sail the sea - Reflections on the day of 14 December
December 15, 2010
Abstract: in front of the mobilization of December 14 we are not interested convictions, opinions and stances mirate alla collocazione nel dibattito politico interno ed esterno al movimento studentesco. Ciò che ci interessa è analizzare quello che è successo, capirne ragioni e modalità, fornire a chi non era in piazza gli strumenti per costruirsi un'opinione, e aprire un ragionamento collettivo su come non disperdere le energie, le esperienze e la determinazione accumulate da questo straordinario movimento nel corso dei lunghi mesi di impegno comune.
Il 14 dicembre si è celebrato a Roma il funerale della democrazia parlamentare italiana. Un governo privo di una maggioranza politica se l'è comprata al mercato. La distanza siderale che separa le istituzioni rappresentative della Repubblica dalla realtà everyday men and women of this country was known for some time now, and yesterday's vote, clearly distorted by horse-trading that have nothing to do with the social issues that the parliament should represent the equivalent to notarial certification of this process. At a time of crisis like this, the institutional policy should have the wisdom to open large debates and collective mechanisms to enhance participation in the busiest part of the company itself shall be in place. But the movements have developed in recent months on issues of knowledge, labor, public goods have not found counterparts in the height of a building ever more enmeshed in a debate and incapable of self-reflection that moves in reality. The sale of parliamentary votes has made it clear how the links between delegation and representation have been skipped, and the gap between creation and reality was well represented by the enormous array of the city police who shielded by the vacuum around the corridors of power.
parliament besieged several times in recent days, the center of Rome turned into a "red zone" to prevent students from bringing their voice under the windows of Deputies. This image is a snapshot of Italian democracy, as well as 15 years of Berlusconi have reduced it.
But something has moved in this fall. The silence of a deaf and dumb policy has been filled by the voices of hundreds of thousands of students, rallied in defense of public universities and determined to return the present to build for the future.
The sad void in the palaces of power, collective happiness in the streets. This was the autumn of female students and students of high school students from 8 October to 16 October of the defense of common goods and work together to Fiom, by the motion of October 17 to November 17 of one hundred squares, from ' burst onto the political scene of the November 24 re-appropriation of our cultural heritage to the next day, to block highways and railways throughout the country on November 30 e alla smisurata partecipazione del 14 dicembre.
La giornata del voto sulla fiducia dev'essere raccontata e ricordata prima di tutto come una straordinaria occasione di mobilitazione, in cui gli studenti e le studentesse di tutta Italia sono scesi in piazza in una quantità con rari precedenti nella storia del movimento studentesco e con una determinazione finora sconosciuta a questa generazione. Nei nostri occhi resteranno per sempre le immagini di un corteo studentesco che imbocca via dei Fori Imperiali con la coda ancora a Castro Pretorio, di migliaia di studenti e studentesse che attraversano l'Italia di notte su pullman autogestiti e autofinanziati, di ragazzi e ragazze che, di fronte alle violentissime cariche della polizia, not lose their sense of belonging to a supportive community mobilization. The legacy of the Wave and the long months of information, awareness and organization against the bill Gelmini led the student movement at a level of awareness and radical nature of which we can be proud of. It would be wrong to attribute the breadth and depth of the protest this week in a given episodic, almost random. It is rather the result of 3 years working in the construction of a state of continuous mobilization, though not always made visible karst and inattentive to medium territorial disputes in respect of the thousands who cross the Italian university, and capable of processing enlarge his speech on the defense of public universities to invest in the core issues of contemporary society, from the commons to job insecurity, which ranks as the central subject of the social opposition.
In this situation, however, give the exaltation of the conflict since it would be a gross error of superficiality and dangerous. In the streets of December 14, around and inside that great and joyful event, have crossed two different phenomena, not to be confused and should not be underestimated. On the one hand there was a scientifically planned the action of organized groups that have consciously decided to take action outside of what the student movement, in its decision-making bodies and recognized plural, took as their day of action in this and previous. Take the lead of the parade, passing strings and banners, to forcibly groped to direct it towards its goals rather than to those shared, use the female students and students in the parade as cover for attacks on shop windows and parked cars, armed with iron bars , stones and bottles, causing an imbalance of power against any other protester and thus reducing any possibility of democratic debate inside the movement, is to distance themselves from the movement itself as it has developed and continues to grow in the thousands assemblies populated by students and by students of all universities in Italy.
