The Social Crisis Looms Over: Italy at the Time of the Coronavirus
In addition to the health crisis, still in full emergency and to the political one, Italy is preparing to face the social crisis. In a few days it will have to face the no of Europe, confirming that by now the experience of the European Union is at an end, as well as the neoliberal economic system on which it was born.
No strategy ready for Italy, which will find itself completely unprepared to face the economic crisis that is coming and that is already affecting the whole country socially. The coronavirus crisis and all that it implies in the total absence of aid from the State are leading to a generalised violence. Among the various protests and inconveniences in the country is the beginning of the assault on supermarkets, leaving without paying, and the rise in suicide rates.
Assault on supermarkets
In much of southern Italy supermarkets are now manned by the police after some people have filled their shopping carts and tried to leave without paying.
"We have no money," they said during the protest in Palermo.
A situation that required the intervention of the police, who in recent days have stopped other attempts to raid.
While there are fears of a real revolt in the poorest neighborhoods with robberies of supermarkets, the government, instead of planning a concrete economic emergency plan for everyone, has increased the controls by the police forces, also bringing the military into play. In the South especially many families are surviving "the day" with occasional jobs, which the prohibitions to stop contagion have blocked along with all other activities. Italian citizens have responded well to the advice to stay at home, but without being able to open a shop, without being able to work even occasionally, forms of poverty that before the virus did not emerge so disruptive. While in the North the risk is speculative, where there is more poverty, the danger is that desperate people may fall into the hands of criminals and Mafia.
The rise of suicides
Today we think about health, physical health first of all, but we must not neglect mental health, as we are doing. Let's think of the sucks in the first place, whose rate is experiencing a huge upsurge.
We must always remember that suicide is a multifactorial event: one cause is not enough, but many elements must be aligned for it to happen. The common denominator is the mental pain of the subject, made up of thoughts, reasoning, dialogue with oneself, defeat and humiliation. Where mental pain is already present, exacerbating it becomes easier in conditions of narrowness and segregation such as those imposed by quarantine. There are many people who experience psychic frailty, who suffer violence at home, who have their own business and suddenly had to stop, with no prospect of recovery and help from the state.
There are also cases of suicides among health workers who, especially in the north, discovered positive Covid-19 or simply felt powerless in the face of the huge tragedy of beds full of sick people with no possibility of treatment, have committed suicide.
The role of the media
Information plays a predominant role in creating a sense of precariousness and insolubility in the problem and this leads to violence and suicide.
We are bombarded every day with dramatic news, without being told if and how we will come out of all this.
The media should give messages that counterbalance the drama: elements of positivity, perspective, practical indications on how to ask for help, supported of course by concrete political messages of assistance.
Decisive in this situation would be the exercise of national sovereignty, not the exercise of political rhetoric, but the real sovereignty which, enshrined in our Constitution, belongs to the people.
V.D.
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