The Italian Anarchist Federation's eightieth birthday couldn't have come
at a better time. ---- In recent days, a new mass prominence has taken
center stage in Italy's political scene. Those accustomed to viewing
abstentionism as the product of indifference and indifference will
undoubtedly have been astonished by the response to the Global Sumud
Flotilla initiative, first with a collection of basic necessities
involving hundreds of thousands of people, then with the mobilizations,
strikes, blockades, and marches that crisscrossed the peninsula. This
mobilization was not based on traditional, union-related, or partial
issues, but on the theme of solidarity with other people, completely
unknown to them, who, more than two thousand kilometers away, are being
targeted, starved, and massacred with the complicity of the Italian
government.
A first consideration concerns the level of mass consciousness, which is
evidently far higher than the political class, even the opposing one,
imagined. This reveals a profound distrust of those who have betrayed
the masses' sentiments on fundamental issues such as poverty,
environmental devastation, and war, and of those who have raised these
issues merely for a few more party members or a few more votes. This is
why the Flotilla activists have become a point of reference, because
they have committed themselves generously, interpreting popular sentiment.
The method of struggle, the rediscovery of blockades, deserves further
consideration: ships carrying weapons, ships of Israeli companies, and
ships coming from or destined for Israel were prevented from docking.
Ports, train stations, airports, and highways were blocked. The recent
security decree has transformed these forms of struggle into
insurrectionary actions, and despite the security decree, despite
proclamations of legality, the government and the forces of repression
have proven powerless in the face of the mass movement. On many
occasions, the police and Carabinieri have limited themselves to trying
to restore order to the chaos of traffic. On those occasions when they
have attempted to interfere, they have found themselves in trouble.
After ten days of protests that have shocked Italy, the President of the
Republic, who had called on the Flotilla to change course, is now
silent; the Prime Minister speaks of shadowy interests, referring to
those calling for a more assertive stance toward Israel. But the
movement is not Giorgia Meloni, nor is it the government that allows its
foreign policy to be dictated by the interests of ENI, which has
obtained from Israel the concession to explore the gas fields off the
coast of Gaza, and fears being excluded from the deal in the very
unlikely event that those territories return to a hypothetical
Palestinian state.
A final consideration concerns the fact that the blockades have
challenged not only government rule but also the rule of private
property. The grassroots organizations that stopped and forced the ships
to leave raised the issue of power in the workplace, the ability of
those who provide labor to decide what and how to produce, thus sowing
the seeds of a new social organization. It is up to the unions to help
these seeds germinate, accompanying the struggle for working-class
rights with the development of class consciousness, the bearer of the
new society.
There are many themes, already raised by the Italian Anarchist
Federation throughout its long history, that are found in this movement:
the political capacity of the masses, solidarity, coherence between
means and ends, direct action, self-organization. But if anarchism were
only this, it would be little more than trade unionism or libertarian
activism.
What distinguishes anarchism from other political movements is not
simply its refusal to govern, but the conviction that the abolition of
government, or at least the uncompromising struggle against the
institution and the very idea of government, is the prerequisite for any
serious social progress.
The October 4th demonstration raised the issue of government; it is
obviously up to us to ensure that the emerging awareness of the central
role of government does not translate simply into demands for the
resignation of the current government, but into a conviction of the
futility and harmfulness of any government. As the Program of the
Italian Anarchist Federation states, "We must always be with the people,
and when we cannot get them to demand much, try to at least start
demanding something. And we must strive to ensure that they learn,
whether they want a little or a lot, to want to win it over themselves,
and to hold in hatred and contempt anyone who is or wants to be in
government."
In this sense, the current movement needs anarchism, its critique of the
ideology that justifies the existence of the class-based political
apparatus, namely the government; we need militants who can point the
movement toward concrete actions that, in critical moments of struggle,
can lead to the abolition of government.
An important step is the awareness that anarchism is not just a
lifestyle, but the revolutionary theory of the exploited classes. The
movement of recent weeks opens unexpected prospects for the development
of class-based and organizational anarchism, provided that anarchist
groups, whether individuals or groups, are aware of their responsibility
to the movement, to the community, and are able to develop
organizational action that counters centralizing, authoritarian, and
electoralist tendencies. The future of the movement lies in this action
in particular, because the way it was born will soon fade away if
political or union-based camps gain the upper hand.
