Anarchist terrorism may have had its height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but they are still with us.
BOLOGNA, ITALY – As I pen this Today in Terrorism piece we are living through the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer and the subsequent riots in many US cities. The violence appears to be at the hands of a number of actors, not just the Antifa cited by US President Donald Trump. According to a recent piece in Voice of America, there are at least three other groups participating in the mayhem. The first two are far right groups – white supremacists and ‘boogaloo boys’.
The other is anarchists.
We are all familiar with anarchists I imagine. People who appear to like violence for violence sake. People who want to overturn the existing order (anarchy stems, after all, from the Greek phrase an + archos – ‘without rule’). In other words they want a total system collapse.
On this day in 2004, suspected anarchists partially detonated a bomb at a political rally in Bologna featuring a far-right politician: six were injured.
In Canada we don’t see a lot of anarchist activity: the best most recent example were the anti G-20 riots in Toronto back in 2010. In other Western countries, especially European ones, they seem to be much more active. Italy would be a good example. For some reason, the anarchist scene there is quite something.
On this day in 2004 an explosion injured six people at an election rally in Bologna where the leader of the right-wing National Alliance, Gianfranco Fini, was addressing a crowd. The bomb had been placed in an election vehicle but only the detonator exploded, lessening the number of casualties. Police believe anarchists were behind the attack.
This makes sense. Anarchists would target a right-wing politician as these people would be seen as representative of what anarchists hate.
Then again, anarchists hate just about everything, don’t they?