are not our style or our practice to condemnation, denunciation, dissociation. We are an integral and active student movement, and everything that happens there affects us and reminds us of our responsibilities, the duty of solidarity and commitment in the joint fight. We must have the courage to reject anything which undermines the unity and effectiveness of the movement, the disassociation posthumous ridiculous to those of this movement was never part, until all the initiatives, as we have explained, are a power distance from the movement by those who adopted them. The unity of the movement is built as places of discussion at meetings and plural recognized and must be protected against all the traps, from a superficial division good-bad-violent or nonviolent, which does not reflect the actual sharing of the practices of movement, attempts to forward flight is not agreed, which serve only the visibility of who performs them in dealing with students and students in the mobilization as a propaganda tool and not as a social focus.
other hand, it is undeniable that these initiatives will be added in various forms and different intensities, ranging from active participation in the fighting, self-defense in front of the offensive polizia, fino al supporto morale ed emotivo, i molti studenti e studentesse che sono rimasti in piazza del Popolo anche durante le cariche, mentre il grosso del corteo, non senza difficoltà, si ricomponeva sul Muro Torto. La rabbia dimostrata dagli studenti a piazza del Popolo contro l'irruzione di polizia e guardia di finanza è un dato che va analizzato e compreso con attenzione, evitando semplificazioni e schematismi dettati dalla suggestione dell'insurrezione europea o dalla ridicola etichetta giornalistica di «black block».
La strumentalizzazione del corteo da parte di gruppi organizzati di cui sopra, che pure c'è stata, non spiega tutto. C'è stato, in molti tra i manifestanti, un atto explicit rejection of its present condition and the perceived inability to change it. There was a "no" shouted in chorus, the sum of many "no" for some time that we started to say.
that expressed in the square of December 14 is the rage of many of our peers, beyond representation, not measurably, who remained in the square than the total number of students mobilized. It is the rage of a generation that grew up under the hood of an oppressive policy completely impervious to social issues, needs and desires, who grew up in the crisis of all forms of representation and social mediation as any form of membership Collective, grew up in the general climate of cultural impoverishment that has affected our country. It is the rage of a generation that now runs through the biggest economic crisis in decades, which, first, is invested in an all-encompassing the phenomenon of job insecurity and the prospect of living conditions worse than those of their parents, who can not still light at the end of the tunnel and the decline of slave labor.
The blow-up there near the exit of the tunnel, we must be aware of. Do not condemn the illusion does not mean that change can come with that.
is falsely naive and politically correct to consider this anger to eradicate a disease, but it is unrealistic and irresponsible to consider carefully. This rage is a symptom of a deep crisis across our generation. It should not be suppressed or enhanced police suggestively, but politically analyzed and investigated. The feeling of anger and frustration common among students does not justify or legitimate any exploitation of students inexperienced and unprepared to meet the dynamics of the square. Rather than retrospectively enhance the students' anger, it would be helpful to involve a priori decision-making in large, can enhance the contribution of all. The movement must take responsibility for what happens in their own streets and engage in collective protection chi partecipa alle mobilitazioni. Gli studenti e le studentesse sono soggetti sociali in movimento, non carne da macello. In queste settimane abbiamo saputo ben coniugare forme di lotta radicali con la necessità imprescindibile di mantenere l'unità e l'ampiezza del mondo studentesco e di costruire un consenso generalizzato nell'opinione pubblica. Il tema delle pratiche non va derubricato a questione tecnica ma investe nodi pienamente politici e deve quindi diventare oggetto di un dibattito collettivo ampio e partecipato.
Più in generale, la costruzione di grandi iniziative di mobilitazione non può prescindere dalla condivisione collettiva di ogni dettaglio in un percorso comune che veda la partecipazione di tutti i soggetti land involved. The radical practice of conflict must be reasoned and must be developed responsibly and collectively in ways that pursue the enlargement of social consensus around the movement and non-dangerous self-destructive involutions. The unit and range of motion are both its strength and the best antibody against degeneration.
We must not fall into any provocation by the police headquarters or to determine the way we stand in the square. The escalation of repression, still repeated in recent weeks, the levels of the police in the days before and the trap of the "red zone" are a device of provocation aimed to determine practical square of that warrant, in the public eye, a further repression. We express solidarity with all those affected by repressive measures, we demand the immediate release of all detained and draw public attention on the Democratic grotesque manhunt that took place on the streets of Rome for several hours after the end of the fighting.
