After the great mobilization convened by the USB union and the port workers of the Calp union on Monday, September 22 throughout Italy, the movement continues to expand. The main union center, CGIL, said he was “ready to declare a general strike without delay in case of new attacks, blockages or confiscations to the ships” of the Global Sumud Flotilla, after the drones attacks this week that caused demonstrations with hundreds of people this Wednesday, September 24.
Already on Tuesday, port workers and activists blocked the port of Livorno to prevent the cattle of the American ship Severn, who participates in Israeli military logistics. A mobilization in which numerous young people participated, a symptom of the return of the student movement and high school students against Gaza genocide in recent days.
In Milan, after Monday’s mobilization, at least 11 people were arrested and arrested. Nine of them were released the next day, while the two children who were among the detainees remained imprisoned for 48 hours in the Beccaria minors prison. This Thursday, September 25, they were sentenced to house arrest and the prohibition of attending their school, a scandalous repression against which solidarity is being organized.
On Tuesday night, a demonstration of several hundred people was convened in front of the police station to demand their release, and the detainees responded waving Palestinian flags from the windows of the detention center. In a column published in the newspaper Il Manifesto, hundreds of university professors, researchers and workers denounced the criminalization of support for Palestine: “The right to demonstrate and to oppose an ongoing genocide cannot and should not become a crime. It is the responsibility of schools and universities to educate in critical thinking, civic responsibility and freedom of expression.”
Also in Rome, after the announcement of the Israeli attack on the Sumud Global Flotilla, the reactions did not wait.
From the morning, the Rossellini Institute was occupied by students. In a statement from the Rossellini collective, the students wrote: “We occupy our institute to oppose our government, accomplice of this genocide, which continues to finance agreements with the state of Israel. Our schools should not and cannot be neutral spaces in society. Before the genocide of the Palestinian people, the military and belligerent escalation, and the complicity of our government, the United States and the EU, we can not remain silent.”
At La Sapienza University, 21 doctoral students in Italian studies of the Department of Modern Literature and Cultures decided to strike in support of Palestine: “In a historical moment like the one we live, our responsibility must go beyond mere academic obligations. We feel the urgent need to intervene, according to our role and, therefore, with the media at our disposal,” they communicated. They demand the end of collaborations with Israeli universities, after the decisions of the university directions of Bologna, Rome III, Florence, Milan, Palermo and Padua. Together with them, students occupy part of the La Sapienza University and organize general assemblies again this Thursday to say: “War war! No to austerity!”
In Bologna, the city has been the scene of several citizen demonstrations and assemblies in recent days. Convened by students, the assemblies congregated hundreds of young people accompanied by teachers with the aim of converging, blocking the universities and demanding the withdrawal of the agreements that are still maintained in several of them. On Wednesday night, barricades raised in the main street of the University.
On Monday, at the request of the USB union, more than 20,000 people demonstrated on the outskirts of Florence. In the center, 2,000 high school students organized a march towards the American Consulate, where they tried to make a sitting despite the strong police presence. Leonardo, a student of philosophy and activist of the FIR (organization that is part of the Trotskyist fraction – Fourth International along with the PTS of Argentina), said during the act: “The step we must take, together with the workers, is to block our classes, against the sending of warlike machinery, the production of weapons for their wars, the privatization of our institutes, our universities, the sending of weapons to Israel”. In the afternoon, after several strikes, a spontaneous demonstration broke out on the University Campus of the city, which brought together a thousand people. The posterior assembly decided to occupy the university during the night. On Wednesday, after several assemblies organized during the day, the workers of the GKN company convened a demonstration that brought together several thousand students and workers, including the USB union.
In Genoa, together with the dockers, there are also students present. This Thursday, the Klee Higher School was occupied by assemblies that congregated hundreds of high school students. The previous day, university students occupied the rector, demanding that the university solidarity with the Global Sumud flotilla, end the collaborations with companies linked to the belligerent industry of Israel and strongly condemn the abuses of the Netanyahu government in the Gaza Strip.
Italian young people show the way: the international student movement must return to the scene!
While the state of Israel reaches a new level of horror with its land invasion of the Gaza Strip, mobilization in Italy is highlighting the possibility of facing genocide and imperialism. In June 2023, Columbia students raided the way for unprecedented student mobilization that extended internationally. Today, it is the working class and the Italian students who manifest the deep anger of those who refuse to remain silent before such brutality. This shows that slander, repression and criminalization of support for Palestine have not been enough. On the contrary, the anger expressed today in Italy is directed against the complicit governments of the colonial brutality in Gaza, against the repression and the hard hand it has weighed on the movement of solidarity.
In Italy, new camping in all universities in solidarity with Palestine are being called, and on October 4 a new national solidarity day will be organized throughout the country. This new dynamic is putting the labor movement and Italian youth, which are recovering confidence after decades of defeats, austeritarian and authoritarian policies. In several universities in the world, mobilizations in solidarity with the flotilla are being prepared. In Catalonia, student organizations have pledged to block everything if Israel touches the flotilla. In Brazil, several occupations have begun in solidarity with Gaza and the flotilla. The new phenomenon in Italy must be a source of inspiration throughout the world, to build an international movement that denounces not only the brutal austerity policies promised by governments, but also the imperialist rearmament and the genocide in progress in Palestine.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
