WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Sicilia Libertaria 4/2023: nat last: DEPOPULATION EMIGRATION CIVIC USES (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

 In the Sicilian Anarchist Federation a debate has been going on for some time on

a phenomenon characterizing a large part of the Sicilian and southern social
reality in general: the depopulation of a substantial portion of the territories,
which produces environmental and socio-economic degradation, and especially youth
emigration towards the Northern Italy and abroad. An attempt has been made to
develop proposals for intervention and struggle in those areas most affected by
the phenomenon. We publish a summary, trusting in the interest they can arouse in
our readers. ---- DEPOPULATION: A PROBLEM OF PERSPECTIVE ----Populating a
territory is one of the fundamentals of the economy, regardless of whether it is
a cornerstone, as in the mercantilist ideology, or whether it is only part of a
complex systemic aggregate. This has its own logic because, without population
and population growth, there is no economy and no development of the economy. But
as urban planners and sociologists from the libertarian area have always
recommended, maintaining a balanced relationship between the population and local
resources is an indispensable condition for preserving and proposing advanced
forms of coexistence and social justice, which can evolve dynamically following
the trend of living and the critical use of new technological tools. The
depopulation or overpopulation of a territory, not proportioned to the available
resources, they cause economic imbalances and social injustices such as to lead
to phenomena of regression and civil decadence of human communities. The first
point to observe for a revolutionary action strategy that points to an active
anarchist presence in the territories is, in our opinion, that of advocating a
substantial balance between the resources of a territory and the communities
settled in it.

It has always been observed, both from the historical and from the sociological
point of view, that phenomena such as the urbanization of imposing masses,
peasants and not only, in large cities and in regions with a higher index of
industrial and financial development, lead to the impoverishment , with a
decrease in production and consumption, and even the physical abandonment of
small and medium-sized countries. From our point of view, all of this also
constitutes a problem of a theoretical order, because the idea of an anarchist
society is inseparable from that of a community "on a human scale", "integral"
(in Bakunin's way) , "organic" (as Carlo Doglio understood it), "ecological"
(Bookchin), "open" and at the same time self-reinforcing (Paul Goodman). It is
precisely the project of this anarchist society in fieri that is tragically
threatened in its existence with the disappearance of small communities.
Therefore, another strategic point for us is the support (and propagation) of
small and medium-sized social entities in which the idea of a "different society"
to come can more easily thrive.

This does not mean defending antiquated aspects of traditional and fundamentally
conservative societies, still present in many places in Sicily, but recognizing
the possibility of a social and cultural change in them, to be developed from
below, retaining those elements of value that they present - with widespread
sociability to environmental sustainability - and which are now difficult to find
in large cities. At the same time, it is strategically urgent to resume the
design of new communities, imbued with anarchism and gender equality, in which to
transform this type of society, a design that has already been sketched several
times in the past but which needs to be updated and concretely adapted to the
individual countries.

Thanks to increasingly widespread forms of protest, the major media have begun to
dedicate space to the phenomenon of abandonment of the South, while the research
and statistics carried out by the Migrantes Foundation, by AIRE (the association
of Italians residing in abroad), by SVIMEZ or by ISTAT have contributed to the
reading and understanding of a phenomenon that was previously incorporated in the
so-called "brain drain", while now it is being examined in its complexity, as a
situation caused by the chronic and tragic lack of employment opportunities but
also from the structural, social, cultural, existential deficiencies that get in
the way of the aspirations of young people, in Italy in general, and in the South
in particular: the South that loses strength and energy in a way that recalls the
darkest periods of its history,to the advantage of Northern Italy and abroad.

Now these data take on value only within a growing awareness on our part of the
"centrality" of the depopulation underway for the life of Sicilian citizens, of
the intrinsic link it establishes with all the issues we have fought against in
recent decades, from the work that is missing to the criminalized and rejected
immigration of the peoples of other Souths, from the plundered and devastated
environment, to American imperialist militarism. On all these and other issues
(think of organized crime, political and intellectual corruption, the lack of
public services and facilities - from hospitals, to transport to sports
facilities, etc.), we should think about building targeted fight campaigns in
which the repopulation of territories,

Emigration is a defeat resulting from other defeats; every historic defeat
generates consequences such as servility and flight ; leaving is often the most
obvious prospect after the failures of the many movements that have enlivened the
territories in an attempt to break the mortgages that weighed down on them; it
does not only involve the protagonists but also those subjects who have not
participated directly in these struggles, without considering the more general
sphere: family, parental, community.

