REPORTAGE The kids from the outskirts of Milan: 'Here only boredom and poverty'

Outside the circle of the Navigli, in Milan there is a fragmented mosaic of neighborhoods, populated by those who move forward but remain only to observe. The message from those who live there is direct: "We all see the center as life, while we are on the outside, because on the other side they don't experience your struggles", says Manuel, just of age, who lives in Barona, and in the morning goes around the Barrio, the same area as Marracash, the singer and producer who in recent hours has taken a stand on the unrest in the square saying: "you don't change things with good manners".

Among the hundreds of young people stopped and taken to the police station for the looting and devastation, almost all of them come from the suburbs or hinterland of Milan. And everyone here approves of the rapper's message: "he did well - they say - it's finally nice that people with notoriety and a fan base are carrying this message". Hat, tracksuit, fashionable shoes, little 'cash' and a resignation that harbors dreams hidden in the reels of the cell phone: with those at least - among the red 70s buildings - you can betray the eternal return of that routine that satisfies no one.

"Remember one thing - says Marco - we are in a place where the kids make a living from day to day, as do some families. Nothing more". Then his equation on money: "The reason for everything is always money, without that you can't do anything. For those who grow up here, the problem is all there. If there were a lot of angry and bored kids at the demonstrations, the reason is always this." And the violence? "Maybe the methods are wrong, but there is nothing here, not even hopes. We would need to create an interest." Same speeches and same scenes in the gray areas of San Siro, where in a hundred meters you suddenly go from kilometers of dilapidated buildings to modern complexes and panoramic towers. Two places apparently without barriers but which do not communicate.

For Mauro Magatti, sociologist and professor at the Catholic University, who analyzes the generational discomfort at the basis of youth protests, "money is seen by many of those kids as the great healer - he explains - . And it is inevitable that the push towards forms of violent protests comes from the neighbourhoods. There is not a political idea nor the desire to change the world, but to be able to access that type of life that is told and from which they feel thrown out". And money remains the mirage. "It's like magic: if I have it, I can get those advantages, which otherwise would disappear." Then the expert reflects: "before there were associations, now the great and false mediator is social media and it is normal for models and pseudo leaders to be identified there. But the characteristic of social media stars is always the same: there are those who appear, make a post, and then continue to mind their own business". On the other side there are those who shake and under those hats sit watching for hours on the bench, keeping the rising anger at bay. The kids in the Barrio say: "Whoever lives here is outside real society." But maybe it's the opposite.