The truce ended. Past the elections, the forgotten festival skullcap exposition of the Shroud, the government has thrown his card on the table. If it were a trump I would say that the board is a heavy load. But it is not a trump and the other players are taking steps before dropping their card.
It all begins in the summer, although it is easy to predict that the real game, the one with boots and jacket, will play in the winter. On 8 August the government, after long vacillation, mediation, threaten made his lunge on the new high speed line between Turin and Lyon. LTF - Lyon Turin rail, the international company that has the task of designing and implementing the work - has completed and made public the preliminary draft for the Italian side, which runs from Chiusa S. Michele on the border. The project, 17 megabytes of documents, is under study of the No Tav experts, however, the picture emerging from the first reading says a clear impact of this terrible territory. The Chiusa, Vaie, S. Ambrogio villages, as well as the demolition of several houses and the loss of all agricultural land, would be forced to pay for a minimum of ten years a construction site, where you work day and night, while hundreds of trucks are used to transport the enormous amount dell'Orsiera muck of the tunnel.
All this havoc for a line that is not needed, because the same technical government admits that the current international line between Turin and Lyon is widely underused. Although the more you imagine a steam train that winds through the mountains, it is a line running from the newly upgraded also the modelor, the trains that are loaded and transported by container trucks, encouraging the passage of goods from tire to railway.
The new line cost would be appalling. As stated by the Special Commissioner for the Turin-Lyon, Mario Virano, the 260 km line will cost 20 billion euro. 120 million per km! 1 cm of the line would cost 1,200 euro, as much as the salary of a worker; 12 cm his annual salary, worth 4.8 m 40 years of his work. And this is only an estimate, but we know that the cost of high speed in Italy are always leavened - the Florence-Bologna almost tripled. In addition, the maintenance of this unnecessary and expensive toy would cost 700 million a year.
The design for the domestic leg (Settimo Torinese - Chiusa S. Michele), which had to be ready at the same time to the other, apparently is still on the high seas. Some claim that between LTF and RFI, which is in the national contract, there would be disagreements on the project that would motivate the non-presentation of the preliminaries for the very important initial segment, that should invest Turin and the girdle.
It is in any case the fact that so far the project has not yet been made public, although at the end of September some newspapers have made some advances.
At a meeting packed - almost a thousand people - held in Chiusa Monday, Sept. 6, both the population and many local governments have reiterated their opposition to a useless, that with this project confirming its harm for territory .
At this assembly are followed by many others in many villages as in the city of Turin, the people participated in the mass, but with particular attention and concern in their no to the work.
Still Running
The first strong signal was the week culminated with the three-day "trials of strength", sponsored by the Chiomonte No TAV committees. In three days there were meetings, theater performances, organic producers, walks to archaeological sites at risk and, above all, a long march for roads and trails between Chiomonte and Giaglione, two of the municipalities most affected by the location of the ten kilometers geognostic tunnel that the CMC of Ravenna is about to dig. Several thousand No Tav armed with flags and banners have come a dozen miles of road, crossing the area where it should be placed at the site of the tunnel. They planted signs prohibiting entry to bulldozers, trucks, drills, while someone handing out vuvuzuelas anti "Smurf blue".
In a land purchased during the campaign a place to buy a front row was a shack made of sheet metal, reduce the principal of Susa freight terminal. The kiosk, presently only a shed for tools, is the first piece of the future garrison No Tav Along the route, which winds along the magnificent gorge of Dora, have traversed the vineyards from which the grapes from which the famous "ice wine" Chiomonte is made. One of the many local producers, which will disappear if the lords of TAV will be able to impose their will on this country.
The return of the tricolor bands
The new politics of the march was the reappearance of the mayors complete with tricolor flag. The project presented by LTF was the detonator of this institutional turnaround, which led to the streets in addition to the usual handful of administrators No Tav of civil lists, almost anywhere in the minority, even representatives of PD. Clearly, the tremendous impact of the new projects, in addition to the beating at the last regional election, has pushed the work on the face of opposition even those politicians who had in fact married to the idea of "how tav", embracing the proposal of the DO, sponsored former president of the Community Montana Bassa Val Susa, Antonio Ferrentino.