As we have written on other occasions, there are aspects on which it is possible
to build a strong mobilization capable of conquering employment opportunities at
various levels and of changing the standard of living and the standards of
well-being for the popular classes:

securing territories from hydrogeological degradation and speculation of all sorts;

reclamation: starting from territories annihilated by industrial exploitation,
where land, sea, air are full of poisons and where the abuse of the environment
and devastating projects have finished their cycle, leaving areas of degradation,
unemployment and precariousness;

mobility: focus on the reconstruction of communication networks to provide the
territory with effective, clean infrastructures, such as the railways, such as
safe roads that connect small towns, often isolated for months and years by
landslides and various instability;

water governance, as an area in which the question of supplying the countryside
(hillside lakes, for example) must be addressed to allow agricultural activity
without the threat of drought, and the supplying of towns and cities, with
control from low public management of sources and water structures;

the relaunch of agricultural activity, in this context, becomes a central option
if it is projected into the disastrous future that awaits us: organic farming,
respect for the environment and for workers, the fight against large-scale
distribution and consumerist policies are the conditions;

but also a new attention to healthcare and education, which can slow down the
departure of students and teachers: the devastating picture of our healthcare
makes possible battles for territorial safeguards, for a healthcare of proximity
against large concentrations (even headquarters of large robbery) and a different
distribution of resources; as far as education (and research) is concerned, all
the penalizing elements that school suffers in the South and that depopulation
and student emigration exacerbate must be denounced.

A strategic proposal on the problem of the placement and integration of migrants
in Sicilian society could be to entrust the repopulation of small towns to
migrants, placing themselves in direct opposition to inhumane rejections and the
para-Nazi management of migratory flows. It is somewhat the example of Riace but
generalized as the keystone of the repopulation and productive, social and
cultural recovery of the marginalized territories of the island, to be supported
where possible directly or by claiming, with targeted campaigns of struggle, the
inflow of financial resources and public interventions. Without restocking, as
mentioned in the introduction, it is not possible to economize nor to aim at
community development. It is not a question of building ghettos - an easy
objection - but of advocating the voluntary employment of migrants in
remunerative, solidarity-based activities, the use of common goods, the recovery
of civic uses (other strategic demands, to be better outlined and elaborated as
soon as possible) and , why not, of expropriation and reuse of abandoned
properties. The virtuous circle that such a strategy would trigger would cause
conditions for relaunching the prospects (and the right) to live at "one's own
home", for "old" and "new" Sicilians, without distinction of skin color.

EMIGRATION: WHAT TO DO?

The critical issues that constantly cross the phenomenon of emigration are caused
by economic policies and consolidated capitalist strategies. Therefore, the
critique of capital and the choices of its governments can make the issue of
emigration/depopulation central to the interests of those sectors that suffer the
consequences, thus suggesting for themselves methods of intervention and specific
political actions.

It is a question of promoting a social redemption that can become a need for many
individuals tired of suffering, of enduring in silence, of having to live
helplessly not only with the detachment of loved ones, but also with the social
void, urban decay, defeat.

Starting from the territories, from their peculiarities, from the most serious
and unsolved problems, from the most widespread needs, outlets can be identified
around which to define and concentrate forms of claim which, directly or
indirectly, involve the possibility of building the conditions of no longer
having to "flee" elsewhere, through a substantial trend reversal in the life of
the community. But the path must be intelligent, careful not to get carried away
in the terrain of generic claims that would favor equally generic and dilatory
responses from the system.

In our vision it will not be (they never have been) the governments of the day,
the professional politicians, who will provide the solution to this kind of
problem; first of all because they are part of the problem, and this should not
be forgotten; their false solutions have been clientelism, favors bestowed in
exchange for servility, paternalism, social peace. Setting up movements of
pressure towards power, or which launch "cries of pain" to bring to the attention
of those above what those below suffer, is reformist and indifferent utopianism,
it is perpetuating the usual bourgeois-democratic illusion and the loss of trust
in the institutions.

A movement can be incisive only if it refuses any cooperation with the
institutions, parties, bosses and all those forces (church, political bodies that
want to be "friends") that present themselves as interested mediators. From
below, and in the local context, it is instead possible to find the real, lasting
solutions needed by local communities, and bring them to the attention of the
other party as well through struggles and actions that are beyond their control.

