The Winter Olympics in the year 2026 have been announced for some time
now and will take place in the radius of action that goes from Cortinato Milan. In the city of Milan, the Committee for the Unsustainable
Olympics (IOC) has been formed. The objective is to oppose above all the
umpteenth expedient of building structures, giving public money to
private speculation, with the consumption of other public land already
seriously compromised, to then be abandoned, as has sadly already
happened in previous experiences.
All this is happening in a city where there is a tendency to expel the
working classes from their living spaces, to the point of even
hypothesizing projects of transfers to Ligurian territory to come and
work in Milan on high-speed trains. Because Milan must increasingly
become the city for the rich and high fashion. To this end, the policy
in vogue by the center-left administration, led by Mayor Sala, is that
of the disposal of public works and services to feed them to private
speculation. While we are thinking about the realization of the Olympics
spectacle in Milan, the divestment of public sports facilities is
uncountable: Agorà Palazzetto del Ghiaccio, the Lido swimming pool, the
hippodrome, the Scarioni swimming pool, the San Siro stadium itself is
up for sale, etc. All public facilities offered to private speculation,
as in the case of important swimming pool builders who have already set
their sights on transforming those divestments into privatization
projects to the detriment of the most popular users and an offer to the
wealthier classes.
Alongside these aspects of fundamental importance, the criticism of the
Winter Olympics is also aimed at the commodification of sport itself,
increasingly a means to make profits and increasingly less accessible to
the population with less economic possibilities.
Three days of counter-Olympics
The Insustainable Olympics Committee organized the "Utopiadi" from
October 25 to 27, three days of mobilization and opposition to the
Winter Olympics project. On Friday 25, Agorà, the former Ice Palace
currently abandoned, was occupied, organizing an adequate arrangement
inside it to make it usable on those days for the practice of popular
sports, as a response to the assigned Olympics. Therefore, during the
three days, performances and competitions were held by participants in
the popular gyms of Milan and many other Italian and foreign cities, in
particular boxing, football, volleyball, pole dance, yoga, combat sambo,
capoeira and rugby. There was a very significant participation of
athletes, with the same characteristics, from France.
Occupations as a response to repression and needs
On the same day, in another place in Milan, the former Scarioni swimming
pool was occupied by immigrant workers. These workers and their families
had been left homeless after a fire broke out in the building where they
lived. When they protested to the Municipality for a solution to their
dramatic housing problem, they only received promises with no follow-up.
Then they occupied the Casa Loca building, a structure that after 20
years of occupation had been evicted this August. But this attempt at
reoccupation was short-lived, because after a few days they were evicted
and forced to live in a large tent in Piazzale Leonardo da Vinci.
Here is the comment of a comrade who went to the Scarioni swimming pool
the following day to give his contribution: "When I went to Scarioni
there were many comrades and all of them were workers in occupation. The
situation is not great even if at least they have water and electricity.
Much better than the camp in Piazzale Leonardo Da Vinci. But there are
no rooms and so people will sleep either in boxes or in tents. As we
know, the place has been closed for two years and was sold by the
Municipality to a Spanish Fund that already has a recovery project.
There is, therefore, a double aspect in claiming this reappropriation:
that of denouncing the sell-off of public property and the change of
use, from a popular swimming pool for everyone to a place for the elite!
The second aspect is to force the Municipality to take charge of the
housing problem both in general and specifically for fifty workers".
The program of the "Utopiadi" in an occupied space
Various initiatives took place over the three days, from the one in
solidarity with the Palestinian people to themed films, informative
conferences, but above all lots and lots of popular sport. The contents
are: "Milan is the Olympic metropolis and of 'inclusive capitalism', a
city where 300 executive evictions are recorded per month and poverty
has reached its peak in the last 10 years. Those being expelled from the
city are first and foremost construction and logistics workers,
precarious and immigrants, workers in care, catering and basic services,
but also educators, workers in healthcare and local transport; local and
non-resident students, deprived of the right to study for reasons of
wealth, who are denied a place to sleep in privatized student housing.
Milan, the city of the housing crisis and unrestrained land consumption,
where Mayor Sala and Housing Councilor Bardelli promise the landowners a
'housing plan' of 10,000 new apartments at controlled rents, despite the
fact that within the municipal boundaries alone there is an equivalent
number of empty and abandoned council houses. For the Winter Olympics, a
recruitment of 18,000 volunteers is planned for a large private event,
for work to be done for free. Capital of the Olympic Games while access
to grassroots sport is being dismantled daily and where the highest
facility fees in Europe are recorded; a model of management of the
sports crisis that passes through closure, privatization and
'redevelopment'. Let's respond with the most authentic and popular
sports practice, the self-managed and grassroots one, let's take back
the city starting from the abandoned spaces. Let's therefore launch our
'Utopias' because utopia is a place that does not yet exist, but that we
can and must build all together and that we are already creating with
our daily collective practices".
On Saturday, as planned in the program of the "Utopias", at 3:30 pm we
gathered under the Regional Palace where speeches related to the theme
were held and then set off in a procession behind a banner that bore the
words "Milan - Cortina 2026/From the mountain to the city/Unsustainable
Olympics". Themed signs were carried and the red/black flags of the
"Utopias" were waved. During the route, unfortunately in the rain,
speeches were held that were mainly focused against a policy that is
building a city of shop windows and luxury, based on privatizations and
speculations that marginalize workers and the popular classes. The
procession arrived at the square of the Central Station where it joined
the procession in solidarity with the Palestinian people with a total
participation of about 2500 demonstrators.
On Sunday afternoon from 3 pm a final assembly was held by the
participants in which a balance of the days was taken and a perspective
was outlined for the future, including a next protest initiative in
Cortina. The potential of popular sport was also discussed, which
through public initiatives can become a useful tool, together with
musical, cultural and gaming expressions, to revitalize social life in
the popular neighborhoods. At the end of the assembly all the structures
that made the three days possible were dismantled, the lights were
turned off and the occupation of the structure ended...for now.
Enrico Moroni
https://umanitanova.org/utopiadi-storie-di-occupazioni-a-milano/
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