On Thursday afternoon, three people who joined the ‘Let’s not pay for fossils’ campaign, promoted by the Ultima Generazione group, carried out a real blitz.
The three sprayed washable orange paint on a sheet covering the equestrian monument dedicated to Vittorio Emanuele II, which is located in Piazza Duomo. Then they lay down on the asphalt.
One young man threw flyers, while the other two displayed a banner with the words “Last Generation. Stop fossil subsidies”.
The police stopped the 3 activists and handcuffed them
The intervention of the plainclothes police was timely. As soon as the signal was launched, they arrived at the scene at 6:32 p.m. and dragged the participants away. They pulled a girl by the pants, then handcuffed a young man with his wrists behind his back.
The protagonists of the blitz, activists, explained that they did all this to denounce the hypocrisy of politicians, who among all the problems that Italy has at the moment, have decided rather to clean up a statue to hide their ineptitude. In their opinion, today the government has chosen not to look the crisis in the face, to pretend that everything is fine by stifling the problems.
The cloth around the smeared statue hides what has been done, it has been used to make sure that everyone forgets the horror of the collapse that we are experiencing today and that unfortunately will also call into question the future. Because yes, nothing will go back to the way it was before. Global warming is caused by our mistakes, people are suffering today and will continue to do so in the coming years.
The money to clean up the statue is there, the money to recover the damage caused by bad weather is not
The activist strikers have soiled the tarp to send the clear message that we can no longer pretend that everything is fine and that everything will go back to the way it was before. Until a few weeks ago, the statue of Vittorio Emanuele II in front of the Duomo of Milan had yellow stains caused by the washable paint launched on March 9 by Ultima Generazione. Now he has a sheet all around.
The cost of cleaning and operations carried out on the statue is around 28,950 euros and was paid entirely by a private individual. Due to the bad weather, however, the Lombardy region complains that it does not have the money to repair the damage caused by the violent cloudburst. The region has anticipated that the costs revolve around “hundreds of millions of euros”. Very hard times will come, for everyone.