We need solutions that allow those who decide not to emigrate and those who think
of returning, not having to take a leap in the dark. All this is difficult, since
the reins of the economy are in the hands of the multinationals, the banks and
the economic entities controlled by them, the various mafias, local or European
bureaucratic mechanisms that have arisen to harness everything; it is therefore
necessary to release social demands from the blackmail that has transformed work
into a bargaining chip and privilege.

It is obvious at this point that the movements of the "don't leave" must become
one with those of grassroots trade unionism and struggle, with the committees and
bodies of resistance and territorial conflict. Joining or supporting the existing
anti-emigration committees, creating new ones, contributing to the growth of the
"don't leave" network, is therefore a commitment that must be pursued, within the
limits and possibilities that our strengths allow us.

The statistics, emphatically inflated by the familist right, continue to pester
us with data on the decline in births: as if this could be read as a phenomenon
detached from underdevelopment, lack of work, the cleaver of emigration and the
precariousness of life, and , not least in terms of importance, of women's
self-determination. The feminist struggle, with all its richness and freshness,
its warnings and its acuteness, is the natural place with which the new "do not
leave" must necessarily be contaminated.

A movement against emigration and the depopulation of countries can only be one
with the movements that fight against the impacting projects (civil, military,
industrial) imposed on the territories, or that fight for the protection of the
environment ( but without falling into the trap of the "green" economy), and with
all those others who carry out projects of well-being and improvement of living
conditions.

The mortgage of the imperialist and capitalist forces which weighs heavily on our
territories, denying them any positive prospects, must be defeated and dropped.
Instead, a perspective of social justice is required which includes the presence
of people from other continents in the projects of revitalization of countries
and territories and of social change by and for all.

Leaving must be a choice and no longer an imposition.

ANOTHER WAY TO OWN

Depressed areas, subject to depopulation, are those that lend themselves most to
experimenting with "another way of possessing", as the title of the book by Paolo
Grossi states, a constitutionalist, who in 1977 made the juridical world
re-emerge, but also in the public debate, the attention for a "collective
property", an alternative to private property and public property, based on civic
uses and common goods.

We are dealing with very ancient land structures, civic uses, and very modern,
common goods, where the availability of natural goods (land, water, woods and
what they produce), belonging to well-defined communities in the first case and
indeterminate in the second, it cannot be subject to juridical and state
limitations (but not even to regulations - we say) because they respond to a
feeling of common solidarity in which the use value of goods has greater
importance than their exchange value.

The topic, of absolute importance - so much so that in Italy Stefano Rodotà has
attempted to introduce it into the Constitution and at an international level it
even counts the awarding of a Nobel prize for economics to Elinor Ostrom in 2008
-, however, has so far been declined in a framework of compatibility with the
capitalist proprietary system.

In reality, an alternative reflection on this type of property, unfortunately
neglected by historiography, has been present since the origins of the socialist
movement: it can be found in Proudhon and even in Cattaneo, and in Sicily it
comes to constitute, thanks to Cammareri Scuri and Nicola Alongi , a pillar of
the peasant claims of the early twentieth century. It is not combined, as the
school of Paolo Grossi proposes today, with concessions from above and
sentimental utterances, but with much more concrete collective expropriations of
goods and lands - cultivated, uncultivated, natural, wild it makes no difference
-, conducted from the bottom - "agrarian communities", local communities,
citizens' associations - in an anti-statist and anti-capitalist perspective.

It welds the concept of redistribution of property, matured over the centuries
through community and self-management customs (but distorted in an
individualistic and liberal sense by the subversive laws of feudalism in the
early nineteenth century), to a "living" and re-flowering tradition today of the
protection of the territory and the landscape by local communities.

The project to fight against the depopulation of the territories cannot do
without this community and collective use of the human and material resources
that insist on it, with a view to economic and socio-political self-evaluation
but also respect for the environment and human health . In this sense, the use of
civic customs - taken from the ancient economic customs of the territory, but
updated in an anti-capitalist sense - intertwines with the rhetoric of common
goods, which must be given consistency, depth and value. Talking about water,
land, air to be subtracted from the monopoly of capital remains a sterile
exercise if it is not translated into projects that cannot be recovered by
capital itself.

The collective reappropriation of land, water sources, woods, ancient crops, also
taking advantage of the interest raised in public opinion by the
pro-institutional jurisprudence - a real snag in the state system in which to
wedge oneself without being ensnared by it - can constitute an opportunity for
the construction of sharing spaces that allow for an unceasing circulation of new
and old knowledge and act as a stimulus for the re-constitution of a network of
supportive resistance.

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