Riots hit Europe as students study abroad

ROME - It was the weekend when my friend studying in Madrid finally decided to visit me in Rome.

We spent much of Saturday walking around the vast city center and eventually came upon a lookout where Rome's iconic monuments can be seen side-by-side. There was the Roman Forum, the Arch of Constantine and the Coliseum.

In the distance, though, we saw something that seemed to be out of a movie, rather than a guidebook: Thick, black smoke billowing up to the sky, helicopters hovering over the buildings, looking down to what was happening in the streets.

That was the day Occupy Wall Street went global, but in Italy's capital, the movement was overtaken by riots incited by a group of anarchists in black shirts and masks, referred to as "The Black Bloc."

Windows were smashed, cars and buildings burned, and many of the protestors who had come to demonstrate nonviolently were run off by a mob that was hurling Molotov cocktails and rocks at police.

DePaul Music Professor and Director of the university's Rome study abroad program, Cathy Ann Elias, was one of thousands in the crowd to witness the riots firsthand. Though initially there to see the marchers for Occupy, Elias found herself in the middle of what was becoming a bigger news story.

"I went there on purpose to see this, because I wanted to film it," Elias said. "Within a half hour, there was a group dressed in black, and in maybe thirty-five minutes they burned the first car."

Elias was startled to find that for most of the rioting, the police were nowhere to be seen, even though fire trucks had already arrived to put out the fires. "The Black Bloc" burned several cars and a building before the police finally intervened.

"It seemed to me that the police were trying not to have any kind of conflict, because that's exactly what these guys wanted," Elias said. "They wanted to fight the police, and this [Occupy demonstration] had nothing to do with the police. That's unfortunate, because the real issues the people were protesting got completely lost."

Elias heads a study abroad program that includes 18 DePaul students, who are all currently living within the city limits of Rome. Most of the students were already out in the streets of the city when the rioting began.

Tyler Walden, third-year environmental studies and public policy major, went with friends to a nearby bar just before the protests got out of hand.

"On our way back we heard cars blowing up and heard them shooting water cannons at people," Walden said. "We were a block away from where the smoke was, so we walked the other way. I was actually at that block about twenty minutes before the rioting started."

Another third-year DePaul student studying in Rome, Brianna Mate, said that she did not see the violence happening, but its location gave her reason for concern.

"Where the riots took place was right down the street from my host family," Mate said. "So we were being told not to go to certain places. We had to avoid train stops. It was a little distressing."

Mate, a PR and Advertising major, said that she went the next day to see the aftermath of the riots in her neighborhood. The sight of burnt cars and broken windows gave her the feeling that the spirit of Occupy Wall Street had been greatly damaged.

"The people who stand for something, who wanted to keep it peaceful, had no control over what was happening," she said. "And it's kind of sad to see that you can't do something in a peaceful manner. It was a little surprising, because you see everywhere that a lot of places have been peaceful."

Junior Emily DiMare shared Mate's sentiments on the city's violent outbreak. As a sociology major, she found the rioting to be an interesting display of human behavior, but said she disagrees with the violence that took place.

"It's a little upsetting," DiMare said. "Because the Occupy Wall Street movement was trying to prove a point by being peaceful, and they kind of destroyed that for the rest of the world. They went about it the wrong way."

Like many in DePaul's Rome group, DiMare was not initially aware of the rioting and was already out with friends for several hours.

"We had no idea anything was going on," she said. "We got home in the afternoon, and our host family was watching it on the news. It literally was just a few blocks from where we live. It was very intense."

Walden, Mate and DiMare all say that the rioting did not hurt their view of Rome or make them feel unsafe about studying here. Even though they were not in the middle of the outbreaks, as Elias was, they felt that the event was an exciting memory to take home.

As Walden put it: "We got to witness history happening."