If the movement should take the responsibility to protect the protesters, then solidarity can not go after the repression, but it must be a fact of life and budget. The maturation process generated by the political mobilization of these years but it was not sterile. Individualism e la rassegnazione non sono sentimenti dominanti e totalizzanti. Nella volontà di non arretrare finché l'ultimo dei propri compagni non fosse al sicuro, nel cercarsi l'un l'altro anche nei momenti di maggiore caos, nella tenuta di un sentimento di appartenenza comune anche e soprattutto di fronte al pericolo, si scorgono le tracce di una solidarietà collettiva che ha smentito gli osservatori che da anni vaneggiano di una generazione bruciata dalla competizione e dalla guerra tra poveri.
Quella del 14 dicembre è la rabbia di una generazione che domanda con forza, che rompe gli schemi, che non riceve risposte, una generazione che si trova quasi sempre sola, ma che nonostante ciò trova la forza di ricercare and reaffirm a collective struggles, politics, a collective that emerged also in the determination of the many students who remained in the Piazza del Popolo, in their instinctive reaction, in the clearness of not giving in to "every man for himself."
In recent weeks we have rediscovered politics as a dimension of one and all, something we've been too long dispossessed. We did live politics in the streets, blocking the tracks, highways, occupying the monuments of this country in ruins, we saw the policy die before the deafening noise of banknotes of corrupting and corrupt. We have for years suffered a scientific design based on an a-cultural hegemony, we were defined by the same propaganda agents of that drawing a generation without dreams and needs. We have denied all, not just on December 14, but in the long months of mobilization that we have together helped to build.
That sadden us "old and new masters" with conceit and arrogance claim to dispense lessons about what is lawful and what is not, on prospects for political projects to be undertaken and to work towards. Italy is an Italy that you have given us shit and, even more so after the demonstration of independence and strength of our movement, we are not willing to accept lessons from those who delivered the our country to the single thought, adrift reactionary to Berlusconi as cultural and political hegemony. We still have the belief to win, and we believe we can do it by ourselves, starting from the construction of a new daily practice that can really change politics in their lives every day with our bodies and our minds, our dreams and our needs and not judge with Salomon presumption.
The anger of the December 14 polls all of us. This anger should not be misused nor ride, but part of a virtuous cycle of participation that know how to overcome the size of resignation and defeat. How to read a banner on the streets of Turin: "We siamo speranza". Se Mario Monicelli, in una nota intervista ha dichiarato: "La speranza è una trappola inventata dai padroni", noi dobbiamo essere consapevoli che gli automobilisti bloccati nel traffico che ci hanno applaudito e abbracciato, le signore affacciate alle finestre, i passeggeri sui treni fermi in stazione hanno sperato, e stanno ancora sperando grazie a noi tutti. La speranza può diventare una trappola per i padroni di questa Italia sfigurata, umiliata e offesa.
Noi non ci sentiamo sconfitti, avevamo davanti due alternative: staccare la spina all'Italia e partire, andarcene, lasciandola morire lentamente mentre invecchia, lasciandola andare alla deriva, oppure continuare a lottare per cambiarla. We already knew that escape is as simple as getting on a plane and do not turn to look. We now know that it is right to stay, put to flight this ruling class, and build a real alternative to flee. Ourselves, our students and students, we are the alternative to escape.
be the alternative means taking the change as a continuing effort to practice daily in our mobilization. It means rejecting any appearance of conflict for its own sake, who reject the siren calls us to go home and tackle the issues of practice from the standpoint of their practical effect than the change we want to produce.
Submit le pratiche finora adottate dal movimento studentesco alla prova dell'efficacia è un esercizio utile, ma tale metodo va adottato per tutte le forme di lotta proposte. Nessuna rabbia e nessuna esaltazione possono essere alibi per farci perdere di vista i nostri obiettivi. Il nostro obiettivo è sempre la produzione di un cambiamento, e nessun dato estetico può distrarci dalla lucidità necessaria a riconoscere quando le pratiche che utilizziamo ci avvicinano o ci allontanano dall'obiettivo.
Rifiutare convintamente, ad esempio, come facciamo da sempre, l'utilizzo delle spranghe o l'incendio delle auto, non risponde solo al buonsenso e alla nostra storia, ma anche alla prospettiva di incidere realmente sulla realtà around us. The practice must change the political compass of our actions if we are to avoid ending up adrift as the leaders of our country. To show that we go back, that we do not divide or repress or exploit, for the violent response to the offensive power that comes across in our own contradictions, to build an alternative flight, have the duty not to go back one step in and put one foot in front of the other common path of the alternative. Our hope is too strong to be stopped.
"My brothers, we were not losers. We are still free to sail the sea. "
LINK-University Coordination
