Some people in and around 56a Infoshop have put together a pamphlet detailing some history and analysis of the ongoing Italian Anomalous Wave rebellion. The point is to spread the word about this amazing social struggle.
The 16 page pamphlet goes also into an analysis of the movement. We highly recommend people to read it, copy it, email it out to encourage solidarity with the Italian Wave but to also inspire people in the UK to act.
Here is a short extract about the history of The Wave:
" In September, there is an immediate response to the ‘reforms’ when the high schools and Universities re-open after holidays. A new movement begins. On October 3rd, the autonomous network of high school collectives takes to the streets of Italy. Gelmini cancels an appearance on October 13th at a symposium in Milan for fear of protests and it is by this time, with classes beginning at Universities, that the first lappings of the Wave are heard: ‘We won’t pay for your crisis’, ‘Cut resources to bankers and war missions, not school and universities’, ‘We are the coming society! We are not the problem! We are the solution’. Week by week the movement grows: in the elementary schools where teachers, parents and kids unite in denouncing the reforms; the high school collectives network their struggles, often through blogs and Facebook-type sites; in Universities, precarious faculty members and professors join student assemblies and discuss the crisis. New slogans appear: ‘We have started so that we wouldn’t stop’ and ‘We shall never go back!’.
On October 17th, the national strike called by some Italian unions against the Berlusconi government becomes the first No Gelmini day of action. 300,000 people protest in Rome. Thousands of students, break away from the main demo, outflank the police and block the Ministry of Education. Similar events happen in Milan where a break away group of students criss-cross the city blocking traffic before an assembly of pupils, students, precarious teachers and so lay siege to the Milan Education Department.
The next week, the protests escalate. On October 21st, assemblies are being held in many Universities and students once more take to the streets, blocking traffic and then beginning to block railway stations. In Milan, the police respond with baton charges at the Cadorna station. In response, the students begin a sit-in on the roads snarling up the usual movement of city traffic.
Following on from a call out from the occupied La Sapienza University in Rome, a Day of local mobilizations in taken up for November 7th, with a follow up national demonstration in Rome, one week later, on November 14th. (See Appendix 1 + 2).
THE FUTURE?
One of the most important events to come out of the Wave has been the two day open assembly held at the occupied Sapienza University in November. This was a mass talking shop to debate and plan the further dynamics and activities of the Wave. Divided into 3 topics, thousands of students from all over came to discuss 1) Teaching: how the University system has been shoe-horning students into becoming mere ‘human capital’, the emphasis being on creating a final product – a streamlined and disciplined individualized worker ready to battle for his/her place in the labour market. 2) Welfare and Right to Education: how student fees and debts act as a kind of ‘privatised welfare’ ensuring servitude, the ideology of work and exclusion for many. 3) Training and Employment: a critical re-evaluation of the neo-liberal aspect of education to once more separate learning from the ‘needs’ of the economy. One demand would be a social wage for students (and beyond, of course!). What is important is to ‘eliminate the hierarchies and crystallisations of power’ in the University to enable learning and the production of knowledge to be once again autonomous, inclusive and democratic.
The Sapienza debates were clear and united. The students and researchers are not defending the University as it is. They want ‘autoriforma’: self-reform of the Universities as written by themselves. The crucial theme of the debates was that any reform must come from below, from the students themselves.
The next mass mobilizations will come on the 28th November when a national day of action will see more demos, teach-ins and blockades. A general strike has been planned for the 12th December. A radical initiative has been called for a week of actions to be held before the Strike that would focus on the struggle for a direct income through students mass practice of ‘auto-riduzione' (self-reduction) whereby only a certain percentage of prices would be paid in canteens, on public transport and for public entertainments (cinema, theatre etc). "
-----
56a Infoshop is a long-standing social centre living and breathing in South London since 1991. We sell books, papers, t-shirts and music. We also have a massive open-access archive. But we do not spend our lives in theoretical mode – we also like to act against the pressing conditions of the world as we find it right now. In this sense, this booklet is offer support and aid to the Wave in Italy but to aid and encourage action here in support of own our desires and revolutions.
