Anomalous Wave

The wave already had a song, La Grande Onda by Piotta. Now it has a book, too.

This little blue book came out of print for Friday, and they were selling the book at the assembly for 1 euro. The book is titled "The army of surf - The revolt of the students and its true reasons". It’s written by "Internazionale surfista" (Surfist international). I would guess there’s Uniriot Roma behind the name, and I don’t think it’s a secret…

Basically the book seems to be about the life of Italian students, university, precarity, politics, present and future. And of course: surfism.

A Flickr set of pictures from the assembly 15-16 November here.

Even the mainstream newspapers have written about the assemby. La Repubblica has an article titled “Students from all over Italy at Sapienza to reform the university from below”. So, one thing is clear: the students and researchers are not defending the university as it is. They want “autoriforma”, self-reform of the university written by themselves.

It seems that Friday 28 November will be the next day of mobilization. In each city there will be demonstrations and initiatives against the Gelmini decrees about school and university. There’s also an idea to have an entire week of mobilization before the generalized general strike of 12 December. This week would focus on the struggle for indirect income by reducing the prices of canteens, transport and culture.

Video: Grand Hotel Sapienza

Here’s a few recently used slogans from Italy.

“Noi la crisi non la paghiamo!”
Everybody knows this: we won’t pay for the crisis.

“Tremonti sei pazzo! Studenti e precari non pagheranno un cazzo!”
This one rhymes. It says that the Minister of Economy and Finance (Giulio Tremonti) must be crazy. He should know the students and precarians won’t pay shit.

“L’onda non dorme, ma riscrive le riforme”
This one I saw this weekend on a banner hanging at the faculty of chemistry of Sapienza. It says the Wave doesn’t sleep (which was quite true) but rewrites the reforms (well, people stayed up for partying too!).

“Mejo falliti che in mano a sti banditi”
I was told this is now the slogan of the Alitalia workers on strike. It says they don’t care if the company goes bankrupt: it’s still better than to let the company fall into “hands of these bandits”.

“Meglio banditi che in mano a questi falliti”
A variation of the previous one. I was told the bankrupt communist party Rifondazione planned to shut down its newspaper Liberazione. The journalists went on strike and said “better to be bandits than in the hands of these bankrupt ones”.

During the weekend I heard this story about panthers escaping from the zoo: every time a movement of students gets going in Italy, there’s a panther that has set itself free. I thought it’s just a fun story but it seems this recurrence is really true.

In Italy there was a famous student movement called Pantera (panther) in the beginning of the 1990’s. It got its name because there was a panther running free. In Rome, on 27 December 1989, some guy had seen a panther on Via Nomentana. The students at the occupied faculties of Sapienza adopted the slogan “La pantera siamo noi”, we are the panther.

Finally I noticed that there’s an article by Francesco Raparelli, “Se una pantera si mette in libertá”, published a month ago, which tells the same story: “There’s a strange recurrence which accompanies the great universitarian explosions: the escape of a panther”. It happened in 1990, when it gave the name for the movement. It happened in 2005 too. And now in 2008, there was a piece of news published on 10 October, saying someone had seen a black panther on the countryside of Ariano Irpino in Avellino.

Next saturday in Garbatella there’s a debate with student movement people of different eras: the 70’s, Pantera, and the Wave. I also noticed there’s a panther blog (in Italian).