This action will be all the more effective the more we can free
ourselves from the dogmatic blinders with which so many have viewed the
growing mobilizations of the past two years. As Malatesta said, the
French Revolution began with appeals to the king, and after three years
the king was guillotined.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/voglia-di-anarchismo/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
at a better time. ---- In recent days, a new mass prominence has taken
center stage in Italy's political scene. Those accustomed to viewing
abstentionism as the product of indifference and indifference will
undoubtedly have been astonished by the response to the Global Sumud
Flotilla initiative, first with a collection of basic necessities
involving hundreds of thousands of people, then with the mobilizations,
strikes, blockades, and marches that crisscrossed the peninsula. This
mobilization was not based on traditional, union-related, or partial
issues, but on the theme of solidarity with other people, completely
unknown to them, who, more than two thousand kilometers away, are being
targeted, starved, and massacred with the complicity of the Italian
government.
A first consideration concerns the level of mass consciousness, which is
evidently far higher than the political class, even the opposing one,
imagined. This reveals a profound distrust of those who have betrayed
the masses' sentiments on fundamental issues such as poverty,
environmental devastation, and war, and of those who have raised these
issues merely for a few more party members or a few more votes. This is
why the Flotilla activists have become a point of reference, because
they have committed themselves generously, interpreting popular sentiment.
The method of struggle, the rediscovery of blockades, deserves further
consideration: ships carrying weapons, ships of Israeli companies, and
ships coming from or destined for Israel were prevented from docking.
Ports, train stations, airports, and highways were blocked. The recent
security decree has transformed these forms of struggle into
insurrectionary actions, and despite the security decree, despite
proclamations of legality, the government and the forces of repression
have proven powerless in the face of the mass movement. On many
occasions, the police and Carabinieri have limited themselves to trying
to restore order to the chaos of traffic. On those occasions when they
have attempted to interfere, they have found themselves in trouble.
After ten days of protests that have shocked Italy, the President of the
Republic, who had called on the Flotilla to change course, is now
silent; the Prime Minister speaks of shadowy interests, referring to
those calling for a more assertive stance toward Israel. But the
movement is not Giorgia Meloni, nor is it the government that allows its
foreign policy to be dictated by the interests of ENI, which has
obtained from Israel the concession to explore the gas fields off the
coast of Gaza, and fears being excluded from the deal in the very
unlikely event that those territories return to a hypothetical
Palestinian state.
A final consideration concerns the fact that the blockades have
challenged not only government rule but also the rule of private
property. The grassroots organizations that stopped and forced the ships
to leave raised the issue of power in the workplace, the ability of
those who provide labor to decide what and how to produce, thus sowing
the seeds of a new social organization. It is up to the unions to help
these seeds germinate, accompanying the struggle for working-class
rights with the development of class consciousness, the bearer of the
new society.
There are many themes, already raised by the Italian Anarchist
Federation throughout its long history, that are found in this movement:
the political capacity of the masses, solidarity, coherence between
means and ends, direct action, self-organization. But if anarchism were
only this, it would be little more than trade unionism or libertarian
activism.
What distinguishes anarchism from other political movements is not
simply its refusal to govern, but the conviction that the abolition of
government, or at least the uncompromising struggle against the
institution and the very idea of government, is the prerequisite for any
serious social progress.
The October 4th demonstration raised the issue of government; it is
obviously up to us to ensure that the emerging awareness of the central
role of government does not translate simply into demands for the
resignation of the current government, but into a conviction of the
futility and harmfulness of any government. As the Program of the
Italian Anarchist Federation states, "We must always be with the people,
and when we cannot get them to demand much, try to at least start
demanding something. And we must strive to ensure that they learn,
whether they want a little or a lot, to want to win it over themselves,
and to hold in hatred and contempt anyone who is or wants to be in
government."
In this sense, the current movement needs anarchism, its critique of the
ideology that justifies the existence of the class-based political
apparatus, namely the government; we need militants who can point the
movement toward concrete actions that, in critical moments of struggle,
can lead to the abolition of government.
An important step is the awareness that anarchism is not just a
lifestyle, but the revolutionary theory of the exploited classes. The
movement of recent weeks opens unexpected prospects for the development
of class-based and organizational anarchism, provided that anarchist
groups, whether individuals or groups, are aware of their responsibility
to the movement, to the community, and are able to develop
organizational action that counters centralizing, authoritarian, and
electoralist tendencies. The future of the movement lies in this action
in particular, because the way it was born will soon fade away if
political or union-based camps gain the upper hand.
This action will be all the more effective the more we can free
ourselves from the dogmatic blinders with which so many have viewed the
growing mobilizations of the past two years. As Malatesta said, the
French Revolution began with appeals to the king, and after three years
the king was guillotined.
Tiziano Antonelli
https://umanitanova.org/voglia-di-anarchismo/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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