[Originally published in Italian at rivoluzione.red]
The demonstrations and strike on 22 September marked a decisive turning point for the Palestine movement in Italy. All the anger and disgust accumulated in the face of the increasingly ferocious actions of the state of Israel, all the indignation at the complicity and revolting hypocrisy of the Italian and western governments, finally poured out in demonstrations that spread throughout the country.
At least half a million people took to the streets in the dozens and dozens of demonstrations, large and small, that were held across Italy. 100,000 in Rome, 40,000 in Bologna, 40,000 in Milan in the pouring rain, 15,000 in Naples. Many smaller towns in the provinces also saw mobilisations.
The breakthrough is not only marked by their numbers, which overshadow the demonstrations held over the past two years. What is decisive is the leap forward in mass consciousness: the transition from isolation, frustration, and anger that found no outlet, to the determination to do something, to act collectively.
Shut down for Gaza
The prelude to this day was seen in the gigantic demonstration in Genoa on 30 August that accompanied the departure of the Global Sumud Flotilla. On that occasion, the appeal by the dockworkers’ collective – “if they touch the Flotilla, we will block everything, not even a single shipment will pass through” – had the great merit of putting one decisive question at the centre. Namely: the struggle can and must be based on the strength of the working class, on the ability of the labour movement to block transport, to hit the profits of companies complicit in genocide, to really put the Meloni government in crisis.
This is an advanced starting point, which goes beyond simple solidarity, however necessary, and goes straight to the heart of the problem. The government’s foreign policy is not only disgraceful, but is closely linked to its economic and social policies directed against workers, young people and women, as well as to its policies of rearmament, cuts in social spending, and repressive laws. Fighting for Gaza also means fighting for ourselves.
Netanyahu’s government has acted with impunity for two years, bombing and invading Gaza, continuing to annex the West Bank, unleashing the racist ferocity of the settlers, and bombing one country after another at will without anyone lifting a finger. The hypocritical talk about ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’ or the need for a ‘proportionate response’, has generated a deep hatred towards the state of Israel.
A question has been asked, increasingly in anger rather than in anguish: how is it possible that all this can happen without anyone reacting? In the end, the reaction to the genocide manifested itself in this great day of protest. Determination, the will to fight, healthy anger, and the desire for redemption were the dominant notes in all the demonstrations.
Movement in spite of union passivity
22 September was also a liberating break from the paralysis and timidity of both the centre-left parliamentary ‘opposition’ and the leaders of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) trade union.
This movement cannot be understood without looking at the past decades. In particular, the last 15 years have seen the collapse of wages, the deterioration of living conditions; attacks on public education, healthcare, pensions and services; bigoted and freedom-destroying laws and authoritarianism. This has all been conducted amid the passivity of a trade union bureaucracy that has literally shut itself away in its offices, in its own world, abysmally disconnected from the working class it claims to represent.
The question of striking – i.e. using the classic method of struggle of the labour movement – had already been clearly put on the table by the dockworkers of Genoa. A political strike against the genocide and against the complicit government: this is the idea that began to gain ground. The attack on the Flotilla in the port of Tunis and, above all, the new invasion of Gaza City by Israel precipitated the situation.
In haste, without preparation, without clear guidelines, without a shred of perspective, the CGIL secretariat launched a strike for Friday 19 September. Looking to wash their hands of the situation like Pontius Pilate, they called a two-hour strike – leaving it up to local organisations or sections of workers to extend its duration – which excluded transport, schools, and the public sector due to anti-strike laws. Ritualistic, routine pickets were called for the afternoon.
It was clearly an initiative called for the sole purpose of saving face and distancing the CGIL from the grassroots unions’ call for a strike on 22 September, which had been planned for some time.
However, the date of 19 September, which in the bureaucratic logic of the CGIL secretariat was supposed to ‘close the case’, had an unexpected consequence: in the increasingly heated climate that was developing, it contributed to the widespread circulation of the idea that there were strikes for Gaza. What’s more, a critical opinion clearly emerged among many shop stewards and members of the CGIL itself, who in the days leading up to it had tried to press the apparatus by asking why there was no strike on the 22nd.