A cracking of the front had already set out after the local elections last year in the Susa Valley, in which the civic lists, while defeated everywhere except in S. Ambrogio, were the scales for the election of new president of the Upper and Lower Mountain Communities Val Susa and Val Sangone Joined by the new law. Democrat Sandro Plano, former councilor and mayor of Susa in Venaus, had won with the support of the civil lists. The National PD had threatened to expel the leaders of the alliance with PD Valsusino administrators openly No Tav, but, despite the tensions, the crisis had come without consequences. The reaction of the democratic choice of the Piedmont area of their Valsusina colleagues seem wary of embarrassment: we shall see, in the light of a possible invalidation of the regional elections, if there is a blatant excommunication or taken away purely formal.
The errors of the campaign for the regional last spring could induce subalpine PD to a more cautious, although some hardcore Yes Tav such as Esposito have not failed to launch their curses. Nevertheless, in a region, prostrated by the crisis and seduced by the propaganda of the worst security-right, the huge public spending for the Tav, to the detriment of services, local transport and school work can move on the ground of the opposition, too indifferent to the environmental issues or quality of life.
Meanwhile the No Tav march between Rivoli and Rivalta on September 15, long the poor hit by the anti-speed trains, was attended by several thousand people, a sign that even in these parts there is a growing opposition to the work. Mayors and administrators have launched a demonstration on October 9 No Tav in Vaie, trying to recover a lost protagonist with the choice to sit at the negotiating table, mediating on a useless, dangerous, expensive work.
Without proxy
Among many who have given birth in the No Tav marches of 11 and 25 September many have expressed concern about the sudden change in front of mayors, whose opinion on the Tav, varies with the seasons and the political alliances. The movement No Tav, although lacking a critical net to institutional paths, however, has a healthy distrust of unconditional delegation to directors, who, even at best, have been dragged by the force of a movement, thanks to its autonomy and critical thinking skills.
At this crucial time, in some ways similar to that which preceded the long resistance of winter 2005, in addition to the important part of Tav, is its capacity for autonomous movement, which has its strength in the people's congresses, country committees, the network of solidarity that has been built in decades of struggle.
In these years of resistance to Tav we saw many water under the bridge of Dora. The movement grew along the way, learning little by little, the practice of participation and direct action. All were aware that it was not easy and they knew that the supporters of Tav, unanimous from right to left, would prepare one thousand cage traps, split, cause. We have managed, thanks to the awareness that a large popular movement, the many souls, strong in its differences, because we know that authoritarians win when free individuals are able to transform into subjects, all the same as the sandwiches / large chain of junk distribution.
Accused of being wild, anti-modern, attached to the back yard mountain, the No Tav wore their diversity with the pride of this world who would like to become a garden for everyone. Media and politicians have argued that the strength of the movement depended on the support of lower Val Susa administrators, when that season ended at the Tav opponents have shown that a strong movement, rooted among the people walking on their own feet and not need of protection and godparents.
Every time the government tried to force on duty had to retreat. They have tried spanking and military occupation, this winter as in 2005 and No Tav, there bugianen, did not move. They have tried with media campaigns, more and more harsh, vulgar, arrogant, alternating silence to lies. But the No Tav are well armored, so are looking at the world with a critical eye, building their own networks of communication, constantly confronted face to face hundreds of contacts, meetings, street festivals, including a garrison and a banquet at the market. With patience, humility, determination.
A long-term resistance.
But it is not enough to give the final blow to the lords of the Table, five years after that in December of 2005, when he prevented from the start of work, the No Tav must once again grease the boots for another winter of struggle.
The challenge this time is to make them run forever. No longer have to try.
Certainly it is not easy. The cake is rich, and this sophisticated system of drainage works by using public money to the active complicity of the majority of institutional political spectrum. People who do not look at anybody and does not stop at nothing.
For this reason it is important that the movement does not stop, do not listen to the sirens of institutional support. In 2005, after days of Venaus, the Olympics approaching, the government called to Rome's the administrators, who came back shouting victory for the birth of the Osservatorio Virano. Even then the No Tav understood that the observatory was a trap, a system to pass through deceit, where the force was not enough. But they stayed the same, accepting the truce, not to break with the directors, because too many were unable to understand that those directors, accepting and signing that agreement, were preparing to take the plunge. The sirens of power, prestige, money were singing their song.
Today, that truce, an armed truce, is over. The lords of Tav are again ready to resume hostilities. The No Tav are ready to resume the resistance. The hope is that water running under the bridges of Dora in the last five years has not gone in vain and that no one gets fooled by the return to the streets of the tricolor flag. Today, as then: about life, future, health, social justice there is no negotiation. To send them home for good is possible. Without delegation, with popular direct action.
It's time for another step, the decisive one, in a fight that has the sour taste of freedom and seductive.
anno
40 n. 357
Maria Matteo