High school students organized as Onda too
There was a national assembly of secondary school students in Pisa on 7 December 2008. Here’s a quick translation of the final political document of the assembly.
The final political document of the national assembly of secondary school students
Pisa, 7 december 2008
We live in a systemic economic crisis, due to the explosion of the capitalist economy, caused by bankers, businessmen, politicians, mafias and speculators, which have invested on hypothetical capitals which in reality do not exist. This crisis affects everyone and we are being forced to pay the costs in terms of cuts and privatizations, negations of rights, demolition of welfare and social policies.
The slogan “We won’t pay for the crisis” was launched months ago by schools and faculties in mobilization. It has been shouted by all the social subjects who don’t want to pay for the crisis: precarians, migrants, passengers of city transit, Alitalia workers, teachers, squatters. (…)
12 December will be the day of the general strike that was declared also due to Onda. We will generalize this strike by closing our schools, taking to the piazzas - not bringing sterile solidarisms towards workers but constructing together with them a struggle which is common.
In order to get out of the crisis, our government is trying to destroy every sense of social community, posing individuals against each other, directing wealth from lower social strata to the rich, and fuelling racism and xenofobia, fomenting a war among the poor, hidden under the name “meritocracy”.
To this atomization of the society we respond by valuing the force of national collective action. Today only the union of individuals, capable to self-determine themselves collectively, is the only force that can oppose effectively these attacks.
The distorted concept of meritocracy is being posed inside the school. It functions as a way to hide the social selection; the school which already follows the logics of discrimination and inequality and which betrays its constitutional nature because it’s conforming to the logics of profit - this kind of school can’t be an instrument of social emancipation. (…)
This will bring a further verticalization of the entire system of education, starting from the new managerial role of the rector (…). As students we must construct our self-reform from below, starting from everyday practices of self-management and occupation, of liberation of spaces and times. Self-reform starts from the revaluation of the role of the student inside the school. It is based on the reappropriation of the contents, also through student-docent collaboration. (…)
The critical culture and knowledge of our self-reform counter the programs of the ministries. (…) For example, one of these evolutions is multiethnicity. The culture must know how to be inclusive and value cultural heterogeneity, refusing every attempt to introduce racism. Education must be accessible for all, with no discrimination according the colour of skin nor the economic possibility: because of this, from school books to transportation, from theatres to museums, the access to knowledge must be free. It is evident that to guarantee all this, funds are needed (…).
The school must not pay for the economic crisis, not in terms of funding, and not in terms of human lives. The tragedy of Rivoli shows the absurdity of the politics of cutting down school funding year after year. People should not die in school, people should not die at work, people should not die in piazzas.
The same mechanisms of intimidation and repression which we see applied in our cities, produced their worst consequences last Saturday in Athens, where a 15 year old boy got killed by shots fired from a police car. To every mechanism and strategy of tension we respond: we are not the ones who are afraid. Those who are afraid are the governments in crisis (…). They are even ready to shoot and to use provocateurs, the usual useful idiots, in piazzas in order to denounce and evict the students that are occupying.
Their weakness doesn’t make us afraid, the securitarian politics can’t stop the movement of today like the movement of yesterday. December 12 is the anniversary of the massacre of Piazza Fontana of 1969, in these days we refill our cities with diffuse initiatives to denounce the shame of this murder and to demand justice.
We have been fighting for years to defend the public school and to construct a better educational system. Now we continue this struggle in front of new attempts of privatization: at the same time with the parliamentary discussion of the proposed Aprea law there will be days of self-management, occupation, block of didactics. And in the days of its approval there will be a great day of mobilization in every city (…).
Signed by student collectives and coordinations from: pisa, milano, roma, bologna, torino, napoli, bari, reggio emilia, viareggio, cagliari, firenze, empoli, la spezia, alessandria, potenza, parma, livorno, massa, lucca, velletri, verona.