrupted work on the Besta to seek a (stalled) negotiation with the Committee, after Thursday’s events it was clear to everyone that the limit was full. That the trees were a mere pretext used by the anarchist fringes to arrive at a clash and to take over the Don Bosco park, where around thirty ‘fellows’ currently camp, even arriving from outside the region to support the cause. A cause where, for the ‘normal’ citizens (meaning without street precedent) of the Besta Committee it seems that the end justifies any means, even the most abject. Now, Digos is working: it has already identified 30 of Thursday’s violent offenders and will begin analyzing the videos today to find the perpetrators of the threats. But whoever is behind it, who incites violence and helps the troublemakers, don’t think you are ‘absolved’. He’s the same one involved.
