Members of Italy youth-driven Sardine Movement are expected to gather in numbers to conduct a rally in Rome on Saturday. The group intends to shake the country’s political arena and battle the ongoing xenophobia.
‘Sardines’ have now become an expression of the demonstration against the incendiary far-right leader Matteo Salvini who also served as an interior minister and deputy Prime Minister in Italy’s previous allianced government. Salvini was the one who cracked down on immigration.
The movement is barely a month old and begins in Bologna when a rally organised by mere four unknown activists denounce Salvini’s discourses of “hatred and division” managed to gather a crowd of over fifteen thousand people, the gatherings astonished everybody around the country.
By then, the group have staged several rallies in the country, chanting the anti-fascist anthem ‘Bella Ciao”. These intense rallies drew the attention of many around Milan, Florence, Naples and Palermo.
Mattia Santori, who is one of the movement’s founder, told the media that. “The protests were first against Salvini, but now it has become a reaffirmation of democracy” As per Satori they are anti-fascist, pro-equality, against intolerance, against homophobia.
Santori also said that their march is a challenge for the Romans to prove their democratic majority.
As per the organisers of the rally, they are expecting the gatherings of over ten thousand people which will begin at 3:OO pm in the immense San Giovanni Square.
Members of the demonstration group say that they intend to make politics “cool”.
Stephen Ongongo, who is a journalist of Kenyan origin, is currently representing the movement in Italy’s capital. Ongongo is handling the facebook account for the movement where he announced the Roman Chapter of the Sardines about fifteen days ago and asked more people to be part of it.
As per Ongongo, several Sardines rally against Climate-change. Mafia and poverty as well. The idea is to create a more liberal and spontaneous group than of a political party.