Anomalous Wave

This here is a translation of a text from the occupied faculties of Sapienza, written for other Italian universities in mobilization. The original text is called “L’onda anomala prepara la grande mareggiata” and can be found here.

Proposals for discussion from the occupied Sapienza

Rome 31 Oct. 2008

After the extraordinary day of November 30, we are taking the floor again. The wave became a heavy sea swell which took over the city of Rome: millions of students, teachers, researchers, docents, children - an unprecedented alliance demanded the power to decide about their present and their future.

The anomalous wave of Sapienza and all the universities in mobilization all over Italy contributed to the sea swells of yesterday. We participated independently from the unions, constructing our participation from below, faculty by faculty, university by university.

Only in Rome, 200.000 students gathered at Piazza Esedra, from where they launched an alternative parade which finally reached the Ministry of Education and surrounded it. This was another great joyous and radical day in which protagonists were not only the students of the occupied faculties of Sapienza, but also the students of Roma 3 and Torvergata, the secondary school students from a myriad of Roman schools, universitary and secondary school students coming from other Italian cities.

Now it is important to ask ourselves how to transform the power of a general strike into an instrument of conflict adequate with relation to a government, which not only seems unwilling to a dialogue, but also uses menace, arrogance, neofascist provocations (the defence of the aggressors of Blocco Studentesco, a group which is connected to the neofascist association Casa Pound, speaks clearly in this sense) to respond to the movements. On one hand, the government is doing this in the absence of parlamentary procedures, or by blocking them, and on the other hand, attacking and criminalizing the student movement which is more rooted, more extensive and supported by the majority of the country than ever before.

The rhetorics of a minority and violent ones doesn’t stand up in front of the force of facts: every day dozens of thousands of students at piazza, lectures in the open, seminars at occupied faculties, blockades of circulation, creative actions of protest, hundreds of occupied faculties and schools. The government is the minority, with its hostility towards democracy and the public institutions of education.

In front of the things that are happening on the terrain of contracts, to us it seems necessary to bring forth a proposal which doesn’t talk about the traditional relation between the world of education and the world of labor, but which tries to name the common forms which are the answer and the social opposition to the government policies, to the arrogance of Confindustria, to the measures by which they want to make the students, the precarious and the workers pay for the economic crisis.

To us, in this occasion, it seems necessary to push for a “coordinated and continuous” general strike. A general strike which, category by category, would shut down the country and the production of wealth. “We won’t pay for your crisis” is a slogan which is running from mouth to mouth and is stirring up a generational revolt with no predecessors.

The unions (confederal or rank-and-file), independently from their programmatical differences, should have the capacity to understand what is happening in our country and how the demand of rupture and transformation is rooting and extending socially. To understand, but also to act, and this action can’t be anything else than a strike, a general and generalized strike.

As far as the movement of students and universitarians is concerned, we consider it fundamental to construct the days of November 7 and 14 as well as possible: on one hand, by a decentralized mobilization, city by city, and on the other hand, by a big national demonstration in Rome. In both cases the organizing effort is really important, but particularly November 14 requires the engagement of all the universities in mobilization.

In the first place we have to make sure the demonstration goes as well as possible, also because this will probably be a decisive moment of opposition and conflict, not only regarding the law 133, but also regarding the project of an organic reform of the university, which has been promised by minister Gelmini and which should be made public during next week. In the second place, we have to make possible the transportation of dozens of thousands of students from other cities to Rome: therefore it is fundamental to start already the negotiations about mobility.

Finally, we consider it indispensable to create a great occasion of discussion by organizing a national assembly in Rome. We think that the days of November 15-16 would be the most convenient: having the assembly right after the 14th would enable many people to come to the occupied faculties of Sapienza and to participate in the discussion, and also to extend the discussion to secondary school students in mobilization. We are thinking about an assembly, which would pose as its primary objective to guarantee the extension and duration of this extraordinary movement.

Firstly, this means discussing the contents and practices of struggle: how to specify the theme of self-reform and how to highlight it; what kind of relationship to create with the labor unions and the experiences of struggle of precarious labor; how to give continuity to practices of conflict and of blocking the city; how to transform the mobilization against the law 133 and the possible reform into a general mobilization against the economic crisis.

Secondly, the discussion should try to define forms and methods of the national relation, assuming that there are no ready-made recipes, and that the solutions should be in proportion to the strength, the extent and the richness of this movement. We invite all the occupied faculties and all the universities in mobilization to reflect on proposals and ideas to be shared, to make sure that the assembly will become a great occasion of expression and organization, with the feature of the autonomy and non-representability of the student movement.

Occupied Sapienza in mobilization