In short, a deliberately aborted strike paradoxically gave a boost to the idea: ‘it is possible to strike’. And the incipient movement used the date of the 22nd as a means to open a gap that the union bureaucracy wanted to keep closed.
Particularly in schools, and to some extent also in healthcare and other public sectors, there was therefore conscious, political participation and a break between large sections of workers and their passive unions.
We received dozens of reports from our activists in these workplaces and, to a lesser extent, also in factories and companies in the private sector, of how more or less large groups and circles of workers approached shop stewards to ask what should be done on the 22nd, asking for instructions on how to participate. This presence was evident in the streets: there were no banners from the RSU or company-level trade unions, but there were countless banners and placards produced by groups of workers, signalling their presence.
It was a slap in the face and a well-deserved lesson for the CGIL leadership, which, in its self-absorption, did not even realise that it had ‘set the stage’ for a strike that it intended to oppose.
Let’s be clear: 22 September was not a general strike. With the exception of schools, where many institutions remained closed or opened with very few classes, there was no work stoppage in other sectors. The private sector did not strike, although groups of workers and shop stewards were present in the demonstrations, many of them also CGIL members.
However, the political significance of the day went far beyond the numbers in the streets. And the question of a general strike is now being posed in a concrete and unavoidable way: a large, unified general strike that unites all workers who want to oppose the government, that overcomes the divisions created by trade union bureaucracies and anti-strike laws, and harnesses the potential we saw on the 22nd.
Youth in revolt
The other sector that played a decisive role in the demonstrations was high school students. A little more than a week after the reopening of schools, without there having been time for real organisation, with almost no assemblies, leafleting or propaganda other than on social media, the students came out in large numbers, giving substance to the demonstrations and decisively shaping their character.
This is the arrival on the scene of a generation born and raised entirely in years of crisis of the system. It cannot even be said that their illusions in the system have been shattered: for those under 20 today, illusions never existed in the first place.
The background that has shaped the consciousness of students is years of economic crisis, the closure of all prospects for life, wars, and the blatant discrediting of everything that represents official power: politicians, the mass media, etc. None of them are believed anymore, and rightly so! Indeed, the instinctive reaction is that anything said ‘from above’, by those in power, is automatically false and must be overturned. This awareness has been present for several years, but has often followed more subterranean, often individual, and sometimes tortuous paths. Today, it is coming to the surface and transforming itself into collective action, full of anger and hope.
It was therefore a decisive turning point. But the potential of this movement goes far beyond that. For every protester who took to the streets, there are two, five, or ten others who may join the movement tomorrow, galvanised and motivated by these demonstrations. Just look at the enormous solidarity gathered by the demonstrations, with passers-by applauding, waving, and some being moved to tears.
The first task is precisely to expand and organise this movement, to move towards new large-scale mobilisations. But it is also to discuss extensively, to raise political awareness and understanding, and to set goals for moving forward.
The dam has burst
Our enemies are weakened and afraid. The hysterical reaction of the government and almost all the media is no coincidence. They are tearing their hair out over the (entirely marginal) clashes that took place in Milan in an attempt to hide the reality of a movement that is taking the field and challenging them.
They are also weak because the right wing has been in power for three years now, and all the promises it made have turned out to be pure demagogy. They can only bark and threaten, trying to rally their loyalists. But neither one nor ten ‘security decrees’ are enough to stop a mass movement.
We are only at the beginning, but one thing is clear: a crack has opened in the dam of passivity that is impossible to close, and from this gap the movement can spread. The spontaneity that has marked these demonstrations can and must find an organised expression.
Let’s make every school a centre for discussion and action! Let’s unite them in coordination committees, assemblies where we can discuss and decide how to carry on this struggle. Let’s increase the pressure in factories and workplaces! Let’s press the trade unions, forcing them to break with their routine approach and take a clear stand.
Let us unite the struggle against genocide in Gaza with the struggle to overthrow this complicit government, against rearmament policies, against the austerity policies demanded by the bourgeoisie and, ultimately, against the capitalist system, which condemns us to a future of war, poverty, and oppression!
- Let’s stop the genocide!
- Let’s expand the mobilisation! For a general strike to overthrow the complicit government!
- Students and workers united in struggle!
