WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Last generation. Civil disobedience against the injustices of power (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

Until a couple of years ago I didn't think I would become an almost
full-time activist. My ecological commitment was expressed in local
permaculture projects, regenerative culture, urban horticulture and
similar things, to be reconciled with editorial translation work and
university assignments. Then I felt that all this was not enough. Last
year a completely unprecedented hurricane uprooted a centuries-old
almond tree in the historic garden I was taking care of together with a
local association, in Caltagirone. It was a call to more urgent and
effective action.

When I began to approach Ultima Generazione, emotionally involved by the
actions I saw reported on social media or on the news, the organization
was not yet present in Sicily. Those people seemed to me as heroic as
they were ordinary; I could empathize with them and I perfectly
understood the reasons for their gestures, but I didn't think I would
find the same courage. So I signed up for an online presentation and
agreed to help, again remotely, one of the working groups. In the first
months of this 2023 the project began to expand in various territories:
local groups were born in many Italian regions. In Sicily, at the
moment, there are two local groups, in Catania and Palermo, with active
people scattered in other cities, including Enna and Messina.

It was unthinkable that a civil resistance movement against climate
collapse would not take root in one of the most fragile territories
faced with the increasingly tangible consequences of the climate and
social crisis. Sicily, together with the entire Mediterranean, is one of
the "hotspots" of the climate crisis. The desertification of
three-quarters of the island, accelerated by fires and increasingly
extreme climatic conditions, becomes closer every year, with harsh
consequences on the agricultural sector and on the water supply of
thousands of people. Global warming leads the climate to become extreme,
generating very intense and short-lived rainfall, which causes floods
and landslides, and, on the other hand, very long periods of drought and
extreme heat waves. Last July, entire neighborhoods in the city of
Catania were left without electricity or water with temperatures
reaching 46°C due to the melting of electrical cables under the asphalt.
Meanwhile, Palermo was surrounded by one of the worst fires in its history.

This is why we brought our actions of nonviolent civil disobedience to
Sicilian cities. In March 2023 we glued ourselves to the Elephant
Fountain in Catania, to ask the government to remodulate public
subsidies for fossil fuels, which testify that even today, despite the
now evident severity of climate collapse, our government prefers to
finance the sources of our death rather than a fair energy transition,
which would also reduce energy costs and unlock jobs in our land, very
rich in renewable energy sources.

For the same reason, this November we returned to carrying out road
blockades in the cities of Messina, Enna and Catania, where we also
colored the fountain of the Shipwreck of Providence red, in Piazza
Verga, to remember that the migratory crisis is also a of the climate
crisis, and that our institutions have their hands dirty with the blood
of migrants who died in the Mediterranean, due to the historical
responsibilities we have as colonizers but also due to the current
inaction and total disregard for international climate agreements
already made, including that of Paris in 2015, with devastating effects
especially on the countries of the South of the world. We also sparked a
discussion on bad governance and the absurd management of public funds
to build cathedrals in the desert like the Bridge over the Strait,
instead of dealing with the crumbling infrastructure and situations of
social hardship that we see worsening everywhere in Sicily. In Enna we
talked about the water crisis, desertification and agricultural failure.
It was one of the most intense actions for me, who live not far from
Enna and have farmer friends who in recent years have been hit by
increasingly catastrophic years. It's the thing that worries me the
most, because food is the basis of our survival.

We know that our actions are controversial, and that is why we choose
these ways. We interrupt people's daily lives, even if for a short time
(our blocks are always cleared within a few tens of minutes), because we
know that it is the only way to stimulate a debate on a topic that is an
elephant in the room: too huge to being able to conceive it in its
entirety and gravity. There is no more time for signature collections,
authorized marches and awareness campaigns, however useful they may be.
We are on the eve of the point of no return. We only have a few months
or years before the collapse is irreversible and much of our earth
becomes unlivable forever.

Civil disobedience is what human beings have always done to protect what
is most precious and threatened by the injustices of power: ours is the
same gesture as Maria Occhipinti in blocking the military van that will
take the people closest to her to the draft; it is the gesture of the
thousands of people who blocked the arteries and stations of Basilicata
to say no to the single nuclear waste repository in Scanzano in 2003; it
is the sacrilegious and desperate gesture of the shepherds who a few
years ago blocked the roads of Sardinia by spilling the milk of their
animals. The last two examples are also recent cases of victories
achieved thanks to nonviolent action.

What moves us is the trust in the power we have as ordinary people, as
bodies with sufficient mass and weight to hinder the mechanisms of this
system of death, as citizens who have not chosen it but, in fact, are
part of the last generation that can still avert human extinction. Our
living and desiring body, wrote Paul B. Preciado, is the only social
technology that will bring about change. We are moved by a profound
sense of possibility, a very lucid dream of what humanity could become,
if this enormous global crisis were taken for what it is: an enormous
opportunity for radical change. Our dream is a reorganization of
political systems towards forms of direct and decentralized democracy in
the form of Citizens' Assemblies, because we realize that the biggest
obstacle in this historical moment is the obstructionism of the current
economic-political oligarchy.

Even if we have a medium-long term vision, when we go on the road we
prefer to make an initial, concrete and achievable request. A permanent
solidarity fund of 20 billion to help people who have been or will soon
be victims of extreme climate events. Money to be obtained through a
redistribution of the extra profits of the fossil industry and
environmentally harmful subsidies, as well as the costs of politics and
military spending.

As our numbers grow, the power of our bodies will be expressed more
through mass nonviolent actions that are more collective and less risky
for individuals. To get to know us and join the campaign in various
ways, I invite you to the presentations that you can find advertised on
social channels and on the Ultima Generazione website. Among the next
live events there is also a meeting in Palermo, at Cre.Zi. Plus
(Cantieri Culturali della Zisa), December 12th at 5pm.

Gesualdo Busacca

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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