Who has not heard of "invasion of migrants", combining the phenomenon with the great barbarian invasions that from the Germans to the Hungarians shook Western Europe between the fourth and the ninth century? And who has not compared the flows uncontrolled at least once to raids of so-called Saracens that for a millennium depredate the boats, coastal cities and not only, until the Yankees (always them!) At the end of the Napoleonic Wars did not decide, doing Ligurian Sea, which was no longer tolerable this kind of "disturbance" to their trades in the Mediterranean. Well, that history - at least in theory - could be repeated is a fact that should disturb us and make us reactive, more than does the presence, to which we are accustomed, of hundreds of thousands of individuals more or less traced in the territory of our Country. Yes, because it is all too easy to predict the steps that could take place, with a hidden direction among the oasis of the Sahara, well financed by sheikhs sheltered in their palaces in the Persian Gulf, a group of militiamen trained in the guerrillas in the conflicts of the former Great Libyan Jamahiriya, including many young Tunisians frustrated by the failure of the revolution of the 2011, Jordanians and Palestinians blinded by the corruption of the Levant leadership and former Soviet citizens in search of paradise through a martyr's death ... Who writes, allows to roll out in front of the reader like the plot of a documentary, a hypothesis of pure fantasy, because the reader understands that unfortunately this extreme scenario is dramatically possible.
The owners of Bed & Breakfasts, landlords and pensioners in one or two provinces of Calabria can hardly believe their eyes: without one structure knowing of the other, about twenty rooms have been booked, through well-known portals, for periods of 4-7 days by different "tourists", most of them with Arabic names, but not without Christian names and clearly European surnames, in a moment of low season: they chose in different periods, not all together, and have booked different dates, even if they overlap. That Europeans are converts to Islam is certainly not known by leafing through their identity cards. Some asked for a cot for a child, others presented themselves as homosexual couples. Why bother? The extension of the territory, the possibility that certain landlords do not even report the "guests" to the police authorities and the fact that the presence of Western names and non-heterosexual couples reassures the diligent "pinned Caputo": everything contributes to making the presence of a few dozen mujahideen on the Italian territory. After all, many are European citizens and arrived in the South without even a customs check.
Let's assume that this happens in the off-season, for example in October, on the days when the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Mary of Victory1. It is easy to imagine that some culturally more robust mind can really design something for a day that is for him to be defeated and humiliated, as it did not even twenty years ago in New York2. The territory of Calabria is not very extensive, but is characterized by relief near the sea and a coast that is filled with tourists during the summer but in winter is much less populated. However, it has good ports and harbors, with deep waters. And in the hot season it is filled with ships. It is not difficult to find more than a little place where you can peacefully throw the moors a beast of over one hundred and fifty meters in length. A little less than the Vlora, who in the summer 1991 landed in Bari almost twenty thousand Albanians in search of America in Italy.
Now, always with the imagination, we also assume that a merchant ship flying the flag of a European country, formally owned by a company under European law, is just docked at the port of Tripoli, where it is stormed by a few thousand poor cristi of every color and ethnicity, which occupy the bridge and seem to force the commander to make a course towards Italy. The writer asks the reader to imagine it so full that one could never hear a pin that falls on the floor, but above all so swarming with human beings that we can not fall on board anybody, as they are squeezed like sardines. Whoever reads and who, in the fiction, assists must think that the commander must be in great difficulty: he does not communicate with the Maltese and Italian authorities, perhaps he has been knocked out by too many desperate people. The ship can easily escape the usual ports of the islands to point straight, apparently, to the first port of the continent. Journalists and authorities might think, realistically, that this mob of illegal migrants wants to avoid taking the ferry. Pointing straight on Reggio would allow to accumulate in the city a large crowd of rescuers and vehicles, then very difficult to move easily to another location.
The writer believes that, in the scenario we are going to paint, the ship would avoid, possibly during the night and with a surprise maneuver, the port of Reggio, to which it had also appeared for days, dribbling Scilla, which was expected to arrive, for slip who knows to where in the North East direction. To go where? Will he maybe go somewhere? Or maybe you're aiming at Taranto?
In fact, it is easy to imagine it, while you hunt, surprisingly, in the heart of a small gulf, a town with one or two bell towers and a few hundred or thousands of inhabitants at the crack of dawn. At this point, the organizer of rescuers is distant and confused: the mayor, a few carabinieri, a few policemen and a handful of volunteers would be representatives of the state. Meanwhile, in our hypothesis, the landlords in bringing breakfast in the morning find the apartments empty: their guests for almost an hour have climbed on some cars and headed for the coast. At this point dozens of stealthy eyes scan the center of the town of the landing, confused among the curious of the morning. They seem to be patrons but posted on board a few cars or in the bars around the port, without anyone noticing them: the population, on the other hand, is too disconcerted and intrigued by the imminent "invasion".
Who knows how many curious people have flocked unaware of their destiny? From Reggio, some coaches and other vehicles are on the move. The ship did not change the mind, which we imagine surrounded by boats from the Navy and the Coast Guard. It's still raining. Opens the doors. The belly of the ship had not been occupied by migrants, but by dozens, maybe a few hundred guerrillas, ready to respond to the welcome of the beautiful souls with a machine gun, holding the few representatives of the state and the small crowd in the grip among those posted in the historical center, behind the port, and the mass of mujaheddin emerged from the belly of the ship. Nor would the destiny of the hundreds of poor people, crowded on the bridge, fall into the sea and be mowed down by bullets. Even bazookas could be raised to target the ship's escort boats. We continue to describe this scenario ...
Along the access roads, the avant-gardes of rescuers, still unaware of the current baker, become the target of a few well-trained terrorists, determined to use coaches and lorries to fortify the only road that connects the municipality to the Nation. A vertical rock face will act as a shield ... The government in Rome receives the first communications: a group of terrorists of uncertain, but important, number has taken control of a part of the country's territory. Why not a bomb attack, but a real invasion from the sea. It is not clear what and how many weapons they have, but it is easy to assume the availability of a real war arsenal, perhaps even biological or chemical. Compared to what was written by the writer, Beslan seems like a walk in the park for the Russians. Above all, for the first time since the 1945 Italy in our scenario is invaded.
It is only a fantasy reconstruction, but it can become real if one or more terrorist organizations employ well-trained men and means purchased with considerable financial resources. At this point, we ask the reader if it is appropriate to underestimate the threat, imagining the emissaries of the Islamic State only as villains with serious psychic disturbances trying to make attacks with stolen trucks and kitchen knives, or if it is convenient to block the anarchist highway of the central Mediterranean, before receiving ... nasty surprises.
1 The 7 October 1571 the Ottoman fleet led by Müezzinzade Alì Pascià was defeated by the Holy League commanded by John of Austria and composed by Spaniards, Pontificals, Toscans, Venetians, Genoese, Urbinati, Savoiardi and Maltese.
2 How many have noticed that the September 11 is also the date of the defeat of the Turks in Vienna, under the guidance of Giovanni III Sobieski and Eugenio di Savoia?
(photo: EUNAVFOR)
