From: "Franco Barchiesi" <f_barchiesi at hotmail.com> To: debate at sunsite.wits.ac.za Subject: DEBATE: ROME - 150,000 MARCH AGAINST THE WAR!!! Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 00:43:20 +0200
The following article is from "La Repubblica" (Rome, mainstream centre-left newspaper, circulation: 1,2 million). Other reports say that 150,000 (one hundred and fifty thousand) people took part in the immense anti-war demonstration today (Saturday) in Rome. It was an enormous victory for all the comrades in Italy, especially compared with the pro-war "USA Day" organized by the Berlusconi government during the same day, to which only 30,000 people took part. This is a triumph that comes two days after the Italian parliament has voted with an overwhelming majority (including many in the "left") in favour of participation in Bush's war. This is the response from the grassroots to Berlusconi's purely propagandist use of public media and to the conformist and repressive consent he's been trying to mobilise around the war effort. Comrades from the Genoa Social Forum, the National Co-ordination of Social Forums, the social centres and the "disobbedienti" have been central in this unforgettable day. This was truly the comrades' day: only people from the Movement, the social centres and the social forums are interviewed by newspapers and TVs (including CNN and Channel 4), the public projection of the demonstration is ours. For me, having been listening to the demo's reports all day on "SherwoodRadio" live, after having listened two days ago to the chronicle of the violent police eviction of the "Yabasta" social centre in Vicenza, are tears of joy, at last.
MASSIMO RISPETTO!!!
Franco
======== A JOYFUL MARCH WITHOUT INCIDENTS FOR THE "GENOA PEOPLE", WHICH CLAIMS VICTORY. "THEY HAVE NOT WIPED US OUT", CASARINI SAYS
100,O00 AGAINST THE WAR "AND NOW TO THE GENERAL STRIKE"
by ANDREA DI NICOLA
ROME - They have chosen the 'enemy"'s language to launch the slogan that contains them all: "NOT IN MY NAME". Written on banners, stickers, repeatedly sung like a mantra. "Not in my name" the hundred-thousand sang while they were marching under the thousand flags of the Genoa People to say no to the war. All those present in the tragic days of Genoa were there: the Social Centres, the migrants, the kurds, the communists, the environmentalists, even some DS [main left opposition party, FB] youth in opposition towards their party [which voted in favour of the war, FB]. And the memory of those days was alive in the march, the first time after July was supposed to be a delicate event but nothing happened.
Someone shouted "assassins" towards the Carabinieri, there was a feeling of victory, a true one, not like the one claimed in Genoa, with deaths and injured. A feeling that permeates the waves that materialise around 6:00pm at the Coliseum, especially when compared with the demonstration in Piazza del Popolo [Berlusconi's pro-war march, which has been totally outnumbered by the comrades, FB]. Casarini [spokesperson of the Social centres and the Genoa Social Forum], who is in the section of the march of the "disobbedienti" ["disobedients", the new name assumed by the area of social centres previously known as "white overalls" or "tute bianche", FB] sighs in relief: "They have not wiped us out. And now we have to work with the FIOM [Italian Federation of Metalworkers, 500,000 members, the biggest industrial union in Italy, FB] for an ambitious but possible target: if they go on with the bombs we have to shut the country down with a general strike. [The FIOM is already getting ready for a national metalworkers' strike against the new national metal industry agreement, separately signed by minority unions and the bosses, FB].
Victory, then, in the numbers and in the ways the march has developed. The lessons of July have been clear to everyone, to Casarini, to the disobedients, but also to the police, which was aloof, separate, far away, hidden not to provide pretexts to the few "hooded" ones ["black blockers" and similar, FB], who were in any case wondering through the march like lost souls (six of them had been questioned by the police in the afternoon), defeated by the tide of demonstrators chanting against the war and who, during the only moment of confrontation with the Carabinieri, have limited themselves to throw four smoke-bombs and paper planes, immediately recalled from the march. An American flag has been burnt. They could not believe to the success of the demonstration themselves. "We have really won, I could not believe it", says Francesco Caruso [Network for Global Rights, Naples, FB] who is finally happy after a march where he has not to pick up rubble.
But before the feeling of victory there are the thousand banners. the opening one said: "No to the war, economic, social and military" held by the "Women in Black" [Feminist-pacifists, FB], then the peasants, the migrants, the Curds and then the "disobbedienti", the social centres, the Social Forums from all Italy, the Party of Communist Refoundation with all its top echelons. Not many slogans, but lots of music, the Movement's music, the rap with the "not in my name" refrain, but also "One of Us", in memory of "brother" Carlo Giuliani.
WTO became "War Trade Organization", another banner made sure that "The Knight [Berlusconi, FB] Brings Bad Luck" with a huge red horn [Italian lucky charm, FB] attached. Everyone, from Casarini to the greens, was asking the soldiers to desert. The march arrives in Circo Massimo and the "No War" sign formed with torches lights in the night. The march tries to enter the small Piazza Bocca della Verita' ("I told the Roman comrades that we needed the much bigger Circo Massimo but they didn't listen", mumbles Caruso), and the "disobedients" sing, on the tune of the AC Roma fans' choir: "Who cares about Rutelli [Parliament's centre-left opposition leader, FB] we have got Casarini...", while others chant "To Parliament, let's go to Parliament!", in the sense that "We represent the real society". While an old WW2 guerrilla fighter brings his greetings to the Movement, Caruso comments: "The left MPs who voted for the war should make some self-criticism and ressign". Now Genova is really over. (10 November 2001).