As a follow-up to the last demonstrations in Italy, Enrico Fletzer – former ENCOD chairman – is informing us about the next steps to be taken in Italy by the large movement of resistance against the neofascist government headed by Meloni.
The Italian social movements backed by the Metal workers Union FIOM and the main workers organization CGIL is promoting the blockade of the Italian Parliament on the 26th of May the day of the passing of the Security law that is jeopardizing democracy in Italy and wiped out the local cannabis industry that is concerning about 22000 people. The following Saturday 31th there will be a big demonstration in Rome, possibly attracting more than the 100.ooo participants of the previous one. The main cannabis groups, anti prohibitionists are going to participate also in the Million Marijuana March block with some huge trucks and live music on the 31th of May.
The following is the communique issued by the national meeting held on last Saturday in Rome
IF YOU DO FASCISM, WE WILL DO THE RESISTANCE
Today we are here again, in hundreds, after eight months of mobilization that brought 100,000 people to the streets on December 14. A long-lasting struggle march affected in the last weeks the whole country with demonstrations and assemblies with a powerful participation which also characterized the anniversary of the Liberation from fascism and German Occupation on April 25 in Italy with demonstrations to celebrate the resistance of yesterday and, above all, the one to which we are called today. So, let’s start with the two appointments that we approved today with broad consensus: on May 26, when the decree will land in the Chamber, and on May 31 in Rome in a large national demonstration.
The scenario we are facing at this point has changed greatly compared to the first months of this year. The Meloni government has forced the mechanism of democratic discussion and approved the Security Law Decree in the Council of Ministers, removing the measure from the vote in the parliamentary halls. An acceleration that is the last act of an evident authoritarian turn that the extreme right is imposing on our country, starting from the twist on the war economy up to the silence towards the referendums of next June 8 and 9 and the disputes and open contracts, including those of the metalworking sector.
And yet the mobilization that we have promoted in recent months and that makes us find ourselves now, in many and in divers3, speaks to us of a real and widespread opposition in our country, which no longer concerns only organized groups but also the surplus.
A convergence and a transversal assonance that has not leveraged internal hegemony but that has been able to animate a space and a composite universe, through the promotion of thematic appeals and specific disputes, demonstrating that our country is not at all pacified but that, on the contrary, it is fully equipped with the antibodies necessary to block the anti-democratic twist that the Meloni government wants to impose on us.
This Network has had the transversal mandate to build a space of opposition and dissent, to respond to attempts at authoritarian drift and denial of rights. With this objective, the construction of a mass mobilization that gives substance to a lasting and revival social opposition continues.
After 31 May and beyond the Security Decree.
On May 26, the measure will arrive in the Chamber of Deputies for a confidence vote ( making it impossible to change anything of it…EF). On that day we are called to build a mobilization capable of gathering voices, protagonism, widespread conflictual power, which hosts interventions by the subjectivities that have lined up against the bill and which turns into a real siege to the authoritarian unanimism of the Palace with the aim of stopping the process of the DL fear, as we have been saying for months. Inside the Chamber, however, we ask that a sabotage mechanism be implemented by the opposition political forces to prevent at all levels that this law – the worst that the far-right Meloni government has imposed on our country and the worst in our republican history – profoundly changes the democratic structure.
On May 31, the appointment will be in the Square for a national, plural demonstration, in which the riches, proposals, instances, ideas of society that are determining the social and political opposition to the Meloni government, to its authoritarian and anti-popular plan, converge. We will be a multitude on the move: the goal will be to go further. That day will be dedicated to a mass demonstration, of all those who raise their heads against abuses, made up of the many voices of conflict and dissent on social, civil, political issues.
Forms of conflict become a necessary tool for the defense of democracy, to reject all authoritarian attempts by the Meloni government because our social opposition will continue to be real and vigilant against any further anti-democratic and authoritarian turn. We will not stop.
We are obliged to move forward because today we are stronger and more determined to practice conflict and to imagine together how to do it, how to disobey, how to resist, how to defend ourselves. We also welcome a deeper reflection on the practices of conflict, aware that the many stories that animate the network – non-violent demonstrations, disobedience, practices of self-protection of the square – must always converge on the practice of the objective and on the ability to create a dialectic between conflict and consensus. Each piece of this network – in its own way, on its own ground, with its own codes – is doing it and will do it. This has become a priority for us. We have created a space of defense and rupture to recover the ground of rights that this government wants to limit, we have reappropriated those public spaces that they want to take away from us piece by piece.
We therefore continue to give wide visibility to the work of the many nodes of this network, on the territories and centrally. Important events await us, which strengthen and amplify the next 26 and 31 May.
The day before yesterday the relay hunger strike promoted by unions, associations and jurists began, which will end with the national demonstration.
On May 17 in Rome for the LGBTQIA+ mobilization; on the same day, in Milan people take to the streets to say NO to the so-called “Remigration summit”, an event that spreads xenophobic and inhuman messages, incompatible with the values of our city and the Constitution.
On May 26 and 27, an opposition to the NATO summit dedicated to the defense and security of the Mediterranean is organized in Naples, with Libya and Israel as guests.
In the days before, again in Naples on 23 and 24 May, we point out the appointment of the Social Forum On housing.
On May 31, in the morning, it is time for the national assembly of the coordination of associations and teachers of the movement against the new national guidelines for schools.
On 8 and 9 June for the Referendum on work rules and citizenship.
And then, let’s remember June 21 when a large European demonstration against Rearmament is planned, because the fight against war remains the political framework within which we move.
We will not stop.