www.56a.org.uk
Here is a short extract about the history of The Wave:
" In September, there is an immediate response to the ‘reforms’ when the high schools and Universities re-open after holidays. A new movement begins. On October 3rd, the autonomous network of high school collectives takes to the streets of Italy. Gelmini cancels an appearance on October 13th at a symposium in Milan for fear of protests and it is by this time, with classes beginning at Universities, that the first lappings of the Wave are heard: ‘We won’t pay for your crisis’, ‘Cut resources to bankers and war missions, not school and universities’, ‘We are the coming society! We are not the problem! We are the solution’. Week by week the movement grows: in the elementary schools where teachers, parents and kids unite in denouncing the reforms; the high school collectives network their struggles, often through blogs and Facebook-type sites; in Universities, precarious faculty members and professors join student assemblies and discuss the crisis. New slogans appear: ‘We have started so that we wouldn’t stop’ and ‘We shall never go back!’.
On October 17th, the national strike called by some Italian unions against the Berlusconi government becomes the first No Gelmini day of action. 300,000 people protest in Rome. Thousands of students, break away from the main demo, outflank the police and block the Ministry of Education. Similar events happen in Milan where a break away group of students criss-cross the city blocking traffic before an assembly of pupils, students, precarious teachers and so lay siege to the Milan Education Department.
The next week, the protests escalate. On October 21st, assemblies are being held in many Universities and students once more take to the streets, blocking traffic and then beginning to block railway stations. In Milan, the police respond with baton charges at the Cadorna station. In response, the students begin a sit-in on the roads snarling up the usual movement of city traffic.
Following on from a call out from the occupied La Sapienza University in Rome, a Day of local mobilizations in taken up for November 7th, with a follow up national demonstration in Rome, one week later, on November 14th. (See Appendix 1 + 2).
THE FUTURE?
One of the most important events to come out of the Wave has been the two day open assembly held at the occupied Sapienza University in November. This was a mass talking shop to debate and plan the further dynamics and activities of the Wave. Divided into 3 topics, thousands of students from all over came to discuss 1) Teaching: how the University system has been shoe-horning students into becoming mere ‘human capital’, the emphasis being on creating a final product – a streamlined and disciplined individualized worker ready to battle for his/her place in the labour market. 2) Welfare and Right to Education: how student fees and debts act as a kind of ‘privatised welfare’ ensuring servitude, the ideology of work and exclusion for many. 3) Training and Employment: a critical re-evaluation of the neo-liberal aspect of education to once more separate learning from the ‘needs’ of the economy. One demand would be a social wage for students (and beyond, of course!). What is important is to ‘eliminate the hierarchies and crystallisations of power’ in the University to enable learning and the production of knowledge to be once again autonomous, inclusive and democratic.
The Sapienza debates were clear and united. The students and researchers are not defending the University as it is. They want ‘autoriforma’: self-reform of the Universities as written by themselves. The crucial theme of the debates was that any reform must come from below, from the students themselves.
The next mass mobilizations will come on the 28th November when a national day of action will see more demos, teach-ins and blockades. A general strike has been planned for the 12th December. A radical initiative has been called for a week of actions to be held before the Strike that would focus on the struggle for a direct income through students mass practice of ‘auto-riduzione' (self-reduction) whereby only a certain percentage of prices would be paid in canteens, on public transport and for public entertainments (cinema, theatre etc). "
-----
56a Infoshop is a long-standing social centre living and breathing in South London since 1991. We sell books, papers, t-shirts and music. We also have a massive open-access archive. But we do not spend our lives in theoretical mode – we also like to act against the pressing conditions of the world as we find it right now. In this sense, this booklet is offer support and aid to the Wave in Italy but to aid and encourage action here in support of own our desires and revolutions.
www.56a.org.uk
Homepage:
