Anomalous Wave

Some of the most significant points presented in the summary distributed at Scienze politiche at Sapienza.

1) The heavy cuts on the public funding of the universitary system and of research would practically make many universities obliged to transform themselves into private foundations.

2) They would be obliged to make this choice because this way they could supplement the lack of public funding by increasing the university fees more than they could do if they remained public universities (there exists a limit for fees in public universities).

3) They could increase the fees to cover as much as 20% of the Ordinary university funding (FFO). The students and their families would be the ones to pay the cost of these ideological and authoritarian choices.

4) The block of the turn-over would reduce the personnel, both docents and researchers.

5) This would put an end to research which happens inside the public universities, in order to finance only research which happens in a few so-called centers of excellence. In reality, the latter means research which is completely subordinate to political control, subordinate to the logic of market and profit, and which lacks the capacity to push the limits of human consciousness.

6) The separation between didactics and research, between the universities and the few centers of excellence, would necessarily lead to a degradation of didactics itself. This is because research enables docents to stay in touch and be engaged in the international circuits of knowledge.

7) Those public universities which would not be constricted to close down or transform themselves into foundations would be the ones that at the moment are the less indebted. None of the universities with the biggest traditions are among these.

8) Also the universities remaining public would be constricted to close down some degree programs, reduce their didactical supply and their research activity.

9) The Italian university system would resemble a pejorative version of the American model. In the U.S. there are some of the leading universities of the world, and these are funded by high fees, significant public funding and also funding that comes from the private sector. In Italy however, it should be taken into account that the Italian economic and productive structure, which is composed of mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, is not capable to offer adequate funding for research. This is both because the enterprises don’t have the necessary capital, and because they are not interested in this kind of investment, characterized by risk and by results that arrive only in the long term.

10) The few private investments would concentrate in the sectors in which the enterprises themselves have interests. Faculties like engineering, chemistry, pharmacy, physics, informatics and mathematics would receive the largest part of the private funds. Meanwhile the other faculties, especially those of humanities, would be destined to marginalization.

11) The changes like the increasing of university fees would take place in a short time frame. The students and their families would not have time for economic planning to cope with the new inexpected costs.

12) These consequences would contradict the principle of equality between all citizens (written into the Constitution, art. 3), as well as the principle according to which education should be open to everyone (art. 34).

13) If all the universities would transform themselves into foundations, this would violate also the article 33 which states that the Republic institutes state schools of all sorts and all grades.

14) The cuts on research would contradict with the article 9 which says it is a task of the Republic to promote the development of culture and of scientific and technical research. This would make Italy lag even more behind in reaching the objectives defined in the Lisbon treaty according to which every EU country should increase its funding to reach 3% of the GDP.

There are a few other significant articles in the law 133, but I guess these two are the most critical ones. This information is once again taken from the summary distributed at Scienze politiche, at Sapienza.

Article 16: Authorization of the university to transform itself into a foundation

So, this article gives the university the right to transform itself to a private foundation. But in reality, if the planned cuts will be made, for many universities this option will become an obligation. The decision can be made by an absolute majority of the academic senate.

Article 66: Turn over

This includes measures of “rationalization”. In practice this means containing and reducing the employment of personnel.

For the three years 2009-2011, the employment of personnel, and the stabilization of precarious contracts, must not exceed 20% of the contracts that are discontinued the previous year. For the year 2012 the limit is 50%. In practice: for every 5 retiring employees, it will be possible to hire only one new employee.

This article includes the reduction of the Ordinary university funding (FFO) by 1441,5 millions of euros in the course of five years.

There are some interesting things about the way the law has been introduced. This information is taken from a summary that was distributed at the faculty of political sciences at Sapienza.

1) They used a “decree” to introduce it. The article 77 in the Italian Constitution says it’s possible to use this legislative instrument in “extraordinary cases of necessity and urgency”. At least from the point of view of students and researchers, it’s not so obvious what makes it extraordinarily necessary and urgent.

2) It has been introduced as an economical law, connected to the finance law. Also this reduces possibilities of defeating the law. The article 75 of the Constitution says it’s not possible to have a popular referendum about a law of this nature.

3) The decree was presented during summer holidays. It was presented on June 25, its analysis by the parlamentary commissions started on July 2, and it was to be converted into law on August 6. The timing was optimal for avoiding public discussion.

Global Project website lists almost 20 cities where different protests took place yesterday. In Milano, there was a huge demonstration once again. In Napoli it was even bigger than in Rome: according to Global, there were more than 60.000 students. In Pisa, students blocked the railway tracks for a couple of hours. It seems paralyzing the city by blocking traffic is one of the main forms of action. "Since they are blocking our future, we’ll block the city" is one of the slogans used in the mobilization.

It seems there’s a problem concerning next friday: no special trains. The movements have asked for the trains, the railway company Trenitalia has said no. So now it’s a bit unclear how will students from other cities take part in the national demonstration of 14 Novembre in Rome.

It has been something like a tradition that the Italian movements organize special trains to make it possible for people to participate in protests. This has meant negotiations with Trenitalia about trains with discount prices. This could be seen as a way to claim the right to protest, including the right to go where the protest takes place. People should have the right to protest regardless whether they have the money to travel or not.

This is the song of the movement now. Yesterday in the street they played it at least 10 times. The song is about surfing on a great wave…

This friday everybody skipped school again and took to the streets instead. Even though minister Gelmini had tried to confuse things by promising extra money for universities and students with "adequate merits", the student mobilisation went on and its message was clear: "No cuts to education, no privatization, we ain’t gonna pay for their crisis".

A week ago in Rome there was a demonstration which was really exceptional, with students and researchers from outside of Rome also. At the same time there were significant protests in cities all over the country. This time the demonstration in Rome was strictly local, and I didn’t see any posters or flyers about it. Still it was quite huge. The newspaper La Repubblica says "at least 25.000", Global Project says "30.000".

There were three or more parades, which early in the morning started from different places, then some of them joined together at Piazza della Repubblica around 11-12, and finally they all got together at Piazza Venezia. The route the parade took was basically P. Repubblica - P. Venezia - Trastevere - Piramide - Sapienza.

The most dramatic moment took place towards the end of the demonstration at the railway station of Ostiense. The students tried to occupy the station. When people ran towards the gates, the cops and guards charged immediately and started beating people with batons. They closed the gates and even after this, they charged one more time using their batons. Quite a few people got hit in their head. In the newspaper La Repubblica the police are quoted saying "There was no charge, instead they threw bottles on us". This is the Italian police: 1) using violence without a warning, 2) lying that it never happened.

There were lots of high school students. One of the parades in the morning was lead by them. This parade came from Piazza Barberini, and in the front they had a banner saying "Against Gelmini, fascists and privatization. Secondary school students in mobilization". I was told they had driven away a group of right-wingers of Azione Universitaria who tried to place themselves in the demo. Besides high school students, this parade included also the faculties of Sapienza which are located outside the main campus: art students, architecture students, sociology students.

It was a long day, I think we spent something like seven hours in the street, from 10.00 until 17.00. After the demo, there were still some assemblies at Sapienza, one of them at Political Sciences, about how to continue with the mobilisation until the next big day, 14 November 2008.

Some pictures of the day here.